Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[donsutherland1]

Numerous U.S. cities had their warmest #May on record, some by tremendous margins. In a number, May 2024 would have ranked among the 10 warmest Junes on record. In Brownsville and Fort Lauderdale, the May temperature exceeded both the May and June records.

[ChescoWx]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

Per a recent Brian Brettschneider tweet, winter was the warmest ever in the US and Spring was 5'th warmest through May 29.

of course.....with the adjustments applied to arrive at the official altered data.

[chubbs]

11 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

of course.....with the adjustments applied to arrive at the official altered data.

Nope. He is tracking the daily temperatures on ACIS. Here's the year to-date from ACIS

[Typhoon Tip]

9 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Numerous U.S. cities had their warmest #May on record, some by tremendous margins. In a number, May 2024 would have ranked among the 10 warmest Junes on record. In Brownsville and Fort Lauderdale, the May temperature exceeded both the May and June records.

I find the suppression in latitude fascinating - not a climate introspective, but for the Meteorology.  The pattern foot so far this spring has been limiting expansion, perhaps masked by seasonality.  In other words, folks would be inclined to suggest 'Hey, it's only May'.

Yeeeeah, but I suspect there's some relativity going on.  

My personal suspicion is that the background planetary environment passed through a global threshold at some point over the last 10 years - together with some fantastic singular warm anomaly events, when then aggregating those synergistic heat bomb phenomenon together with the early in 2023 total GW spike ( air and sea, everywhere!) ... I just think we're staring at a duh situation trying to understand the specter so vast the boundaries of which aren't yet very obvious.  Kind of like a deer caught the headlights cliche ( so to speak..)  But maybe given time any such threshold to be defined. 

Within the confines of that new paradigm, we should be seeing more of these heat expansions prior to the solstice insolation - that's the relativity, in that we may merely be seeing a suppression of that new norm, endemic to this spring. 

I'm looking at the long lead telecons, out through the third week of June, and suppression of 'big heat' and/or SW expulsion events, N-E of St Louis ( ~ ) isn't favored.   Yet if that is materialized in the spatial synoptics ... I have a funny feeling that Mexico to Florida and S. TX ...possibly as high as Dallas to Alabama and the Carolinas from time to time, may swelter while ORD-BOS is mollycoddled with temperate spoils. 

[ChescoWx]

10 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Far more meaningful for evaluating temperatures than Tony Heller's chart are the mean temperatures, mean low temperatures, and mean high temperatures. There is virtually no chance that 2024 will rank as the 4th coldest January-May on record when all the data is considered. Once the NOAA compiles the May data, the January-May 2024 period will likely rank as among the 10 warmest in terms of mean temperatures and mean low temperatures and among the 25 warmest in terms of mean high temperatures for the contiguous United States

Hi Don, All valid data points are meaningful....like this one. That does not of course imply that during our current warmer cycle that likely lower mean highs offset by higher mean lows will show overall warmth.

[ChescoWx]

Across Chester County PA we finished May with an average temperature across the 27 NWS/MADIS stations of 63.9 degrees this was the 27th warmest May since records began in 1893. The warmest station was of course Phoenixville at 65.6 degrees and the coolest was at Warwick Township at 62.7 degrees. The highest temperature during the month was recorded at West Chester with the 88.7 degrees on the 26th. Our lowest temperature was the 40.1 degrees on the 11th. The greatest monthly rainfall was at West Chester with 3.57" of rain. Below is the long term May actual (blue) climate history since 1895 - compared with the altered adjusted (red) NCEI trend lines. The actual lines show no warming and actually some cooling over history....while the adjusted NCEI figures show some slight warming.

[donsutherland1]

8 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I find the suppression in latitude fascinating - not a climate introspective, but for the Meteorology.  The pattern foot so far this spring has been limiting expansion, perhaps masked by seasonality.  In other words, folks would be inclined to suggest 'Hey, it's only May'.

Yeeeeah, but I suspect there's some relativity going on.  

