Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[ChescoWx]

On 10/18/2024 at 3:00 PM, chubbs said:

Whether you can accept/understand or not, the raw temperature and other data is clear. When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves. We know when the moves occurred. We know the temperatures at all the local stations. The photos are just the icing on the cake.

 

 

Charlie as we clearly see below all 3 of the available NWS COOP stations during the period 1941 thru 1975 had a statistically significantly identical trend line of chilling as is clearly demonstrated in the below actual raw data chart. I assume you have "nearby stations" from outside of the county that you wish to introduce to support any post hoc adjustments? If so which station and how far from Chester County is that station that we should look at???

[chubbs]

12 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Charlie as we clearly see below all 3 of the available NWS COOP stations during the period 1941 thru 1975 had a statistically significantly identical trend line of chilling as is clearly demonstrated in the below actual raw data chart. I assume you have "nearby stations" from outside of the county that you wish to introduce to support any post hoc adjustments? If so which station and how far from Chester County is that station that we should look at???

The 2 main station moves can be spotted in your plot, but they are hard to see with all the other station changes. Those 3 stations should move in sync from year-to-year because they experience the same weather. When they don't a station change has occurred, which is why bias adjustment is needed.

Much easier to see the station moves when the before-move and after-move sections are separated. The move-related cooling is clear by comparing to the 2 stations which didn't move (West Chester and Phoenixville 1946-47, and Coatesville and Phoenixville 1970). Looking at the before or after move periods individually, there is very little temperature trend at Coatesville or West Chester. The before-move portions are flat and the after-move portions are flat, just at different levels reflecting the site moves. The cooling in the 1941-75 period at those 2 stations is mainly due to the moves. Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified.   No move at Phoenixville, but as we saw previously, Phoenixville ran very warm in from the 1930s to 1950s.  Phoenixville cooled significantly relative to the other two station at the end of the 1950s. Another station change.

Since you want to look at data from outside Chester County, here are the Mt Holly NWS climate sites for this period (Atlantic City data is from the Weather Bureau Office on the roof of the Tuna Club building). Despite being further apart, these 4 station are much more in sync from year-to-year than the Chesco sites. Why? They are higher quality sites with fewer site changes.  The overall trend over the period at these 4 stations is flat.  There is a slight downtrend to the 1960s, but warming at the end brings 1975 up to 1941 levels.  If these 4 stations are flat,  you can be sure that Chester County is flat as well. All experience the same weather. Non weather effects, like station changes or heat island near the station, would impact each site differently and would be easily spotted by bias adjustment software.

 

For the past several months you have been promoting a misleading denier strawman. The NOAA analysis uses only raw data as input, same as you; but, NOAA is doing a much better job of analyzing the raw data than you are. Well-proven science and a large database make the NOAA analysis bullet proof. We've confirmed that in our Chesco County deep dive. NOAA's individual Chesco station adjustments line up perfectly with station moves, time of day bias, warm sensors,  etc. No its your analysis that produces a result that is far from our actual climate history.

 

[Kevin Reilly]

Looks like Climate Change has hit here in Delaware County PA.  Here in Media, we have picked up 0.38" of rain since August 18th.  It is very dry, and Springton Lake Reservoir is down about 10-15 feet and counting. 

[ChescoWx]

13 hours ago, chubbs said:

T

For the past several months you have been promoting a misleading denier strawman. The NOAA analysis uses only raw data as input, same as you; but, NOAA is doing a much better job of analyzing the raw data than you are. Well-proven science and a large database make the NOAA analysis bullet proof. We've confirmed that in our Chesco County deep dive. NOAA's individual Chesco station adjustments line up perfectly with station moves, time of day bias, warm sensors,  etc. No its your analysis that produces a result that is far from our actual climate history.

