And that’s a wrap! Good thread, everyone!
It’s one of those situations where facts, actual real things, could support his claim. In fact, it’s a great opportunity to show how right he has been, for ages now.
Of course the only thing so far is just one post, AFTER the much colder winters had happened. That doesn’t say anything at all about winter trends, except that he claims they won’t be colder than the past.
It’s an example of the nebulous and falsifiable claims that were actually being discussed in that topic.
Priceless.
Here’s a quote from the thread, with a clear question about the matter.
It is an almost perfect example of what people actually want to know about climate change.
Does global warming predict winters will be colder, or warmer?
Does global warming mean there will be more snow, or less snow, or no change in snow?
You might think, since the science is settled, that the global warmer, when faced with such questions, would answer them.
There is no doubt at all, that before the winters became obviously colder, and before the snow amounts became very much higher, what the answer was. It’s in the IPCC reports, it’s in all kinds of science papers, and all over the reports and media stories from climate experts.
Climatecentral even published that not only are winters warming, they are warming faster than ever, and warming faster than any other season.
Do you think that is true? And is it what global warming predicts will happen?
And even more important, does global warming theory predict globally, that winters will become warmer? (it does)
Does global warming theory predict winters will show the most warming? (it does)
Does global warming theory predict less snow, and more rain? (it does)
If you have been saying, for ages now, something different, then post a link to it. It’s a simple thing to do.
Now what I see happening all the time, when faced with specific issues, pointed questions, and scientific problems, the person making a claim, that can’t actually be supported, engages in woo woo science, woo woo reasoning, the same type of flim flam behavior con artists and politicians are fond of.
The scientific and logical thing to do is to admit uncertainty, to be honest about unknowns, and to fess up when your past predictions, or projections, turn out to be wrong. Just as a real scientist changes a theory, or rejects it, when the facts show with no doubt, the theory is wrong.
That is actual science, it happens all the time. There is no scientific reason to hang on to something that isn’t working. If facts and logic and reason were all there were to it, science would work just fine. But when you see somebody avoiding a discussion, refusing to debate something that certainly is up for debate, or worse, using woo woo tactics rather than honest and full disclosure, something else is going on.
The above is all either opinion, or fact, it depends on what you believe. It’s exactly this sort of situation, where we are faced with some short but clear thoughts about science, global warming and what is going on, that the facts don’t matter. Belief is what matters.
If you don’t believe something, then it’s not a fact to you. But somebody who does believe the above, they consider it factual. It’s exactly what this debate is about, as pointed out by the conflicting quotes in the OP.
One person believes opinions don’t matter, only facts.
The other says facts won’t work, we need more opinions.
Is there any possible way that any facts, or any kind, are going to change the belief of those two men? They have different beliefs about how to proceed.
The man who consider facts the important thing, he will not be swayed by your opinion.
The man who considers opinions the important thing, he will not be swayed by facts.
Fascinating.
Obviously you do not now what rhetoric is, in any case I was referring to the acceleration of the ice loss in the Arctic. And I indeed talked also about harsher winters a few years ago, the take home lesson is that if FX being an ignorant of what I was talking about is not really a good argument.
As for the recent progress shown by Cohen on what that the observed warming seen for several years will do to the weather in the Arctic regions and closer to it your basic mistake remains, Cohen and other researchers do use the observed warming of the Arctic in their models. As pointed many times before scientists are wondering how that piece of extreme weather in the arctic region will land in the big puzzle.
The other more robust pieces (like the predicted warming and the loss of ice at the polar region) are not changing, much to your chagrin. They are following what some expected for more than a decade already or are worse than what many predicted.
http://vault.sierraclub.org/planet/199707/portents.asp
The word you are missing is harsher. But thank you for finally acknowledging that I did indeed claimed that years ago.
We already know that in your sorry attempt at making hay of what I said before you are only tossing Cohen under the bus, what I have observed many times before is that almost all researchers you use as champions are in reality your enemies.
That isn’t what I called bullshit on. After I posted the following;
"I’ve said it before, but it just doesn’t sink in. If these new developments are actually due to CO2, and the trends we are seeing are actually do to climate change, then it’s much worse than what the IPCC/consensus science has been telling us would happen.
Like winter storm Juno, getting ready to slam the north east US at the moment. If the winter weather is actually because of human caused climate change, due to AGW, human emissions and an enhanced greenhouse effect, we are looking at a much worse situation than what the models and the experts have been saying for decades now.
Much colder winters, with much more snow, along with an increase in warm season temperatures, is a much worse disaster than what basic global warming theory predicts.
It’s the worst scenario of all."
You then posted
which I called bullshit on. You can’t back up your claim, so it’s bullshit.
Changing it to “it was rhetoric” is fine, then just admit you were bullshitting. In any case, it isn’t true, and you can’t defend it, because it’s bullshit.
