For a Lack of Better Words.... W.T.F?

[BethesdaWX]

Bethesda:

The skeptic argument...

CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician

"To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today - 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming." (Monte Hieb)

What the science says...

During the Ordovician, solar output was much lower than current levels. Consequently, CO2 levels only needed to fall below 3000 parts per million for glaciation to be possible. The latest CO2 data calculated from sediment cores show that CO2 levels fell sharply during the late Ordovician due to high rock weathering removing CO2 from the air. Thus the CO2 record during the late Ordovician is entirely consistent with the notion that CO2 is a strong driver of climate.

Solved

RUSTY! This is getting pathetic, please make sure you have an understanding before posting. I'm beginning to think your position on AGW is determined 100% by your political views, because you've been very sporadic in explanations that differ with yours.........Bad Politics = Bad science... in your case, this seems to be the issue.

I'll explain why using the most effective method (GEOCARB), and using Peer Reviewed data... is the way to go!

You calling the least effective method of pre-historic Co2 measurement "the scientific opinion"?!? What happened to your giant Peer Review fetish?

Geocarb not only has the highest confidence level, but it has been Cited by 409 other papers in Papers in Peer Review!

Cited by 409, Peer Reviewed and updated.

http://earth.geology...qn020100182.pdf

Then you use possibly the most uncertain methods of determination on a Warmist Blog Site as proof of something? You should know that the Apps spring up are one of many topographical developments that should have done the same thing..........its not like physics change when you want them to.

What is it with you and Double Standards?! You not only bring up the Least Effective Method to measure pre-historic Co2, but you complain to me when I bring up the fact that we Use CO2 proxy data starting in 1960 rather than the 80,000+ bottle measurements that have been available since the 1930's?

Are you ok?

[skierinvermont]

Trenberth's is just the typical scare tactic to get people to take action on global warming. Link it to some frightening weather event, and people will believe more, like Katrina and Al Gore.

Doesn't matter to him that tornadoes have been decreasing in the US as we've warmed. Doesn't matter that severe weather was at record lows in 2010. Doesn't matter that AGW should reduce temperature contrasts, since the north warms faster than the south, and thus limit tornadoes.

Lol @ calling Trenberth an alarmist.. Trenberth has been anything but alarmist. That's not what he was saying.. but I'm not surprised you chose to interpret it that way. Sort of like how you chop off half of Viner's comment ("heavy snow will return") to make it seem like he said that it would never snow again, and then have the audacity to claim that Viner secretly wanted people to lop off half his comment (even though the media reported his comment whole and you were the only one to lop off the part about heavy snow returning). Pure hackery.

[skierinvermont]

RUSTY! This is getting pathetic, please make sure you have an understanding before posting. I'm beginning to think your position on AGW is determined 100% by your political views, because you've been very sporadic in explanations that differ with yours.........Bad Politics = Bad science... in your case, this seems to be the issue.

I'll explain why using the most effective method (GEOCARB), and using Peer Reviewed data... is the way to go!

You calling the least effective method of pre-historic Co2 measurement "the scientific opinion"?!? What happened to your giant Peer Review fetish?

Geocarb not only has the highest confidence level, but it has been Cited by 409 other papers in Papers in Peer Review!

Cited by 409, Peer Reviewed and updated.

http://earth.geology...qn020100182.pdf

Then you use possibly the most uncertain methods of determination on a Warmist Blog Site as proof of something? You should know that the Apps spring up are one of many topographical developments that should have done the same thing..........its not like physics change when you want them to.

What is it with you and Double Standards?! You not only bring up the Least Effective Method to measure pre-historic Co2, but you complain to me when I bring up the fact that we Use CO2 proxy data starting in 1960 rather than the 80,000+ bottle measurements that have been available since the 1930's?

Are you ok?

1) GEOCARB isn't a method of measurement.. it is a model of the carbon cycle. Scientists input biological, geological and climatological data into the model, and it then models the carbon cycle and estimates how much CO2 was in the air at 10 million year intervals.

2) GEOCARB is low-resolution data. It has a resolution of 10 million years. The late Ordovician ice age lasted only 1/2 million years and thus is too short of an event to show up in GEOCARB modelling. Higher resolution proxies show that CO2 did indeed fall during this short 1/2 million year period.

[BethesdaWX]

1) GEOCARB isn't a method of measurement.. it is a model of the carbon cycle. Scientists input biological, geological and climatological data into the model, and it then models the carbon cycle and estimates how much CO2 as in the air.

2) GEOCARB is low-resolution data. It has a resolution of 10 million years. The late Ordovician ice age lasted only 1/2 million years and thus is too short of an event to show up in GEOCARB modelling. Higher resolution proxies show that CO2 did indeed fall during this short 1/2 million year period.

A few misunderstandings.

1) The model is Created using DO18 Isotope data, from various reso, (adjusted based on Radioactivity of the earth affecting the Particulates)... so GEOCARB in its own is one giant subgroup, and has long had the highest confidence interval. A 10 million reso doesn't change the fact that the Ordovician/Silurian Ice age lasted much longer than 10 million years...... If the low Reso Cannot Pick up the drop in Co2, then it should not pick up a drop in temperature in the magnitude of 20X in length to the drop in CO2, since the Same Isotope is used as an analysis base

The end of the Ice age, even so in 20 million years low reso, saw CO2 levels near 4000ppm while temps were low. Scotese has measurements in that timeframe too affirming the issue.

2) Now, Scotese has a higher reso, and the results differ from the original DO18 Isotope data, but it seemingly reaches a "point of max", and cannot register numbers outlandish to what we see in todays climate.

[skierinvermont]

A few misunderstandings.

1) The model is Created using DO18 Isotope data, from various reso, (adjusted based on Radioactivity of the earth affecting the Particulates)... so GEOCARB in its own is one giant subgroup, and has long had the highest confidence interval. A 10 million reso doesn't change the fact that the Ordovician/Silurian Ice age lasted much longer than 10 million years...... If the low Reso Cannot Pick up the drop in Co2, then it should not pick up a drop in temperature in the magnitude of 20X in length to the drop in CO2, since the Same Isotope is used as an analysis base

The end of the Ice age, even so in 20 million years low reso, saw CO2 levels near 4000ppm while temps were low. Scotese has measurements in that timeframe too affirming the issue.

2) Now, Scotese has a higher reso, and the results differ from the original DO18 Isotope data, but it seemingly reaches a "point of max", and cannot register numbers outlandish to what we see in todays climate.

I agree with your #1.. that's basically what I was saying also. I was just clearing up some confusion.. GEOCARB is not a single observation.. it is a model that incorporates many different types of observations. That still leaves us with the low resolution of 10 million years.

However, your statement that the ice age lasted >10 million years is incorrect. Most studies put the ice age closer to 1 million years I believe. The large majority of the Ordovician period was quite warm, except for a brief cooling that coincided with a drop in CO2 as well. This is what the majority of the evidence supports. The idea that the late-Ordovician period was cold simultaneous with very high CO2 is an old skeptic talking point from the early 2000s that has largely been done away with. I guess it's still alive and well in some circles.. but the mainstream science has dispensed with this myth with higher resolution data.

Tropical waters only fell below 30C for 1/2 million years. 30C is still warmer than present:

Science 2011

[BethesdaWX]

I agree with your #1.. that's basically what I was saying also. I was just clearing up some confusion.. GEOCARB is not a single observation.. it is a model that incorporates many different types of observations. That still leaves us with the low resolution of 10 million years.

However, your statement that the ice age lasted >10 million years is incorrect. Most studies put the ice age closer to 1 million years I believe. The large majority of the Ordovician period was quite warm, except for a brief cooling that coincided with a drop in CO2 as well. This is what the majority of the evidence supports. The idea that the late-Ordovician period was cold simultaneous with very high CO2 is an old skeptic talking point from the early 2000s that has largely been done away with. I guess it's still alive and well in some circles.. but the mainstream science has dispensed with this myth with higher resolution data.