 

So to quote my favorite climate alarmist Charlie he says "When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves". Well if that is true then why did NOAA cooling adjust those to levels equal to or colder than any of the County stations in 29 of those 35 years between 1941 and 1975??  Charlie goes on to say that "Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified. "

So again if a chilling effect was identified why the heck was the adjustment to the Chester County wide data NOT to warm the data?? But instead to correct this chilling bias NOAA chose to chill them even further in the vast majority (83%) of those very years!!! Why?? The red line below shows this fabricated altered NOAA data which certainly was used to depress temps to better promote the warming story in Chester County PA since 1970.

[chubbs]

20 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

So to quote my favorite climate alarmist Charlie he says "When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves". Well if that is true then why did NOAA cooling adjust those to levels equal to or colder than any of the County stations in 29 of those 35 years between 1941 and 1975??  Charlie goes on to say that "Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified. "

So again if a chilling effect was identified why the heck was the adjustment to the Chester County wide data NOT to warm the data?? But instead to correct this chilling bias NOAA chose to chill them even further in the vast majority (83%) of those very years!!! Why?? The red line below shows this fabricated altered NOAA data which certainly was used to depress temps to better promote the warming story in Chester County PA since 1970.

You are playing rhetorical games. Yes, we know that NOAA doesn't match the raw data, that's a positive because the raw data is biased. Coatesville and West Chester moved and cooled relative to nearby sites. This is very easy to see by comparing Coatesville, West Chester, and Phoenixville. For instance, Coatesville was 0.23F warmer than West Chester from 1941-45 and 1.98F cooler from 1948-52. Other stations outside of Chester County confirm the timing and impact of the moves. NOAA gets the timing and impact of the moves as reflected in the bias adjustments. For instance, the average bias adjustment for West Chester from 1895-1969 is -1.95 vs +0.02 for 1970-85 after the move in early 1970. The West Chester bias adjustment is primarily move-related.

The moves are a good test for the analyst. You can't get an accurate picture of Chester County's climate without accounting for the station moves. We only have 3 stations with long-term data; and 2 of them had significant moves that biased the raw data, The science-based method that NOAA employs nails the moves, a good example of why bias adjustment is important.

[ChescoWx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

You are playing rhetorical games. Yes, we know that NOAA doesn't match the raw data, that's a positive because the raw data is biased. Coatesville and West Chester moved and cooled relative to nearby sites. This is very easy to see by comparing Coatesville, West Chester, and Phoenixville. For instance, Coatesville was 0.23F warmer than West Chester from 1941-45 and 1.98F cooler from 1948-52. Other stations outside of Chester County confirm the timing and impact of the moves. NOAA gets the timing and impact of the moves as reflected in the bias adjustments. For instance, the average bias adjustment for West Chester from 1895-1969 is -1.95 vs +0.02 for 1970-85 after the move in early 1970. The West Chester bias adjustment is primarily move-related.

The moves are a good test for the analyst. You can't get an accurate picture of Chester County's climate without accounting for the station moves. We only have 3 stations with long-term data; and 2 of them had significant moves that biased the raw data, The science-based method that NOAA employs nails the moves, a good example of why bias adjustment is important.

Yet still no answer - why chill almost every year below any station in the entire county?  Is sounds like the rationale is - let's find some station up in Berks or Lehigh County and let's chill down all 3 of those pesky warm Chester County stations to that more appropriate chilly level - why don't we pick that station up in Allentown???  And 50 years after the observation let's adjust all of those stations!!! Heck! West Chester, Coatesville and Phoenixville should of course be as chilly at Allentown!!

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/18/2024 at 11:37 AM, TheClimateChanger said:

So what we can see is relative to the actual observations, NCEI adjustments generally slightly cooled the 1940s and 1950s. However, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the mid 1960s, there is a period where NCEI substantially warmed the actual observations. Thereafter [and continuing through the late 1970s], NCEI adjustments favored a small cooling. In the early 1980s, NCEI adjustments were a general warming of the actual observations. From the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s, there was a significant cooling adjustment.

NOTE: This adjustment from 1985-1995 appears to be related to the defective HO-83 hygrothermometer, which produced spuriously high readings in that era at first-order sites. I don't think there's any express adjustment for the instrument, but rather it's adjusted through comparison with other observations.