My personal suspicion is that the background planetary environment passed through a global threshold at some point over the last 10 years - together with some fantastic singular warm anomaly events, when then aggregating those synergistic heat bomb phenomenon together with the early in 2023 total GW spike ( air and sea, everywhere!) ... I just think we're staring at a duh situation trying to understand the specter so vast the boundaries of which are just very obvious.  Kind of like a deer caught the headlights cliche ( so to speak..)  But maybe given time any such threshold to be defined. 

Within the confines of that new paradigm, we should be seeing more of these heat expansions prior to the solstice insolation - that's the relativity, in that we may merely be seeing a suppression of that new norm, endemic to this spring. 

I'm looking at the long lead telecons, out through the third week of June, and suppression of 'big heat' and/or SW expulsion events, N-E of St Louis ( ~ ) is favored.   Yet if that is materialized in the spatial synoptics ... I have a funny feeling that Mexico to Florida and S. TX ...possibly as high as Dallas to Alabama and the Carolinas from time to time, may swelter while ORD-BOS is mollycoddled with temperate spoils. 

More than likely, the ongoing marine heatwaves in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean are contributing to the excessive warmth seen in Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc. The dry conditions are likely amplifying the heat in northeast Mexico and southwest Texas. It is plausible that a global threshold has been passed. I suspect the outcomes during and after the developing La Niña will provide greater insight.

[donsutherland1]

7 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Hi Don, All valid data points are meaningful....like this one. That does not of course imply that during our current warmer cycle that likely lower mean highs offset by higher mean lows will show overall warmth.

I didn't mean that the data in the chart is not meaningful. However, there are better ways to judge overall temperatures for subseasonal and seasonal periods. For example, using only metrics such as used by Heller, there could be a July where the temperature spikes to let's say 100° in Philadelphia, but the month overall could wind up cooler than normal. Heller's type of analysis would flag it as "hot" if he is scoring things based on 100° days. Meanwhile, there could be another July where the monthly anomaly is +2.5°, but the highest maximum temperature is 97°. If Heller is using 100° days, his analysis would flag the month as "cool." Period average highs, lows, and means do a better job in assessing the outcome for the period in question.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

19 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Here's my little climate tidbit of the day. We can't even imagine how cold it used to be. There was so much ice in the upper lakes following the absolutely frigid winter and spring of 1836-1837, that the Saint Clair River closed to navigation in June as it was flowing downstream.

 

A lot of high temperature records from the late 1800s/early 1900s still stand.. I'm surprised reading the transcripts from settlers in the 1700s, about Winter weather that is not much different from today. It's obviously trended warmer, but they really had some warm Winters back then too. 

I think the threat is always there for some extreme flux, given the two polar blocking regions are land, Greenland and Alaska. remember that KC Chiefs playoff game this year when the windchill was -35F south in latitude of here? 

[GaWx]

Has anyone here read this? If so, any thoughts?

https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-alternative-we-ignore-to-our-peril/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

 
Before anyone says he denies AGW,

“I am a proponent of addressing anthropogenic global warming as a first priority for mankind. I first adopted the ‘Venus – runaway greenhouse effect’ paradigm (applied to Earth’s climate) after reading Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking work outlined in his book, The Cosmic Connection. Since that time, I’ve worked more extensively than most inside efforts targeting mitigation of volatile organic compounds, alkanes, methane, and carbon monoxide/dioxide contribution on the part of mankind.”

and

“I have shared in the grave concern over human contribution to the stark rise in global temperatures now obviously underway.”

[chubbs]

 

12 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I didn't mean that the data in the chart is not meaningful. However, there are better ways to judge overall temperatures for subseasonal and seasonal periods. For example, using only metrics such as used by Heller, there could be a July where the temperature spikes to let's say 100° in Philadelphia, but the month overall could wind up cooler than normal. Heller's type of analysis would flag it as "hot" if he is scoring things based on 100° days. Meanwhile, there could be another July where the monthly anomaly is +2.5°, but the highest maximum temperature is 97°. If Heller is using 100° days, his analysis would flag the month as "cool." Period average highs, lows, and means do a better job in assessing the outcome for the period in question.