Thanks for keeping it civil.................But there are problems here on several aspects, major problems.

First, you need to remember which proxies have the highest accuracies.

1) One problem is that...well uhhhh......there are no global proxies that affirm any drop in Co2 during the time of interest!...resolution can only go so far 500M yrs out.................and if your argument is correct, that the 10M base reso before adjustement cannot pick up a supposed drop in CO2........then it is physically impossible for the Drop in Temperature to be picked up because, again, its the same physical Isotope group....unless the ice age Lasted for a longer timeframe. We can see this in looking at past extinctions, and simple differing reso's after adjusting for Radiation Influence...... http://earth.geology...qn020100182.pdf Remember, Adjustements for influence of Earth's radiation and many of the 16,600 Isotope datasets give the highest accuracy and a clear view on what actually happened.

2) Over 16,600 different DO18 Isotope datasets with Resolution of 5 million yrs or more are combined here explaining how the conclusion is reached.

I gotta get some sleep, will be back tomorrow or somethin

[BethesdaWX]

Yep. I can tell you who was president of the US 200 years ago with a lot more certainty than who I think will be president in ten years.

Forecasting a chaotic system is incredibly challenging. The consistency between all of the GCMs created by so many separate modeling groups around the world is what is so striking. That doesn't mean they are right, and I'm sure we'll see good improvement in the AR5 models, but it adds confidence to the forecast.

And that's why the GCM's will bust... well, they've already been busting too high, but thats a moot point since its early on... but that is scary think of (if it continues).

GCM's, as I explained in an Earlier post, not only assume positive feedbacks where the mechanism is ulterior in all circumstances (In MOST cases), but you can get a model reconstruction to show anything you want, whether it is done correctly or not... so of course you can get them to display perfect agreement in a superficial manner... but that doesn't mean it's done the right way.

We happen to have developed the AGW Hypothesis during a Time when all Natural Drivers have been warm for so long (I demonstrated how nearly all of our warming can be explained naturally on the previous page)..... our warming began around 1690, and Continued overall through year 2006, which is for now the "global warming peak" thru a 3yr reso space...as it should be...(again, reflect back on my previous post).

We may have warmed 0.7C since 1850, but we were already warming rapidly starting in 1690, and using the depth of the LIA as a starting point, the number is more like 1.2C. Get rid of All Tree Ring Proxies (Tree rings are terrible proxies), or anything that is plant-oriented, and use Boreholes as the #1 proxy, DO18 & Hi res Deterium Methods have the lowest error potential, and the highest resolution.

This is what has happened over the Holocene, or the past 10,000 yrs or so. The "0C" line on the graph is todays temperature based on measurement. You can see the proxy has lag, as it does not cover the Last Several Decades ... but you get the Point.

That point is... The Sun and The Climate System create MASSIVE warmings and coolings all the time, and this is what is happening today.

So you can see, nothing out of the Ordinary is going on at this point, in fact, its completely normal.

Given the behavior of the Sun over the Past Century, I'm surprised we're not warmer.

[nzucker]

Lol @ calling Trenberth an alarmist.. Trenberth has been anything but alarmist. That's not what he was saying.. but I'm not surprised you chose to interpret it that way. Sort of like how you chop off half of Viner's comment ("heavy snow will return") to make it seem like he said that it would never snow again, and then have the audacity to claim that Viner secretly wanted people to lop off half his comment (even though the media reported his comment whole and you were the only one to lop off the part about heavy snow returning). Pure hackery.

It is mostly the fault of the Think Progress piece which took Trenberth's quotation slightly out of context in using it to justify a tornado outbreak. Of course, Trenberth did create this conception of his viewpoint by insisting at the January AMS conference that those who didn't believe individual weather events could be definitively linked to global warming were "deniers," and he refused to retract this term despite the objections of many scientists at the conference. It's obviously stupid to say that severe weather is caused by global warming when severe weather has been decreasing as the world warms. Also, until it can be conclusively proven that a synoptic set-up would have been different without the influence of AGW, it's irresponsible to link such an event to climate change. Maybe every time you get a 1000mb low tracking through Missouri, you are going to see this many tornadoes. In my mind, this outbreak wasn't even close to as shocking as June 1953 when we had F5 tornadoes hitting unlikely places like Flint, MI and Worcester, MA....considering how quiet severe weather had been the last couple of seasons, the Deep South and Tornado Alley were "due" for some twisters. I fundamentally reject the viewpoint that "since humans have changed the atmosphere, every event needs to be linked to global warming" because some phenomena like tornadoes have conclusively declined during periods of warming, and for logical reasons since tornadic activity is linked to contrasts in airmasses, and AGW warms the North faster than the South, which reduces such contrast. So I reject both Trenberth's statement and its interpretation in the Think Progress piece.

Here is the quote:

“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”

[skierinvermont]

It is mostly the fault of the Think Progress piece which took Trenberth's quotation slightly out of context in using it to justify a tornado outbreak. Of course, Trenberth did create this conception of his viewpoint by insisting at the January AMS conference that those who didn't believe individual weather events could be definitively linked to global warming were "deniers," and he refused to retract this term despite the objections of many scientists at the conference. It's obviously stupid to say that severe weather is caused by global warming when severe weather has been decreasing as the world warms. Also, until it can be conclusively proven that a synoptic set-up would have been different without the influence of AGW, it's irresponsible to link such an event to climate change. Maybe every time you get a 1000mb low tracking through Missouri, you are going to see this many tornadoes. In my mind, this outbreak wasn't even close to as shocking as June 1953 when we had F5 tornadoes hitting unlikely places like Flint, MI and Worcester, MA....considering how quiet severe weather had been the last couple of seasons, the Deep South and Tornado Alley were "due" for some twisters. I fundamentally reject the viewpoint that "since humans have changed the atmosphere, every event needs to be linked to global warming" because some phenomena like tornadoes have conclusively declined during periods of warming, and for logical reasons since tornadic activity is linked to contrasts in airmasses, and AGW warms the North faster than the South, which reduces such contrast. So I reject both Trenberth's statement and its interpretation in the Think Progress piece.

Here is the quote:

“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”

His point is 100% correct. All weather events are affected by global warming. There is absolutely no way that any aspect of the atmosphere will behave the same when it is laden with more heat and more water. All of the thermodynamic processes involved are going to altered.

[nzucker]

His point is 100% correct. All weather events are affected by global warming. There is absolutely no way that any aspect of the atmosphere will behave the same when it is laden with more heat and more water. All of the thermodynamic processes involved are going to altered.

Not necessarily though: his point is that we should start out by assuming all weather events are affected or caused by global warming. However, in order to do this, we have to be able to prove that changes in water vapor, temperatures, or atmospheric patterns initiated by anthropogenic climate change were sufficient to achieve a threshold that affected the sensible weather result of the pattern. For example, how do we know that the atmosphere in the April tornado outbreak behaved differently enough because of 4% more water vapor or .25C warming compared to the 1970s, that the results on the ground in terms of observed weather, damage, and destruction were noticeably different from what they would have been had the same general set-up occurred in 1979, for example? That's why his line of thinking is flawed, in the idea that all weather events should be a priori linked to global warming, since it's hard to establish a threshold contribution from global climate change that would have been sufficient to affect/induce a single weather event.

Also, attributing Trenberth's principle to tornadoes is specifically nonsensical; this is not necessarily his fault but that of the media who printed the article. Clearly, U.S. tornado activity has declined as global temperatures, and national temperatures, have warmed. In the last decade, April, a month which usually features ample severe weather, has seen abnormally mild conditions nationally. Since we've observed a strong connection between declining tornadoes and rising temperatures, it's utter nonsense to blame climate change for an outbreak of tornadoes. If overall climate change is making tornadoes less likely, then how could it have been the cause of this outbreak, or responsible for making it more likely to happen? Clearly, it makes sense that global warming is reducing tornadoes: tornado outbreaks are dependent on a pattern which features lingering cold air over the Northern Plains/Prairies while a ridge develops over the Southern Plains and causes that cold airmass to interact with warm, moist air coming out of the Gulf. This is why most large tornado outbreaks have taken place in La Niña years, like the Palm Sunday 1965 and 1974 Super Outbreak, because the La Niña years tend to feature this pattern in April and also as a connection of the theme of Canadian cold during winter. With global warming causing the northern latitudes to warm much faster than the southern latitudes, it would be increasingly unlikely to have a good set-up for tornadoes, as the temperature gradient is being washed out. We saw this "washed out" gradient in Spring 2010, a very slow year for severe weather, when March/April saw such warmth across the north while cooler El Niño weather persisted across the south. With both El Niño and northern latitude warming becoming more regular in a world influenced by AGW, tornadoes should decline...and they have for the most part.