Following the installation of the ASOS in 1996, adjustments have generally been modest with either no change to the data or a small warming adjustment applied.

The overall effect of adjustments on the trendline at PHL is small, although it does slightly increase the trend from .441F/decade to .489F/decade.

Here are the numbers comparing Philadelphia County to PHL. The county figures are probably more relevant than the city figures, as these are utilized as part of the divisional averages, state averages and national averages. The county averages are almost uniformly lower than the PHL airport averages, except for a couple years in the 1960s. That was also the period where there was the least overall difference. The largest cooling is in the early 1990s, likely related to the HO-83 hygrothermometer in place at the time which lead to spuriously high readings at the airport. Overall, the adjustments make the trend slightly less. As noted, the raw data from PHL suggests a trend of +0.441F/decade since 1941, while the NCEI averages for Philadelphia County suggest a trend of 0.42F/decade.

[chubbs]

22 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Yet still no answer - why chill almost every year below any station in the entire county?  Is sounds like the rationale is - let's find some station up in Berks or Lehigh County and let's chill down all 3 of those pesky warm Chester County stations to that more appropriate chilly level - why don't we pick that station up in Allentown???  And 50 years after the observation let's adjust all of those stations!!! Heck! West Chester, Coatesville and Phoenixville should of course be as chilly at Allentown!!

NOAA's results are completely driven by the raw data. When you complain about NOAA, you are complaining about what the raw data shows.   After their moves both West Chester and Coatesville were colder than ABE on occasion, as is East Nantmeal, and other current Chesco stations as well. Phoenixville and the built-up sections of Coatesville and West Chester are warm stations, much warmer than the county as a whole. Their average is warmer than the Philadelphia airport at times in the early 1940s, before the Coatesville move. Not surprising that the NOAA county average is always cooler than those 3 stations.

 

 

[ChescoWx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

NOAA's results are completely driven by the raw data. When you complain about NOAA, you are complaining about what the raw data shows.   After their moves both West Chester and Coatesville were colder than ABE on occasion, as is East Nantmeal, and other current Chesco stations as well. Phoenixville and the built-up sections of Coatesville and West Chester are warm stations, much warmer than the county as a whole. Their average is warmer than the Philadelphia airport at times in the early 1940s, before the Coatesville move. Not surprising that the NOAA county average is always cooler than those 3 stations.

 

 

So to recap -NOAA shows what the raw data shows - but  there is no actual station data in Chester County PA as cold as the NOAA adjusted values - check!

[chubbs]

24 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

So to recap -NOAA shows what the raw data shows - but  there is no actual station data in Chester County PA as cold as the NOAA adjusted values - check!

Sorry that the raw data doesn't fit your expectations. If we had stations at the same locations as the early 1940s network, Phoenixville and the built up sections of Coatesville and West Chester, would you want to use those 3 for our current county average?

[ChescoWx]

8 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Sorry that the raw data doesn't fit your expectations. If we had stations at the same locations as the early 1940s network, Phoenixville and the built up sections of Coatesville and West Chester, would you want to use those 3 for our current county average?

Of course real data is of course better than altered fake data.

[rcostell]

2 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Of course real data is of course better than altered fake data.

You two are STILL at it- in the wrong thread...again.   Granted- this thread is not a hotbed-but some do learn occasionally at a macro level. Your strangling it with the ongoing micro-bickering. Please take it to the thread that was created for you.  Thank You

[TheClimateChanger]

 

 

[ChescoWx]

Great quote from Tony Heller!! "There are only two types of people who believe the climate is getting worse. 1. People who are ignorant of history. 2. People who lie about history."

[bdgwx]

Quoting Tony Heller in an atmospheric science related forum is like quoting Samuel Shenton in an geoscience related forum. Heller's pseudoscience and conspiracy position is so extreme that even one of the most anti-science and conspiracy focused blogs on the internet banned him. It almost defies credulity to believe that either Shenton or Heller genuinely believed the positions they publicly espouse. 