I'm calling BS on the chart, a typical Tony Heller cherrypick. The charts below shows rankings for 80F days this year and the departure from normal for high temperatures. The only area that didn't reach 80 was Alaska. Most of the US has had an average or above average number of 80F days this year and almost the entire US had average or above average high temperatures.  Its been a warm year so far. Tony picked the best stat he could find to hide it.

[donsutherland1]

37 minutes ago, chubbs said:

 

I'm calling BS on the chart, a typical Tony Heller cherrypick. The charts below shows rankings for 80F days this year and the departure from normal for high temperatures. The only area that didn't reach 80 was Alaska. Most of the US has had an average or above average number of 80F days this year and almost the entire US had average or above average high temperatures.  Its been a warm year so far. Tony picked the best stat he could find to hide it.

Thank you for posting this information. The rankings make clear that Heller's chart is inaccurate. I went to the tool and exported the data. Just 0.3% of the stations were 4th lowest in terms of the number of 80F days through May 31. There is no plausible way 2024 ranked fourth lowest.

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2024-06-genius-scale-material-earth.html

... This above links back to a conceptual idea we've discussed in the past ( distantly ) in this thread.  Namely, how humanity, has become ( or 'allowed itself to be' more precisely...) too inexorably dependent upon technology, will most likely require technology to pull us back from the brink.  It's a race...

The above article is an early example of just such an innovation. These kinds of innovation are going to have to keep emerging, because CC is/has already proven to be outpacing the nearly untenable, slower response curve of 8 billion persons - too much momentum to deviate fast enough.  

See .... this is my personal only response I can come up when I'm listening/reading to the doom-casting of humanity's ( and countless other species for that matter) future. Many of the doom projections, partially negate innovation in the full spectrum of adaptation.  'Can there be invented, proverbial "filters" that control C02, as well as the so-called 'forever chemicals'? 

    * As an aside, we may very well end up in a future state where we've tackled the CC crisis, with much faster returns on success than ever imagined possible; but then suffer the irony of Microplastics - which really is a bad rubric, because the nano-particulates are apparently maintaining structure and that is far worse.  Example, they've crossed the reproductive boundary.  These "unintended by nature" foreign substances are now being found inside human and other mammalian testicles and ovaries.  If one were an investor on Wall Street, and there were ever an option created that bets on the future in such matters, go long on birthing rate crisis. It's nearing criticality... For over a decade, the birthing rate drop off among 97% of the global population roots was believe to be primarily cultural feed-back-related.  Now, a growing uh-oh consilience over this discovery's implications is both quite obvious and unsettling...  

Cross that bridge I suppose. In the meantime, I'm not sure the fuller spectrum of human adaptation is considered.  It's understandable why that may not be considered enough. One cannot modulate what is known, based upon what is unknown about the future - not with any certitude.  That is like proverb worthy.  Believe me, much to the chagrin of whomever, CC and/or pollution are going to doom humanity whether you believe it or not.  It's up to those who who rightfully do, to turn the gears of discovery and innovations that can save this thing, in spite of those that believe there are no problems. If new tech can out pace their stupidity, much, much more than just the intelligence of humankind may prevail.

[TheClimateChanger]

On 6/1/2024 at 9:08 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

I find the suppression in latitude fascinating - not a climate introspective, but for the Meteorology.  The pattern foot so far this spring has been limiting expansion, perhaps masked by seasonality.  In other words, folks would be inclined to suggest 'Hey, it's only May'.

Yeeeeah, but I suspect there's some relativity going on.  

My personal suspicion is that the background planetary environment passed through a global threshold at some point over the last 10 years - together with some fantastic singular warm anomaly events, when then aggregating those synergistic heat bomb phenomenon together with the early in 2023 total GW spike ( air and sea, everywhere!) ... I just think we're staring at a duh situation trying to understand the specter so vast the boundaries of which aren't yet very obvious.  Kind of like a deer caught the headlights cliche ( so to speak..)  But maybe given time any such threshold to be defined. 