Finally, Trenberth's labeling everyone a "denier" who disagreed with his assumption that weather events should be a priori linked to global warming was offensive and unfair. As you can see from what I've written, this is a fairly nuanced argument (although you like to present an oversimplified argument and then obstinately adhere to it when other people introduce more angles, a tendency which seems odd for a philosophy major but which has pervaded your posts here on this forum). Scientists who do not support linking single weather events to AGW are not denying the realities of carbon-induced warming, nor are they necessarily denying that global warming will make some weather extremes worse. But they are rejecting an oversimplified viewpoint which both assumes a threshold contribution from CO2 for every weather event, however poorly-researched, and also is dangerous in its exploitation by the media and public. Trenberth's use of the word "denier" to describe those that took a more sophisticated point of view was heinous, in my opinion.

[WeatherRusty]

Not necessarily though: his point is that we should start out by assuming all weather events are affected or caused by global warming. However, in order to do this, we have to be able to prove that changes in water vapor, temperatures, or atmospheric patterns initiated by anthropogenic climate change were sufficient to achieve a threshold that affected the sensible weather result of the pattern. For example, how do we know that the atmosphere in the April tornado outbreak behaved differently enough because of 4% more water vapor or .25C warming compared to the 1970s, that the results on the ground in terms of observed weather, damage, and destruction were noticeably different from what they would have been had the same general set-up occurred in 1979, for example? That's why his line of thinking is flawed, in the idea that all weather events should be a priori linked to global warming, since it's hard to establish a threshold contribution from global climate change that would have been sufficient to affect/induce a single weather event.

Also, attributing Trenberth's principle to tornadoes is specifically nonsensical; this is not necessarily his fault but that of the media who printed the article. Clearly, U.S. tornado activity has declined as global temperatures, and national temperatures, have warmed. In the last decade, April, a month which usually features ample severe weather, has seen abnormally mild conditions nationally. Since we've observed a strong connection between declining tornadoes and rising temperatures, it's utter nonsense to blame climate change for an outbreak of tornadoes. If overall climate change is making tornadoes less likely, then how could it have been the cause of this outbreak, or responsible for making it more likely to happen? Clearly, it makes sense that global warming is reducing tornadoes: tornado outbreaks are dependent on a pattern which features lingering cold air over the Northern Plains/Prairies while a ridge develops over the Southern Plains and causes that cold airmass to interact with warm, moist air coming out of the Gulf. This is why most large tornado outbreaks have taken place in La Niña years, like the Palm Sunday 1965 and 1974 Super Outbreak, because the La Niña years tend to feature this pattern in April and also as a connection of the theme of Canadian cold during winter. With global warming causing the northern latitudes to warm much faster than the southern latitudes, it would be increasingly unlikely to have a good set-up for tornadoes, as the temperature gradient is being washed out. We saw this "washed out" gradient in Spring 2010, a very slow year for severe weather, when March/April saw such warmth across the north while cooler El Niño weather persisted across the south. With both El Niño and northern latitude warming becoming more regular in a world influenced by AGW, tornadoes should decline...and they have for the most part.

Finally, Trenberth's labeling everyone a "denier" who disagreed with his assumption that weather events should be a priori linked to global warming was offensive and unfair. As you can see from what I've written, this is a fairly nuanced argument (although you like to present an oversimplified argument and then obstinately adhere to it when other people introduce more angles, a tendency which seems odd for a philosophy major but which has pervaded your posts here on this forum). Scientists who do not support linking single weather events to AGW are not denying the realities of carbon-induced warming, nor are they necessarily denying that global warming will make some weather extremes worse. But they are rejecting an oversimplified viewpoint which both assumes a threshold contribution from CO2 for every weather event, however poorly-researched, and also is dangerous in its exploitation by the media and public. Trenberth's use of the word "denier" to describe those that took a more sophisticated point of view was heinous, in my opinion.

Correct me if I am wrong but aren't Gulf waters unusually warm for this time of year? Didn't we have a deep digging, fast moving northern jet with chilly air following the cold front? The temps were near 80 even up here in New England. Lots of lift, vorticity and moisture content to work with? All feed by moisture rich warm Gulf air? Why is the Gulf of Mexico so warm?Trenberth thinks he knows, and so do I.

[BethesdaWX]

Correct me if I am wrong but aren't Gulf waters unusually warm for this time of year? Didn't we have a deep digging, fast moving northern jet with chilly air following the cold front? The temps were near 80 even up here in New England. Lots of lift, vorticity and moisture content to work with? All feed by moisture rich warm Gulf air? Why is the Gulf of Mexico so warm?

It has nothing to due with AGW...if thats what you're wondering.

The Gulf is very warm due to the SE ridge that developed in FEB... it caused the SE Drought...less precip = warmer waters.

The Gulf was Frigid in DEC/JAN.

Look at the maps below, January had Unusual Cold.. Now its unusually warm... it happens all the time.

Here is January

Here is Today

[tacoman25]

Correct me if I am wrong but aren't Gulf waters unusually warm for this time of year? Didn't we have a deep digging, fast moving northern jet with chilly air following the cold front? The temps were near 80 even up here in New England. Lots of lift, vorticity and moisture content to work with? All feed by moisture rich warm Gulf air? Why is the Gulf of Mexico so warm?Trenberth thinks he knows, and so do I.

Seattle just had their coldest April since 1955. There has been a lot of unusually cold air crashing down into the West/North, fairly common during La Nina springs. Can't forget that part of the equation.

It may not be coincidence that the last time the U.S. had this intense of a tornado outbreak was during the previous cold -PDO phase (1974). U.S. temperatures were colder on average then, just as they have been colder since 2008.

If anything, the evidence seems to favor colder air being to blame for this, not warmer.

[skierinvermont]

Not necessarily though: his point is that we should start out by assuming all weather events are affected or caused by global warming. However, in order to do this, we have to be able to prove that changes in water vapor, temperatures, or atmospheric patterns initiated by anthropogenic climate change were sufficient to achieve a threshold that affected the sensible weather result of the pattern. For example, how do we know that the atmosphere in the April tornado outbreak behaved differently enough because of 4% more water vapor or .25C warming compared to the 1970s, that the results on the ground in terms of observed weather, damage, and destruction were noticeably different from what they would have been had the same general set-up occurred in 1979, for example? That's why his line of thinking is flawed, in the idea that all weather events should be a priori linked to global warming, since it's hard to establish a threshold contribution from global climate change that would have been sufficient to affect/induce a single weather event.

Also, attributing Trenberth's principle to tornadoes is specifically nonsensical; this is not necessarily his fault but that of the media who printed the article. Clearly, U.S. tornado activity has declined as global temperatures, and national temperatures, have warmed. In the last decade, April, a month which usually features ample severe weather, has seen abnormally mild conditions nationally. Since we've observed a strong connection between declining tornadoes and rising temperatures, it's utter nonsense to blame climate change for an outbreak of tornadoes. If overall climate change is making tornadoes less likely, then how could it have been the cause of this outbreak, or responsible for making it more likely to happen? Clearly, it makes sense that global warming is reducing tornadoes: tornado outbreaks are dependent on a pattern which features lingering cold air over the Northern Plains/Prairies while a ridge develops over the Southern Plains and causes that cold airmass to interact with warm, moist air coming out of the Gulf. This is why most large tornado outbreaks have taken place in La Niña years, like the Palm Sunday 1965 and 1974 Super Outbreak, because the La Niña years tend to feature this pattern in April and also as a connection of the theme of Canadian cold during winter. With global warming causing the northern latitudes to warm much faster than the southern latitudes, it would be increasingly unlikely to have a good set-up for tornadoes, as the temperature gradient is being washed out. We saw this "washed out" gradient in Spring 2010, a very slow year for severe weather, when March/April saw such warmth across the north while cooler El Niño weather persisted across the south. With both El Niño and northern latitude warming becoming more regular in a world influenced by AGW, tornadoes should decline...and they have for the most part.