[TheClimateChanger]

"We do a lot of firsts. Let me tell you folks, we do a lot of firsts" - Donald J. Trump

[TheClimateChanger]

Wow, if even Tony Heller is calling this the second or third warmest October nationally, imagine how warm it actually has been with the real figures.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

Will it be a record hot AND dry October?

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-earth-climate-humanity-net-emissions.html

  (   https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1353/2024/   )

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/30/2024 at 1:38 PM, TheClimateChanger said:

Will it be a record hot AND dry October?

PRISM had this as 3rd warmest and 3rd driest on record for the CONUS (tip of the hat to Brian Brettschneider on X). I suspect it would have been the driest if not for the rainfall in the central US over the last 24 hours or so of the month [i.e., if October only had 30 days]. Also, the 3rd warmest was by average mean temperature. Bucking recent trends, maximum temperatures were significantly warmer than minimum temperatures across the CONUS. So it very well may have been the warmest by average maximum temperature. He did not break down the PRISM temperatures by maximum and minimum, so we'll have to wait until NCEI releases its data [usually around the 11th of the month] for those figures.

[donsutherland1]

A new paper, "Anthropogenic warming has ushered in an era of temperature-dominated droughts in the western United States", has revealed that the nature of droughts in the Western United States has changed due to climate change.

Three key points:

1. The western United States has experienced a significant shift in the primary driver of drought, from precipitation deficits to high evaporative demand, primarily due to anthropogenic warming. This change occurred around the year 2000. Rising surface temperatures increase the atmosphere's capacity to hold water vapor, leading to higher evaporative demand and intensifying drought severity.

2. Historically, precipitation deficits were the main factor in WUS droughts, but since 2000, rising temperatures and resulting high evaporative demand have contributed more to drought severity (62%) and coverage (66%).

3. The paper revealed that natural climate variability is the dominant factor influencing precipitation, while anthropogenic warming is mainly responsible for the observed changes in evaporative demand.

[donsutherland1]

A just published paper revealed that a new climate oscillation is emerging in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. This oscillation is characterized by multidecadal variations in annual surface temperature and is driven by intensified air-sea interaction due to sea-ice loss. This new mode of internal variability is projected to emerge when sea ice declines below a critical threshold, potentially impacting global weather and climate. Multiple lines of evidence from climate model simulations support the emergence of this new oscillation. The CMIP6 ensemble shows the oscillation emerging in the 21st century.  Additionally, analysis of mid-Pliocene simulations from the PlioMIP2 suggests the potential existence of this oscillation in past warm climates.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02171-3

[Typhoon Tip]

not sure if this should go into the pollution thread or here but ... great.   now we've got a mechanism discovered that overlaps the plasticizing the environment, with factors that push climate change

 

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-plastic-krill-ability-carbon-deep.html   

the two pillars of environmental concern,   plastic  and climate  ...have largely been considered two separate problems - at least implicitly.   but molecular polymer pollution interfering with the CO2 fixing capacity of the oceanic biota shows the two do have some possible feedback relationship

it should be noted,  ~33% of the CO2 produced by human activity since the IR has been eaten by the ocean.   much of that capture is within mms of the surface. however, as the ssts warm the physics of this absorbing layer means less absorption.  but there are other processes involved. 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 11/12/2024 at 9:44 PM, donsutherland1 said:

A just published paper revealed that a new climate oscillation is emerging in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. This oscillation is characterized by multidecadal variations in annual surface temperature and is driven by intensified air-sea interaction due to sea-ice loss. This new mode of internal variability is projected to emerge when sea ice declines below a critical threshold, potentially impacting global weather and climate. Multiple lines of evidence from climate model simulations support the emergence of this new oscillation. The CMIP6 ensemble shows the oscillation emerging in the 21st century.  Additionally, analysis of mid-Pliocene simulations from the PlioMIP2 suggests the potential existence of this oscillation in past warm climates.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02171-3

Wow, quite fascinating. A new oscillation being driven by sea ice loss. Do they have any idea what impacts this new oscillation will have on regional and/or global climate?

[donsutherland1]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Wow, quite fascinating. A new oscillation being driven by sea ice loss. Do they have any idea what impacts this new oscillation will have on regional and/or global climate?