Within the confines of that new paradigm, we should be seeing more of these heat expansions prior to the solstice insolation - that's the relativity, in that we may merely be seeing a suppression of that new norm, endemic to this spring. 

I'm looking at the long lead telecons, out through the third week of June, and suppression of 'big heat' and/or SW expulsion events, N-E of St Louis ( ~ ) isn't favored.   Yet if that is materialized in the spatial synoptics ... I have a funny feeling that Mexico to Florida and S. TX ...possibly as high as Dallas to Alabama and the Carolinas from time to time, may swelter while ORD-BOS is mollycoddled with temperate spoils. 

Sorry @Typhoon Tip, I'm not seeing the suppression in latitude. It was the warmest meteorological spring of record in a large number of locations.

[Typhoon Tip]

58 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Sorry @Typhoon Tip, I'm not seeing the suppression in latitude. It was the warmest meteorological spring of record in a large number of locations.

One had to go by context root on that exchange between Don and myself. 

It's been above normal ... but we are not over a Standard Deviation distinction like they've been down there. 

We certainly could have been much more extreme given the pattern, but the pattern foot print has been preventative from bringing that.  Equivalent would have been much more excessive, with consistency, to ORD-NYC latitudes.

[TheClimateChanger]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

One had to go by context root on that exchange between Don and myself. 

It's been above normal ... but we are not over a Standard Deviation distinction like they've been down there. 

We certainly could have been, but the pattern foot print has been preventative from bring that.  Equivalent would have been much more excessive, with consistency, to ORD-NYC latitudes.

I think the explanation is much simpler. The standard deviations [i.e., internal variability] is substantially lower in those locations due to being at low latitude and being surrounded by water. A couple degrees of warming in the Caribbean or Florida is all it takes to get into a new climate regime where EVERY single month is above historical normals and where any given month in a regime favoring warm anomalies is likely to be the warmest on record. We are in that universe.

[TheClimateChanger]

Just now, TheClimateChanger said:

I think the explanation is much simpler. The standard deviations [i.e., internal variability] is substantially lower in those locations due to being at low latitude and being surrounded by water. A couple degrees of warming in the Caribbean or Florida is all it takes to get into a new climate regime where EVERY single month is above historical normals and where any given month in a regime favoring warm anomalies is likely to be the warmest on record. We are in that universe.

Even 3-4 degrees of warming in a continental influenced, mid-latitude is insufficient to cause that, because the internal variablity / standard deviation is so much greater.

[TheClimateChanger]

In fact, I would argue it's impossible to replicate that type of behavior at mid or high latitudes. The internal variability is acting in tandem with the overall warming trend, so you're going to produce outliers like February 2017, March 2012, etc. that might be difficult to beat for long periods of time even with continued warming.

[TheClimateChanger]

Basically what I'm saying is the climate warming in those regions is so substantial that standard deviations based on historical climate norms are meaningless, because the current mean is already 1 or more standard deviations above the historical data.

[Typhoon Tip]

2 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Even 3-4 degrees of warming in a continental influenced, mid-latitude is insufficient to cause that, because the internal variablity / standard deviation is so much greater.

I get how the math works... That's why I said "equivalency" in that.  

That was a synergistic R-wave feed back, the likes of which have been occurring with increasing frequency world over, that has struck Mexico and the Marine climate region over to Florida. Those are different phenomenon from the normalized CC footprint.  

That's what we were getting at before

[Typhoon Tip]

9 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

In fact, I would argue it's impossible to replicate that type of behavior at mid or high latitudes. The internal variability is acting in tandem with the overall warming trend, so you're going to produce outliers like February 2017, March 2012, etc. that might be difficult to beat for long periods of time even with continued warming.

This is unfortunately not true. It would be nice if that were the case, but ...  it's happened twice at equivalency into the British Isles/latitudes in the last several years.  The Pacific NW in 2021...