Finally, Trenberth's labeling everyone a "denier" who disagreed with his assumption that weather events should be a priori linked to global warming was offensive and unfair. As you can see from what I've written, this is a fairly nuanced argument (although you like to present an oversimplified argument and then obstinately adhere to it when other people introduce more angles, a tendency which seems odd for a philosophy major but which has pervaded your posts here on this forum). Scientists who do not support linking single weather events to AGW are not denying the realities of carbon-induced warming, nor are they necessarily denying that global warming will make some weather extremes worse. But they are rejecting an oversimplified viewpoint which both assumes a threshold contribution from CO2 for every weather event, however poorly-researched, and also is dangerous in its exploitation by the media and public. Trenberth's use of the word "denier" to describe those that took a more sophisticated point of view was heinous, in my opinion.

And I would have expected somebody who claims to have graduated high school to know how to read. Guess not.

What he said was that global warming has affected all aspects of climate not that is has caused them. There isn't some magical "threshold contribution" from warming whereby under this threshold there is no effect and above this threshold there is an effect. The smallest amount of warming has some effect on every aspect of the climate system. You are the one making the black and white argument that we need to have X amount of warming to have an effect. The climate is a complex interconnected system and tweaking one variable even only slightly is going to alter every other aspect to some degree. And we haven't just tweaked one variable slightly.. we have dramatically increased the amount of heat, water vapor, and aerosols in the atmosphere while decrease stratospheric ozone (and cooling the stratosphere). Of course you want to just interpret him as saying individual events are caused by AGW.. but as Ryan and I both have explained to you that's not what he said.

You also obviously didn't read what he actually wrote, because he used the word "denier" to describe people who deny AGW (which is true by definition). His use of the word denier had nothing to do with the relationship between individual events and global warming. He used the word denier to describe people who deny man's impact on climate (the same people who have twisted his 'climategate' comments to mean the exact opposite of what he was actually saying (IE Anthony Watts etc.). His use of the word denier was entirely appropriate and he didn't use it in the context you said.. which just shows you didn't actually read it.. and makes your faux-outrage seem all the more phony.

EDIT: Haha I know where you got the idea that 'deniers' referred to people who think individual events can't be linked to climate change. You got it from WUWT! Oops. That's not what he actually said. The term denier was applied specifically to people who deny AGW. The claim that he called people who disagree with linking weather to AGW 'deniers' was just too bizarre for you to have invented on your own so I knew you must have copied it from somewhere. So I checked WUWT, and sure enough that's exactly what they say. Caught red-handed copying and pasting the lies of WUWT without actually reading or thinking for yourself. If you didn't rely on manipulative hacks as your primary source of climate information you wouldn't come across as much of one yourself. Really sad to see you calling scientists arguments heinous without even reading what they wrote and basing that accusation on the opinion of manipulative hacks like Anthony Watts. You just went on a whole moral tirade based on WUWT's false description of what he wrote and without actually reading what he wrote. Shame on you.

[nzucker]

And I would have expected somebody who claims to have graduated high school to know how to read. Guess not.

What he said was that global warming has affected all aspects of climate not that is has caused them. There isn't some magical "threshold contribution" from warming whereby under this threshold there is no effect and above this threshold there is an effect. The smallest amount of warming has some effect on every aspect of the climate system. You are the one making the black and white argument that we need to have X amount of warming to have an effect. The climate is a complex interconnected system and tweaking one variable even only slightly is going to alter every other aspect to some degree. And we haven't just tweaked one variable slightly.. we have dramatically increased the amount of heat, water vapor, and aerosols in the atmosphere while decrease stratospheric ozone (and cooling the stratosphere). Of course you want to just interpret him as saying individual events are caused by AGW.. but as Ryan and I both have explained to you that's not what he said.

You also obviously didn't read what he actually wrote, because he used the word "denier" to describe people who deny AGW (which is true by definition). His use of the word denier had nothing to do with the relationship between individual events and global warming. He used the word denier to describe people who deny man's impact on climate (the same people who have twisted his 'climategate' comments to mean the exact opposite of what he was actually saying (IE Anthony Watts etc.). His use of the word denier was entirely appropriate and he didn't use it in the context you said.. which just shows you didn't actually read it.. and makes your faux-outrage seem all the more phony.

EDIT: Haha I know where you got the idea that 'deniers' referred to people who think individual events can't be linked to climate change. You got it from WUWT! Oops. That's not what he actually said. The term denier was applied specifically to people who deny AGW. The claim that he called people who disagree with linking weather to AGW 'deniers' was just too bizarre for you to have invented on your own so I knew you must have copied it from somewhere. So I checked WUWT, and sure enough that's exactly what they say. Caught red-handed copying and pasting the lies of WUWT without actually reading or thinking for yourself. If you didn't rely on manipulative hacks as your primary source of climate information you wouldn't come across as much of one yourself. Really sad to see you calling scientists arguments heinous without even reading what they wrote and basing that accusation on the opinion of manipulative hacks like Anthony Watts. You just went on a whole moral tirade based on WUWT's false description of what he wrote and without actually reading what he wrote. Shame on you.

Trenberth writes in his 2011 AMS paper Climategate Thoughts, "So we frequently hear that 'while this event is consistent with what we expect from climate change, no single event can be attributed to human induced global warming.' Such murky statements should be abolished. On the contrary, the odds have changed to make certain types of events more likely....It is worth considering whether the odds of the particular event have changed sufficiently that one can make the alternative statement 'It is unlikely this event would have occurred without global warming.' For instance, this probably applies to the extremes that occurred in the summer of 2010: the floods in Pakistan, India, and China and the drought, heat waves, and wild fires in Russia."

So there you have it: Trenberth is trying to link singular catastrophic events to global warming, and then pretend that he isn't really doing so. Why couldn't a heat wave in Moscow have occurred a hundred years ago? Sure, global warming may have contributed the last 0.5C to a pattern that was already 15C above normal, but how can global warming be implicated when it's only responsible for that last few tenths of a degree? It's not as if the jet stream would not have formed a ridge over Western Russia with a ULL cut off over Eastern Europe, anyway.

And yes you do have to prove a threshold to say an event is linked to global warming. Tornadoes should decline with warming, and have indeed done so, so a severe outbreak can't be linked to AGW at all. The article using Trenberth's comments to apply to the April 26th outbreak was disingenuous, and indeed a reflection of a poor understanding of meteorology and climate. Severe weather is caused by contrasts in airmasses, and those are clearly declining with AGW.

Trenberth ends his AMS paper by discussing all the extreme weather that happened in 2010: Snowmageddon in DC (caused by the active subtropical jet and blocking pattern in a strong west-based El Niño, basically a repetition of the 57-58 Winter pattern for those who know their history, mostly unrelated to AGW), the Pineapple Express floods in CA (also a result of El Niño and not global warming), the western Russian heat wave (caused by a persistent cut-off low over eastern Europe, not AGW)...he then writes "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." This clearly implies that climate change is responsible for the extreme weather and will continue to make more extreme weather. This is in complete contradiction to the principles espoused by meteorologists about what caused these various phenomena, some of which were even well-expected like the DC snowstorms in winter forecasts made the year before. Once again, the typical AGW extremists lump everything into one big disaster called by humans, another play on the environmental "litany" or humans' "fall from grace" as it were.