I have seen no information about specific impacts. I suspect follow-up research will aim to provide more insight into regional impacts.

[donsutherland1]

2024 remains on track to become the hottest year on record on all of the major climate data sets. To avoid setting a new record, November 23-December 31 would have to see global temperatures that were last seen in 2000.

Climate change played a major role in the exceptional heat in the Sahel region in April, the April-May heat in Asia, the sustained extreme heat in Mexico during May and June, the Mediterranean heatwave in July, and the unprecedented autumn heatwave in the Southwestern United States. The 2024 emissions gap report revealed that the world remains on track for 2.6°C-3.1°C warming by 2100. It's cover pleaded with those who would gather for COP 29, "No more hot air...please!"

If one wondered what inaction would look like, one saw it at COP 29. The conference, which featured some late-moment drama, was as close to a total failure as it could have been. Despite spin coming from some quarters that it made at least some progress, the reality is that it made no progress.

Instead of agreements, declarations, or binding commitments, nations were urged, called upon or encouraged to act. No mention of fossil fuels, responsible for the climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution, was made in any of the four concluding documents. Instead, in an act of cynicism borrowed from COP 28, "transitional fuels," meaning such fossil fuels as natural gas, were embraced as helpful for the "energy transition."

Perhaps in the insular world of COP 29, the participants believe rhetoric alone is sufficient to address problems. Just maybe, they believe that one can simply wish away anthropogenic climate change. Outside COP 29, there is broad consensus that credible goals and commitments are specific and measurable. They come with clear targets to guide progress. The most effective ones come with mechanisms to address gaps, be they cost overruns or production shortfalls, when they arise. None of these attributes made it into any of the four COP 29 documents. If anything, COP 29 delivered the last rites for the Paris Goal of holding warming to no more than 1.5°C.

Below is a summary of the failed COP 29 conference.

[csnavywx]

Land carbon sink stability (particularly in tropical rainforests and now in the Arctic) is now at serious risk:

https://www.woodwellclimate.org/2024-arctic-report-card-tundra-net-source-carbon/

This comes as a significant jump in warming has occurred in the last ~10y. It seems increasingly likely that the existing stock of land plant and soil carbon just isn't stable at these temperatures. The one that worries me the most is South America and southern Africa as asymmetric NH warming causes the ITCZ to migrate northward. Respiration driven losses in those areas combined with outgassing and burning permafrost land (esp. peat) could conceptually eventually cancel out the global land carbon sink in general if it keeps going the way it is.

[chubbs]

While the climate news is not good, the alternatives to fossil fuels look better and better every day. Below is a short blog article on where energy systems have been; and where they are headed, from an alternative energy expert at Eindhoven Univ., Netherlands

https://aukehoekstra.substack.com/p/how-our-thinking-about-an-energy

[Typhoon Tip]

in spirit of Chubb's content above ... i'll have to find the article but university scientist have successfully created a nuclear powered, 'diamond battery'    really fascinating.   the gist of it is that they embedded carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, inside regular diamond crystal.

the resulting stone emits an abundance of energy, with a half-life of 1,000 years!  ..again, this is rough. i'll try to find it.   and somehow, it is apparently radioactively safe.  

that's really ... how you power something like a "Data" from "Star Trek:  The Next Generation"   haha.   or sophisticate and scaled it up from this primitive version ( being primitive because it's the first of its kind and so the applications are thus unexplored - )

this would be a game change for powering ev in general.  imagine every city with it's own 1,000 year lived, diamond batteries in parallel

i'm pretty harsh about humanity's innovation on this world, as being perhaps the most destructive natural disaster to have ever occurred ... aheh.   and all that, but i've always maintained that we are in fact in a race - whether we realize it or not. one that is winnable, should heads disengage from asses in time to pick up the pace.  see ... when we "sold our souls" to tech/ ir as a way of survival, we unwittingly committed to a race between the damage tech causes, vs innovated correcting tech - sort of ironic.  but it is because the damage of the former doesn't have any natural means int he background planetary system that have evolved along with it as quickly as the damage of tech creates. 