The frequency of these occurrence has been rising.  And there are papers being published on reviewed-reserved servers that discuss - next time I happen by one I'll be happy to send over the link. 

 

[TheClimateChanger]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

This is unfortunately not true. It would be nice if that were the case, but ...  it's happened twice at equivalency into the British Isles/latitudes in the last several years.  The Pacific NW in 2021...

The frequency of these occurrence has been rising.  And there are papers being published on reviewed-reserved servers that discuss - next time I happen by one I'll be happy to send over the link. 

 

Not sure those are analogous to what's going on in the tropics.

If we look at Mexico City, for instance, we just a nonstop barrage of monthly mean temperatures FAR in excess of existing records in 2024. I don't believe that to be the case in the instances you cite.

March

April

May

 

[TheClimateChanger]

The funny thing is you look at scoundrels like Tony Heller and they are posting articles from 1962 about millions dying, and we are just leaving 1962 in the dust. Same thing with 1921. He often posts some old New York Tribune or something that had a multipage spread on the heat alleging millions dead. I just don't understand how this is possible. These years are cold compared to today. You could argue air conditioning, but is it that prevalent in those regions to offset the massive population growth and aging that has occurred.

Really makes you wonder: (1) Were the historic reports untrue or exaggerated? Or (2) Is something more sinister afoot - like millions of deaths being covered up and simply not reported on by the press? That is, if millions were dying in these much cooler climate regimes, how many are dying today?

[Typhoon Tip]

5 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Not sure those are analogous to what's going on in the tropics.

If we look at Mexico City, for instance, we just a nonstop barrage of monthly mean temperatures FAR in excess of existing records in 2024. I don't believe that to be the case in the instances you cite.

March

April

May

 

I'm not sure you understood what 'equivalency' means? 

Just in case, referring to relative to climatology of the respective regions.

Believe me, if you look at the empirical numbers of diurnal high temperature in the Pac Nw and in London, they are not only comparable to the SD by climate, at those latitudes, I would argue that Pac NW beats in direct scalar comparison anyway.

It was routinely at or above 115 F up there just for the purpose of that one example.  

One aspect though ... DPs were likely not comparable - but I am not honestly sure about that metric/comparison.  If it were 115 in both places, the tropics may have a much deadlier consequence in HI, due to attending theta-e density ... but also, much greater thermodynamic signature.

[donsutherland1]

AMOC breakdown risk: This isn't necessary the most likely scenario, but an illustration of an uncomfortably high short-term probability.

The underlying paper can be found here: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nyas.14659

[Typhoon Tip]

25 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

AMOC breakdown risk: This isn't necessary the most likely scenario, but an illustration of an uncomfortably high short-term probability.

The underlying paper can be found here: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nyas.14659

You know it's funny ... the circulation was always about the slow moving thermal-haline cycle/forcing with the fresh water inclusion at surface density/buoyancy effecting the chimney fall rates ... ultimately slowing the overturning cross hemispheric oceanic circulation.  We've actually been discussing that for ... wow 30 years at this point.

That's still out there as far as I'm aware. Particularly if Greenland decides to unburden it's Millennial mass.  etc...

But wait, now we have these other circulation mode catastrophes emerging that show the not-so-slow moving characteristic. Beautiful.   

[TheClimateChanger]

22 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I'm not sure you understood what 'equivalency' means? 

Just in case, referring to relative to climatology of the respective regions.

Believe me, if you look at the empirical numbers of diurnal high temperature in the Pac Nw and in London, they are not only comparable to the SD by climate, at those latitudes, I would argue that Pac NW beats in direct scalar comparison anyway.

It was routinely at or above 115 F up there just for the purpose of that one example.  

One aspect though ... DPs were likely not comparable - but I am not honestly sure about that metric/comparison.  If it were 115 in both places, the tropics may have a much deadlier consequence in HI, due to attending theta-e density ... but also, much greater thermodynamic signature.