1 point for Nate, 0 points for Skier Don't need Anthony Watts to reveal Trenberth as an ass.

Here is the paper:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:XSxxXU4vV_wJ:ams.confex.com/ams/91Annual/webprogram/Manuscript/Paper180230/ClimategateThoughts4AMS_v3.pdf+trenberth+deniers+ams+seattle&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi_Orq_UK75saAU4b0lZeuBYJgcdWsMoPr2E5Vl7mV9uAEm9l11zhHFnF1G0V-nSsfIc3VMiDO6FBmz_GCzSYn6TN4WLxOH96EgKAwhxtYpkOj_oZICn57_N3-OA5KWpq2bQstE&sig=AHIEtbSlIp0On8EoBK_7dkDvHPvBgDFNGg

[BethesdaWX]

Talk about double Standards vie qualifications....trenberth (Non Qualified to meteorology) obviously has no Idea how tornadic systems need ThermaI Contrast...........as in........... between colder Arctic Airmasses, a Faster Jet (predominate in colder regimes)......thus as we've warmed, large tornadoes have DECREASED!

You can see tornadoes tend to be more frequent in -PDO regimes...look at 1950-1976... you can see the increase, then the Decrease beginning after the +PDO developed.

I don't know why anyone would even Attempt defend Trenberth...You can make Excuses for Trenberth all you want, but it shows desperation, and lack of mental Brain power...period, no debate. He's a Fail.

[WeatherRusty]

Trenberth writes in his 2011 AMS paper Climategate Thoughts, "So we frequently hear that 'while this event is consistent with what we expect from climate change, no single event can be attributed to human induced global warming.' Such murky statements should be abolished. On the contrary, the odds have changed to make certain types of events more likely....It is worth considering whether the odds of the particular event have changed sufficiently that one can make the alternative statement 'It is unlikely this event would have occurred without global warming.' For instance, this probably applies to the extremes that occurred in the summer of 2010: the floods in Pakistan, India, and China and the drought, heat waves, and wild fires in Russia."

So there you have it: Trenberth is trying to link singular catastrophic events to global warming, and then pretend that he isn't really doing so. Why couldn't a heat wave in Moscow have occurred a hundred years ago? Sure, global warming may have contributed the last 0.5C to a pattern that was already 15C above normal, but how can global warming be implicated when it's only responsible for that last few tenths of a degree? It's not as if the jet stream would not have formed a ridge over Western Russia with a ULL cut off over Eastern Europe, anyway.

And yes you do have to prove a threshold to say an event is linked to global warming. Tornadoes should decline with warming, and have indeed done so, so a severe outbreak can't be linked to AGW at all. The article using Trenberth's comments to apply to the April 26th outbreak was disingenuous, and indeed a reflection of a poor understanding of meteorology and climate. Severe weather is caused by contrasts in airmasses, and those are clearly declining with AGW.

Trenberth ends his AMS paper by discussing all the extreme weather that happened in 2010: Snowmageddon in DC (caused by the active subtropical jet and blocking pattern in a strong west-based El Niño, basically a repetition of the 57-58 Winter pattern for those who know their history, mostly unrelated to AGW), the Pineapple Express floods in CA (also a result of El Niño and not global warming), the western Russian heat wave (caused by a persistent cut-off low over eastern Europe, not AGW)...he then writes "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." This clearly implies that climate change is responsible for the extreme weather and will continue to make more extreme weather. This is in complete contradiction to the principles espoused by meteorologists about what caused these various phenomena, some of which were even well-expected like the DC snowstorms in winter forecasts made the year before. Once again, the typical AGW extremists lump everything into one big disaster called by humans, another play on the environmental "litany" or humans' "fall from grace" as it were.

1 point for Nate, 0 points for Skier Don't need Anthony Watts to reveal Trenberth as an ass.

Here is the paper:

http://docs.google.c...7dkDvHPvBgDFNGg

Are you saying that the weather experienced as the world warms will be no different than when the globally averaged temperature where lower?

Weather events are not "caused" by climate change. Climate change is not a meteorological mechanism. However as the climate warms and changes, the environment weather forms in will be different. By definition, if the climate changes then the average weather taking place within that climate will have changed. For instance, if there is more water vapor in the air then either it must rain more frequently or where it rains it must rain harder since resident water vapor has about an 11 day life time in the atmosphere.

[skierinvermont]

Trenberth writes in his 2011 AMS paper Climategate Thoughts, "So we frequently hear that 'while this event is consistent with what we expect from climate change, no single event can be attributed to human induced global warming.' Such murky statements should be abolished. On the contrary, the odds have changed to make certain types of events more likely....It is worth considering whether the odds of the particular event have changed sufficiently that one can make the alternative statement 'It is unlikely this event would have occurred without global warming.' For instance, this probably applies to the extremes that occurred in the summer of 2010: the floods in Pakistan, India, and China and the drought, heat waves, and wild fires in Russia."

So there you have it: Trenberth is trying to link singular catastrophic events to global warming, and then pretend that he isn't really doing so. Why couldn't a heat wave in Moscow have occurred a hundred years ago? Sure, global warming may have contributed the last 0.5C to a pattern that was already 15C above normal, but how can global warming be implicated when it's only responsible for that last few tenths of a degree? It's not as if the jet stream would not have formed a ridge over Western Russia with a ULL cut off over Eastern Europe, anyway.

And yes you do have to prove a threshold to say an event is linked to global warming. Tornadoes should decline with warming, and have indeed done so, so a severe outbreak can't be linked to AGW at all. The article using Trenberth's comments to apply to the April 26th outbreak was disingenuous, and indeed a reflection of a poor understanding of meteorology and climate. Severe weather is caused by contrasts in airmasses, and those are clearly declining with AGW.

Trenberth ends his AMS paper by discussing all the extreme weather that happened in 2010: Snowmageddon in DC (caused by the active subtropical jet and blocking pattern in a strong west-based El Niño, basically a repetition of the 57-58 Winter pattern for those who know their history, mostly unrelated to AGW), the Pineapple Express floods in CA (also a result of El Niño and not global warming), the western Russian heat wave (caused by a persistent cut-off low over eastern Europe, not AGW)...he then writes "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." This clearly implies that climate change is responsible for the extreme weather and will continue to make more extreme weather. This is in complete contradiction to the principles espoused by meteorologists about what caused these various phenomena, some of which were even well-expected like the DC snowstorms in winter forecasts made the year before. Once again, the typical AGW extremists lump everything into one big disaster called by humans, another play on the environmental "litany" or humans' "fall from grace" as it were.

1 point for Nate, 0 points for Skier Don't need Anthony Watts to reveal Trenberth as an ass.

Here is the paper:

http://docs.google.c...7dkDvHPvBgDFNGg

Lol.. you completely fail to understand what it is he is saying you are so blinded by trying to score points. He didn't say how or in what direction (increase or decrease) AGW has affected tornadic activity .. just that you can bet your ass something as pervasive as AGW is going to alter every aspect of the complex interconnected climate system. It's a subtle academic point which you are butchering in your effort to score points.

He also isn't saying that climate change was 100% responsible for the Russian heatwave.. he's saying exactly what you're saying... AGW has added 1C to naturally occurring heat waves. He's saying that it's unlikely that the Russian heatwave would have been so hot without AGW.. which is 100% correct. Yes a heatwave would have occurred without AGW.. but that specific heatwave of that large a magnitude would not have. This is a pretty basic uncontroversial thing to say but as usual you have totally warped it. Most scientists agree that the Russian heatwave last year, and the European one several years ago would not have been so severe without AGW. That's all he's saying.. but you are trying to warp a pretty straightforward and easy to understand statement.

And you have as usual dodged the fact that you went on a huge moral tirade and called him names for something which he didn't actually say. You said he called people who don't link weather events to AGW deniers, and then you went on a whole moral tirade against him for saying that. I pointed out that he did not call such people deniers at all... his use of the term deniers was in an entirely different context. You obviously didn't read what he wrote and were just copying what WUWT said he said. You've neatly evaded the fact that your original accusations were based on complete falsehoods and that you hadn't actually read what he wrote. Now, instead of apologizing for falsely representing the denier remark, you've just moved on to new baseless accusations and name calling (now Trenberth's an 'ass' apparently).