so you have to correct it... or, survive and die by dice roll.  mass extinctions, to what is known about the fragility of ecology, ...to paleo-geology uncovering that earth demonstrates no mercy and/or compunctions when shedding 90+% of all it's life because of terrestrial and non-terrestrial influences... all this doesn't lend to a fairly weight die if losing that race and hoping for the better -

[TheClimateChanger]

File this under controversial, but I was doing some "light" reading on the climate from past authorship in the early/mid 19th century over the holiday as I enjoy reading about past climate. I was rather surprised that the great minds of the 18th and early 19th century did not believe there was any appreciable change in climate from antiquity. In fact, this was the prevailing school of thought into the first half of the 20th century.  The modern idea of a "medieval warm period" did not really arise until 1965 with H. H. Lamb's publication on the matter, although that built off scholarship from the preceding few decades. I reviewed that article, and found the persuasiveness somewhat lacking. Evidence against a large change was repeatedly dismissed, and when proxy evidence did not correspond to the desired result, it was adjusted and then adjusted some more. The timing of the supposed warm period even seems inconsistent with the modern view - showing warming most pronounced in England from like 1100-1300 CE, whereas now it's more like 800-1000 CE. Icelandic records of sea ice are suggestive of a climate in the North Atlantic much colder than present by the early/mid 13th century (and even colder than the 19th century), but these are dismissed by Lamb.

It looks like the idea of a medieval warm period reached its zenith in 1990, with the publication of the first IPCC report, which had an absurd hump for the medieval warm period extending even into the 14th century, despite loads of evidence that it was significantly colder in the 13th and 14th centuries. Hmmm, I wonder why that graphic made it in there? Modern reconstructions such as that appearing in more recent IPCC publications instead show a slight and gradual cooling trend over the entire millenia, abruptly ceasing in the 19th century. The medieval warm period is a small blip in the record. It would appear modern research largely confirms the prevailing scientific wisdom of the 18th and 19th century that there was no significant change in climate in the preceding 2000 years. Personally, I attach great significance to the conclusions of this era, since we are told these scientists and fathers of modern meteorology and climatology were living in the end of a "little ice age." Despite this, they looked at the same evidence we have and concluded there was no significant change in climate from the so-called medieval warm period to the era in which they were living. They may have had access to even more records which have been lost to the hands of time. Yet, some here today like to claim the medieval warm period was even warmer than our current globally-warmed times. These scientists also weren't burdened by the "woke" nonsense of today and would have had no pecuniary interest in their findings. AGW wasn't even known in that era... their only motivation was a desire to find the scientific truth. No money was being showered upon them by vested interests.

Despite the foregoing, it would seem many here - even those who accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change - attach an unreasonable significance to the medieval warm period, suggesting it may have been as warm and snowless as recent years. I feel like Band-Aid, except instead of "Do they know its Christmastime at all," it's "do they know the current era is far, far warmer than the so-called medieval warm period?" as per the most reliable temperature / climate reconstructions?

What's the truth here? Is there even a medieval warm period and little ice age, or was it more or less, just a natural prolonged and gradual climatic cooling that was interrupted by human activities? Some say it was only a "local" phenomenon and not global. But user @blizzard1024made a good point about this some years back. That's not how the atmospheric circulation works. It seems suspect that there would be sustained local anomalies of warm and cold in a global system. He, of course, concluded that means the medieval warm period was a global phenomenon. But another conclusion that can be drawn is that there simply wasn't a medieval warm period of any significance, local or otherwise, and the temperature departures from that era were not anything significant? More credence ought to be given to the formerly prevailing view of a largely static climate regime over the past 2,000 years. After all, the scientists who reached this conclusion were living in the very region said to be most affected by the MWP and LIA and could find no strong evidence of cooling from the published records and local histories. Modern temperature reconstructions appear more consistent with this view than the one that had its brief zenith in the mid to late 20th century of much more significant global temperature changes.

@donsutherland1 @Typhoon Tip