I think we're talking about different time scales. I've seen like months and months [3-6+] in a row in some of these more tropical regions set monthly record temperatures. You'd be very hard pressed to find that outside the tropics.

And I wasn't too surprised by those temperatures. It's a lot drier there in the summertime, easier to heat up the atmosphere. Still much more deadly in the eastern U.S. with astronomical wet bulbs. We might not get those 115F+ readings, but need to keep an eye on the 85, 90, even deadly 95F wet bulbs in the future.

[TheClimateChanger]

On 6/3/2024 at 11:07 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

One had to go by context root on that exchange between Don and myself. 

It's been above normal ... but we are not over a Standard Deviation distinction like they've been down there. 

We certainly could have been much more extreme given the pattern, but the pattern foot print has been preventative from bringing that.  Equivalent would have been much more excessive, with consistency, to ORD-NYC latitudes.

I think in the future we may have better chances of seeing drier heat episodes with excessive temperatures. When I look at a map, I look at that massive continental expanse called Canada. And I just think - geez, in this hothouse earth, that should be a blazing inferno in the summertime. I think it's only thermal inertia keeping things relatively in check. I do wonder if, in the future, we will see massive heat ridges forming over the Northern Plains and Canada and moving south into the United States.

Imagine a 120-130F air mass over Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta pushing southeast into the U.S. with a pall of suffocating dust and wildfire smoke. 

[Typhoon Tip]

24 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I think in the future we may have better chances of seeing drier heat episodes with excessive temperatures. When I look at a map, I look at that massive continental expanse called Canada. And I just think - geez, in this hothouse earth, that should be a blazing inferno in the summertime. I think it's only thermal inertia keeping things relatively in check. I do wonder if, in the future, we will see massive heat ridges forming over the Northern Plains and Canada and moving south into the United States.

Imagine a 120-130F air mass over Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta pushing southeast into the U.S. with a pall of suffocating dust and wildfire smoke. 

I've wondered before how a 1936 heat wave would be if it occurred today.   The thing is, it's not just an arithmetic assumption - like ...we cannot just assume since the climate is X degrees warmer, add that difference to the outcome. That's not how things work.

The 'synergistic feedback,' a phenomenon that has been contributing to those heat explosions taking place all over the globe, cannot really be predicted as they are emergence that exceed the parametric input into the system ...i.e., "more than the sum of the contributing factors"  ... that is why modeling will fall shy of the extreme results. 

The idea here, if one is intuitive and clever, the "synergistic potential" in 1936 is different than it is in 2024.  For example, better land management and thus sustaining irrigation ... it's not clear how that would effect a feedback model. The daily "burst" temp is higher today than back whence...no doubt.  Just looking at London, the Pac NW ...France and Australia and SE Asia frequencies.  But the better land management may cap some of the extremeness too.  It's a lot of math there.

[GaWx]

17 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I've wondered before how a 1936 heat wave would be if it occurred today.   The thing is, it's not just an arithmetic assumption - like ...we cannot just assume since the climate is X degrees warmer, add that difference to the outcome. That's not how things work.

The 'synergistic feedback,' a phenomenon that has been contributing to those heat explosions taking place all over the globe, cannot really be predicted as they are emergence that exceed the parametric input into the system ...i.e., "more than the sum of the contributing factors"  ... that is why modeling will fall shy of the extreme results. 

The idea here, if one is intuitive and clever, the "synergistic potential" in 1936 is different than it is in 2024.  For example, better land management and thus sustaining irrigation ... it's not clear how that would effect a feedback model. The daily "burst" temp is higher today than back whence...no doubt.  Just looking at London, the Pac NW ...France and Australia and SE Asia frequencies.  But the better land management may cap some of the extremeness too.  It's a lot of math there.

 

 It wouldn't at all surprise me if the hottest highs in much of the Midwest would be cooler due to significantly higher avg relative humidity/much higher crop coverage keeping the ground from heating up as much. Actually, I'd expect that. But I'd expect the lows to be higher.