[tacoman25]

Lol.. you completely fail to understand what it is he is saying you are so blinded by trying to score points. He didn't say how or in what direction (increase or decrease) AGW has affected tornadic activity .. just that you can bet your ass something as pervasive as AGW is going to alter every aspect of the complex interconnected climate system. It's a subtle academic point which you are butchering in your effort to score points.

He also isn't saying that climate change was 100% responsible for the Russian heatwave.. he's saying exactly what you're saying... AGW has added 1C to naturally occurring heat waves. He's saying that it's unlikely that the Russian heatwave would have been so hot without AGW.. which is 100% correct. Yes a heatwave would have occurred without AGW.. but that specific heatwave of that large a magnitude would not have. This is a pretty basic uncontroversial thing to say but as usual you have totally warped it. Most scientists agree that the Russian heatwave last year, and the European one several years ago would not have been so severe without AGW. That's all he's saying.. but you are trying to warp a pretty straightforward and easy to understand statement.

And you have as usual dodged the fact that you went on a huge moral tirade and called him names for something which he didn't actually say. You said he called people who don't link weather events to AGW deniers, and then you went on a whole moral tirade against him for saying that. I pointed out that he did not call such people deniers at all... his use of the term deniers was in an entirely different context. You obviously didn't read what he wrote and were just copying what WUWT said he said. You've neatly evaded the fact that your original accusations were based on complete falsehoods and that you hadn't actually read what he wrote. Now, instead of apologizing for falsely representing the denier remark, you've just moved on to new baseless accusations and name calling (now Trenberth's an 'ass' apparently).

1. There is stronger evidence that the recent tornadic outbreak was linked to COLDER temperatures rather than warmer. There is no evidence that AGW leads to more/stronger tornadoes. Therefore, for anyone to suggest that climate change somehow played a role in the recent outbreak is stupid. To try to make the connection by saying that AGW plays some sort of role in every part of weather/climate is even more stupid. That would be like me saying AGW played a role in the rain shower I saw 15 minutes ago...completely meaningless.

2. If severe heatwaves can be blamed on AGW, than so can severe cold. Why? Because both happened before AGW, and both would have happened without it.

3. You are attributing all of the warming the past 120 years to AGW? I don't believe that is correct, as natural forces favored warming for awhile as well.

[skierinvermont]

1. There is stronger evidence that the recent tornadic outbreak was linked to COLDER temperatures rather than warmer. There is no evidence that AGW leads to more/stronger tornadoes. Therefore, for anyone to suggest that climate change somehow played a role in the recent outbreak is stupid. To try to make the connection by saying that AGW plays some sort of role in every part of weather/climate is even more stupid. That would be like me saying AGW played a role in the rain shower I saw 15 minutes ago...completely meaningless.

2. If severe heatwaves can be blamed on AGW, than so can severe cold. Why? Because both happened before AGW, and both would have happened without it.

3. You are attributing all of the warming the past 120 years to AGW? I don't believe that is correct, as natural forces favored warming for awhile as well.

1. EXACTLY.. it's an academic point. You're confused because you are assuming he must be saying something hugely meaningful and he's making a fairly academic point that the atmosphere just doesn't behave the same as it would without all this extra heat, water vapor, aerosols etc. How big the change is, how bad the change is, and in what direction the change in a particular variable is, are all open questions. Global warming has altered every aspect of the climate in one way or another. The atmosphere is complex and interconnected and changing even one small variable slightly affects everything else. Changing major variables like temperature and water vapor in a big way as we have affects things even more.

2. Faulty logic. AGW causes more heatwaves and more intense ones, not cold spells. For another, the intensity and frequency of heatwaves has increased overall. While the frequency and intensity of cold spells has declined.

[tacoman25]

1. EXACTLY.. it's an academic point. You're confused because you are assuming he must be saying something hugely meaningful and he's making a fairly academic point that the atmosphere just doesn't behave the same as it would without all this extra heat, water vapor, aerosols etc. How big the change is, how bad the change is, and in what direction the change in a particular variable is, are all open questions. Global warming has altered every aspect of the climate in one way or another. The atmosphere is complex and interconnected and changing even one small variable slightly affects everything else. Changing major variables like temperature and water vapor in a big way as we have affects things even more.

2. Faulty logic. AGW causes more heatwaves and more intense ones, not cold spells. For another, the intensity and frequency of heatwaves has increased overall. While the frequency and intensity of cold spells has declined.

1. You call it "academic point", I call copout. The guy is clearly saying that we should tie individual events to AGW (mainly severe, headline-grabbing ones). And if the rationale is that AGW is related to everything, then it's a completely meaningless point. He's wrong. And anyone who tries to tie climate change in with the recent tornado outbreak is especially wrong. It feeds into the whole stupid circle of logic: global warming is harmful/bad, therefore anything harmful/bad/severe that happens with the weather must be related to AGW.

2. Actually, since AGW is supposed to increase water vapor and humidity, high temperatures are less effected (and in some cases moderated) than low temperatures. So the overall effect on heatwaves to this point would be mostly negligible, unless you are focusing on low temps. The European and Russian heatwaves were overwhelmingly due to patterns. Just like record cold spells in recent years.

[nzucker]

1. You call it "academic point", I call copout. The guy is clearly saying that we should tie individual events to AGW (mainly severe, headline-grabbing ones). And if the rationale is that AGW is related to everything, then it's a completely meaningless point. He's wrong. And anyone who tries to tie climate change in with the recent tornado outbreak is especially wrong. It feeds into the whole stupid circle of logic: global warming is harmful/bad, therefore anything harmful/bad/severe that happens with the weather must be related to AGW.

Yeah exactly, why is it always the severe events that he wants to tie to global warming? How come he uses the appeal of 30" snowstorms and devastating hurricanes on the public's imagination to mention how global warming affected our weather? Why not just say, hey it was 60F and overcast in Dobbs Ferry today, and global warming has its effect on that pattern? How come the appeal is always made to extreme events in connection to AGW even when AGW itself didn't make those events any more/less likely, altering or not altering them just as it would have altered any other day's weather?

Trenberth is being deceitful in tacitly connecting an academic point ("All weather is affected by AGW to some extent.") to an emotional appeal ("Look at these extreme weather events like the 2010 snowfalls in DC or the tornado outbreak on 4/26"), once again trying to convince people that man's own sinfulness/excess is responsible for this extreme/wicked weather. This is being done even when it can beyond a doubt be proved that the same pattern historically produced essentially the same sensible weather conditions. This means that global warming wasn't any more a part of the 2/5 snowstorm than it was part of the March 1958 snowstorm that dropped over 50" in PA. They were both extreme events that create an emotional/psychological impact, but they were no more results of AGW than the fact that it was 23F and clear here on 12/14 this year, or that it was 50F and cloudy on April 19th...but again and again, we see the global warming advocates using these unique weather events to frighten people.

And Trenberth's paper does say they will be more likely "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." He says this even though meteorological evidence shows that extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, are mostly expected to decline in a warming world. He's just plain wrong, folks. So there's obviously something disingenuous in using extreme weather events as evidence on global warming, saying they are an example of "the future we don't want to see" even when most mets believe they won't occur as much in that warmer world. Again, the problem with climatologists trying to be meteorologists, and the right hand not understanding the left hand.

[BethesdaWX]

1. EXACTLY.. it's an academic point. You're confused because you are assuming he must be saying something hugely meaningful and he's making a fairly academic point that the atmosphere just doesn't behave the same as it would without all this extra heat, water vapor, aerosols etc. How big the change is, how bad the change is, and in what direction the change in a particular variable is, are all open questions. Global warming has altered every aspect of the climate in one way or another. The atmosphere is complex and interconnected and changing even one small variable slightly affects everything else. Changing major variables like temperature and water vapor in a big way as we have affects things even more.

2. Faulty logic. AGW causes more heatwaves and more intense ones, not cold spells. For another, the intensity and frequency of heatwaves has increased overall. While the frequency and intensity of cold spells has declined.

1) All warmer than normal temps will due to thunderstorm activity is increase the Precipitation Rate and potential for flash flooding, and shorten the lives of the storms to more "pulse" cells, since the water cycle is faster in warmer WX. A Faster Jet needed for Twisters is a seperate issue that will decrease in the warmer regime.

2) Yes, the Earth has warmed significantly, and heatwaves have increased slightly (not significantly)......the cause is NOT known (yet), because indeed there are 2 explanations for the warming that work... and can explain the Warming. So assuming the Warming is due to Man right now is a Hypothesis, just as the Natural Variability explanation is also a Hypothesis.

[skierinvermont]

1. You call it "academic point", I call copout. The guy is clearly saying that we should tie individual events to AGW (mainly severe, headline-grabbing ones). And if the rationale is that AGW is related to everything, then it's a completely meaningless point. He's wrong. And anyone who tries to tie climate change in with the recent tornado outbreak is especially wrong. It feeds into the whole stupid circle of logic: global warming is harmful/bad, therefore anything harmful/bad/severe that happens with the weather must be related to AGW.

2. Actually, since AGW is supposed to increase water vapor and humidity, high temperatures are less effected (and in some cases moderated) than low temperatures. So the overall effect on heatwaves to this point would be mostly negligible, unless you are focusing on low temps. The European and Russian heatwaves were overwhelmingly due to patterns. Just like record cold spells in recent years.

1. It's not a copout.. he is a scientist making a fairly academic point. AGW has changed every aspect of climate and in many cases we don't even know how. You change something as fundamental as heat content and water vapor in a complex interconnected system like the atmosphere, then everything is affected. You are just misinterpreting the statement and the intent.

2. Humidity is not supposed to increase with AGW, so that's just plain wrong (I'm 99% sure would have to double check). Most models maintain approximately constant surface humidity I think. Water vapor increases, not humidity. And heat waves are forecast to increase according to physical models of the atmosphere which trump your overly simplistic and partially incorrect analogy.

[skierinvermont]

Still waiting for zucker to apologize for calling Trenberth names based upon a lie copied and pasted from WUWT and obviously without even reading what Trenberth even wrote.

[skierinvermont]

And Trenberth's paper does say they will be more likely "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." He says this even though meteorological evidence shows that extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, are mostly expected to decline in a warming world. He's just plain wrong, folks. So there's obviously something disingenuous in using extreme weather events as evidence on global warming, saying they are an example of "the future we don't want to see" even when most mets believe they won't occur as much in that warmer world. Again, the problem with climatologists trying to be meteorologists, and the right hand not understanding the left hand.

No.. extreme events are expected to increase in a warming world. Particularly flooding, droughts and heatwaves. Also hurricane intensity (though not frequency). And nobody really knows what will happen to tornadic activity so your claim that it will decrease is just fabrication. The scientists are the ones saying that tornadic activity, like all aspects of climate, will be affected, but that nobody knows how. You're the one claiming that we do KNOW how tornadic activity. On the one hand we have objective scientists saying we don't know what's going to happen, and on the other we have nzucker claiming that tornadic activity is going to decrease... and then... who's the HACK now?

And then to take this stream of perverse logic one step further we have zucker claiming that decreased hurricane frequency and his fabricated claim that tornadoes will decrease proves that extreme weather generally is going to decline... while conveniently omitting the probably increase in hurricane intensity, flooding frequency and intensity, heatwave frequency and intensity, drought frequency and intensity, etc.

[WeatherRusty]

1. It's not a copout.. he is a scientist making a fairly academic point. AGW has changed every aspect of climate and in many cases we don't even know how. You change something as fundamental as heat content and water vapor in a complex interconnected system like the atmosphere, then everything is affected. You are just misinterpreting the statement and the intent.

2. Humidity is not supposed to increase with AGW, so that's just plain wrong (I'm 99% sure would have to double check). Most models maintain approximately constant surface humidity I think. Water vapor increases, not humidity. And heat waves are forecast to increase according to physical models of the atmosphere which trump your overly simplistic and partially incorrect analogy.

Just for clarity purposes it is relative humidity which remains nearly constant as temperatures warm. Specific humidity increases as the water content of the air grows in response to warming.

This result is output by all models as a consequence of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation

which states - This equation gives the relationship between saturation vapor pressure and the temperature in Kelvins. This equation is used also to calculate relative humidity and other moisture variables.

LN(Es/6.11) = (L/Rv )(1/273 - 1/T)

Es = Saturation vapor pressure

L = Latent heat of vaporization = 2.453 × 10^6 J/kg

Rv = Gas constant for moist air = 461 J/kg

T = Temperature in Kelvins

SEE HERE

[CT Rain]

Yeah exactly, why is it always the severe events that he wants to tie to global warming? How come he uses the appeal of 30" snowstorms and devastating hurricanes on the public's imagination to mention how global warming affected our weather? Why not just say, hey it was 60F and overcast in Dobbs Ferry today, and global warming has its effect on that pattern? How come the appeal is always made to extreme events in connection to AGW even when AGW itself didn't make those events any more/less likely, altering or not altering them just as it would have altered any other day's weather?

Trenberth is being deceitful in tacitly connecting an academic point ("All weather is affected by AGW to some extent.") to an emotional appeal ("Look at these extreme weather events like the 2010 snowfalls in DC or the tornado outbreak on 4/26"), once again trying to convince people that man's own sinfulness/excess is responsible for this extreme/wicked weather. This is being done even when it can beyond a doubt be proved that the same pattern historically produced essentially the same sensible weather conditions. This means that global warming wasn't any more a part of the 2/5 snowstorm than it was part of the March 1958 snowstorm that dropped over 50" in PA. They were both extreme events that create an emotional/psychological impact, but they were no more results of AGW than the fact that it was 23F and clear here on 12/14 this year, or that it was 50F and cloudy on April 19th...but again and again, we see the global warming advocates using these unique weather events to frighten people.

And Trenberth's paper does say they will be more likely "Growth of these disasters into a major catastrophe, war and strife, is something to be avoided wherever possible, but it is likely where we are headed." He says this even though meteorological evidence shows that extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, are mostly expected to decline in a warming world. He's just plain wrong, folks. So there's obviously something disingenuous in using extreme weather events as evidence on global warming, saying they are an example of "the future we don't want to see" even when most mets believe they won't occur as much in that warmer world. Again, the problem with climatologists trying to be meteorologists, and the right hand not understanding the left hand.

But does GW "load the dice" so to speak making some extreme events more likely? Since the climate has changed isn't every event at least impacted (either positively or negatively) by a change in the base state of the atmosphere?

I also don't know that extreme weather events are all expected to decline.... where are you getting that from? I don't think there's a problem saying all events today are in some part influenced by global warming... but the jury is out on whether some events are becoming more frequent, less frequent, more violent, or less violent. For example Kerry Emanuel's research about GW and hurricanes... less frequent but more intense?

I think you're looking at things too black and white, socks. Saying something is influenced by GW doesn't necessarily mean it's caused by GW.

[LakeEffectKing]

1. It's not a copout.. he is a scientist making a fairly academic point. AGW has changed every aspect of climate and in many cases we don't even know how. You change something as fundamental as heat content and water vapor in a complex interconnected system like the atmosphere, then everything is affected. You are just misinterpreting the statement and the intent.

2. Humidity is not supposed to increase with AGW, so that's just plain wrong (I'm 99% sure would have to double check). Most models maintain approximately constant surface humidity I think. Water vapor increases, not humidity. And heat waves are forecast to increase according to physical models of the atmosphere which trump your overly simplistic and partially incorrect analogy.

So when we have a partly sunny day with temperatures exactly normal, why is he not making an "academic point" at THAT time, where (along YOUR lines of thinking) he should suggest that it wouldn't be normal if AGW didn't exist, because it might be rainy and below normal in temperatures?

Skier, his "academic point" is another subtle fear mongering jab, exploiting (in a sneaky way) a pretty big disaster.....nothing more. It's getting old, and more foolish EVERYTIME that card is played. It certainly isn't science.

[nzucker]

And heat waves are forecast to increase according to physical models of the atmosphere which trump your overly simplistic and partially incorrect analogy.

The only reason "heat waves" are going to increase is because a "heat wave" is defined by NWS standards as three days of 90F temperatures. Global warming just means that if one day is marginal, and would have had a high of 89.4F, it will now have a high of 90F and thus be able to be labeled a "heat wave." It's not as if we've proven that patterns causing heat waves will increase...if you were going to get a ridge, you were going to get a ridge regardless of slight changes in overall anomaly caused by that ridge. It's still the pattern causing large departures from normal, whether it's a cold snap or a heat wave. So I guess you could say that extreme cold like what England experienced in December 2010, or what the Deep South experienced in February 2010, was equally caused by global warming as a heat wave. In any pattern, a slight change in the overall temperature of the atmosphere will have a slight modifying effect, but will probably not impact the overall sensible weather conditions. Since most people don't measure heat waves in tenths of a degree attributable to human-induced climate change, but rather in large-scale anomalies caused by ridging in the jet stream, it's not correct to say that climate change "caused" or "affected" the Russian heat wave. Even if the global temperature was 1F cooler as it was in 1950, that arrangement of the jet would still have caused most Moscovites to perceive a "heat wave" based on their experience of the jet stream, not their experience of global temperature. So climate change didn't "affect" the Russian heat wave any more than it affected my high of 60F yesterday in Dobbs Ferry, or the fact that ElTacoman had some sprinkles in Denver. Attributing individual weather events to AGW is meaningless since most small-scale sensible weather events are fairly disconnected from the overall climate. For example, two of NYC's greatest and most uncomfortable heat waves were in September 1953 and July 1955, and yet the Earth was experiencing cooling. But I wouldn't attribute that heat wave to global cooling any more than the 2010 Russian heat wave could be connected to global warming. Analyzing specific weather events against the large-scale climate is almost always going to be a failure.

Trenberth tries to connect unique weather events in 2010 to global climate change, citing these events as proof that the world is going to suffer more from extremes. Here is the quote, "The summer of 2010 with floods in Pakistan, India, and China , and devastating drought, heat waves, and wild fires in Russia, is a case in point. Indeed, 2010 provided many such examples from the New England flooding and Snowmageddon in the Washington, D.C. area in February and March to the flooding in California associated with a Pineapple Express of moisture..."

But selecting individual events without having meteorological backing for a connection to AGW isn't a legitimate analysis: you could find extreme weather events from any year to terrify people into believing the world's weather is becoming crazier and crazier. Steele, ND reached 121F in July 1936 after Parshall, ND hit -60F in February 1936; both of these extremes come from the same year! So why not use that into scaring people into the crazy weather that was defining the 1930s? Why can't I argue that the weather is much quieter in the 2000s since we aren't seeing extreme high and low temperatures set for one state in a 6-month period against a 130-year record? The point is, you can always go around selecting "weird" weather events to establish an argument that the global climate is changing, but this is not a valid method of proving anything. Without having a statistical analysis of the frequency of extreme weather, corrected for population density and media reporting changes, the tack is meaningless. And using things like snowstorms in DC (which you said would decline in a warming world) and hurricanes (also supposed to decline in a warming world) simply shows a lack of meteorological understanding. How can you use weather events which are declining due to global warming to prove that global warming is happening? If global warming is supposed to cause fewer snowstorms in the Mid-Atlantic, then how does citing an extreme snowstorm in the Mid-Atlantic make the case for AGW? In my opinion, it makes the opposite case. Hey, if snowstorms and tornadoes are supposed to decline in a warming world, and we're getting a lot of them, then we must not be warming, right?

Still waiting for zucker to apologize for calling Trenberth names based upon a lie copied and pasted from WUWT and obviously without even reading what Trenberth even wrote.

Trenberth's views about deniers are despicable. In his section on the matter from the report, he writes, "Debating them about the science is not an approach that is recommended. Scientific facts are not open to debate or opinion because they are evidence and/or physically based. Moreover a debate actually gives alternative views credibility."

What he is telling us is that silencing debate among skeptics is the best tact for convincing people of global warming; in essence, he is advocating a silencing of his critics, hardly democratic. Also, AGW is not a scientific fact, it's a theory. The only fact is that carbon dioxide causes some degree of warming. How much warming it causes, how much warming has been caused by natural cycles, and how this will affect sensible weather are all up for debate. The fact that the Earth has warmed at less than 50% of the rate expected by climatologists since 1998 proves that AGW is, indeed, a theory. In any case, if Trenberth and other climatologists cannot win based on the merits of their science, then theirs is a sorry case. Despite the Church's opposition, Galileo eventually proved the Earth was round convincingly. Same thing here...

Besides, you still haven't provided evidence and citations to refute what Watts says about Trenberth's "denier" comments. Apparently, he used the term multiple times in his report and speech, so I'd like to see you give me a list of all the instances in which he used the term "denier" in order to convincingly exonerate Trenberth. And even if Watts is incorrect about his use of the term "denier" to criticize those who do not believe that weather events can be linked to AGW, Watts is still correct in criticizing Trenberth for his irresponsible use of individual events to justify long-term changes in the Earth's climate. We all know that we can come up with plenty of cold/snow examples from the heavily populated mid-latitudes in the last two winters, and that doesn't prove an Ice Age. So Watts' general disgust with Trenberth is justified even if he gets some of the details wrong.

No.. extreme events are expected to increase in a warming world. Particularly flooding, droughts and heatwaves. Also hurricane intensity (though not frequency). And nobody really knows what will happen to tornadic activity so your claim that it will decrease is just fabrication. The scientists are the ones saying that tornadic activity, like all aspects of climate, will be affected, but that nobody knows how. You're the one claiming that we do KNOW how tornadic activity. On the one hand we have objective scientists saying we don't know what's going to happen, and on the other we have nzucker claiming that tornadic activity is going to decrease... and then... who's the HACK now?

And then to take this stream of perverse logic one step further we have zucker claiming that decreased hurricane frequency and his fabricated claim that tornadoes will decrease proves that extreme weather generally is going to decline... while conveniently omitting the probably increase in hurricane intensity, flooding frequency and intensity, heatwave frequency and intensity, drought frequency and intensity, etc.

NOAA convincingly shows that the trend in big tornadoes has been down:

Andrew, think about what causes tornadoes: contrasts in airmasses and lapse rates. Both of these factors are expected to decline with global warming. First, the northern latitudes are supposed to warm much faster than the southern latitudes, which will reduce the gradient between the Northern Plains cold airmasses and the Gulf Coast warm airmasses. You can see on this RSS map that the Northern Plains/Canadian Prairies have been warming much faster than the Southeast/Gulf:

Second, tornadoes are usually caused by an elevated mixed layer that reinforces steep lapse rates...here is a sounding from an F5 in Michigan:

But you won't find this sounding as often in a warming world because the lower troposphere is warming faster than the surface, reducing lapse rates. Having high lapse rates is key to formation of supercells, so we should see fewer discrete supercells as the global temperature increases.

In case you want an expert climatologist to back me up, here is what Roy Spencer has to say, "Contrasting air mass temperatures is the key. Active tornado seasons in the U.S. are almost always due to unusually COOL air persisting over the Midwest and Ohio Valley longer than it normally does as we transition into spring.It is well known that strong to violent tornado activity in the U.S. has decreased markedly since statistics began in the 1950s, which has also been a period of average warming. So, if anything, global warming causes FEWER tornado outbreaks…not more. In other words, more violent tornadoes would, if anything, be a sign of “global cooling”, not “global warming”. Anyone who claims more tornadoes are caused by global warming is either misinformed, pandering, or delusional."