And I said yes. Because the evidence does show that the observed ice extend affected by the warming was worse than expected in the arctic.
(Look at the Arctic ocean graph)
It was one of the few examples of expected results being worse than the projections. As I was aware of others complaining about the IPCC’s conservatism, that was one of the main reasons why I said that.
That is what it does not seems to sink in.
And that Cohen is not your friend.
Only that this just shows that you did not look at what Cohen and many others reported recently, they are not rejecting the idea of humans causing the current warming. In fact it is an important piece of their report that leads to Arctic Amplification, to more water vapor in the region, and then to more extreme weather in regions around the Arctic, like in the mid-latitudes:
As Figure 4 shows, Cohen and others are not rejecting the current views on Global climate change; far for from it, they build on it so as to explain what is going on in the Arctic and Mid-latitudes.
And this once again shows how mistaken you are, the increase in snow in some regions is not making the more robust conclusions made before with the main theories wrong.
This shows that you are not comprehending the words I type out on the page. It’s a strawman when you say “they are not rejecting the idea of humans causing the current warming”, since only you have ever typed out those words.
Of course I never typed out any such thing, nor would I. Nor would I type out such a claim. Neither Cohen or anyone else mentioned in regards to the cooling boreal winters is saying any such thing. Certainly he makes it clear that the models, and the theory, are wrong. But that does not equate to rejecting human causes, nor CO2 as the source of the observed warming. Obviously Cohen is putting forth the idea (theory) that the warming is CAUSING the changes, not that there is no warming.
There is no way you can’t know this at this point. Cohen’s theory is that the warming is CAUSING the colder winters, the vast increase in snowfall, the changes in the jet stream patterns, arctic warming, polar vortex, negative forcing due to an increase in snow, colder winters over the mid-latitude continents . He is saying that clearly. As well as stating clearly this does not fit with global warming theory.
http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_NGeo14.pdf
You seem to confuse what Cohen has published and stated, with what I am saying. They are not the same thing. (obvious man is obvious)
Same for the new MIT paper, don’t confuse what they published, with my statements about what it could mean.
Nope, he does not say that, only you claim that. All along Cohen was telling us that the models were missing something, and now many researchers are figuring out what.
The main theory was not wrong for Cohen for the simple reason that he clearly uses it to explain what is the likely mechanism driving the storms.
You guys need to get it over with and screw.
No way, he is on the record of having nuclear cuties too. 
As in: also ignoring what experts report about nuclear power.
Since the subject is about facts, it is really strange that he is demanding us to not confuse what they [the scientists] published, with his statements about what it could mean. It seems that that is what he is going all along, but if what he is going on are opinions, then there is nothing much more to say.
Dammit. This is technically in violation of one of our weirder GD laws - that one can’t imply that others derive sexual gratification from an event or argument. I’m letting it go because I think it’s rarely known.
But no one do it again. Ugh.
Thank you for demonstrating that you have absolutely no idea of the difference between a forcing and a feedback. You have already amply demonstrated that you also have no idea how water vapor behaves in the atmosphere. This is what you said here:
*Water causes both warming and cooling, in all kinds of ways, but it is not a feedback. When water vapor increases in the atmosphere (which it does all the time, as well as decreases), it does not somehow make it warmer, which causes more water vapor, which causes warming, which causes more water vapor.
That isn’t happening, does not happen. The climate would be unstable, the energy balance would constantly change, with the planet warming up.*
And you also said this over here:
It is assumed that more water vapor will cause more warming, which will cause more water vapor, which will cause more warming. Which is exactly where the wheels fall off and the entire theory falls apart.
All of this is of course completely wrong, complete bullshit. Water vapor is the most powerful and important feedback in the climate system. This isn’t even Climate Science 101, it’s high school physics, a direct consequence of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. And, as I’ve already explained several times, water vapor feedback stabilizes because of cooling from blackbody radiation leading to increased OLR as the temperature rises. The radiative flux to space from OLR cooling per unit temperature rise is about twice that of water vapor feedback warming, so it’s a self-stabilizing feedback. I’ve talked about this before, so maybe you understand it now, but you clearly did not at the time you wrote that nonsense.
Additionally, Cohen says no such thing as you claim, and neither does any other reputable investigator. Cohen hypothesizes mechanisms, like increased snow cover, that trigger changes to Arctic circulation systems, specifically the Arctic Oscillation and the NAO, and its tendency to put the AO into a negative phase and push colder Arctic air further south than usual. Moving air around clearly has nothing to do with any overall cooling from any alleged “negative feedbacks”. This is not a small distinction. The earth and especially the far north continue to warm, the earth’s energy balance continues to trend upward, and increasing water vapor is a major positive feedback in that process.
Oh, really? Only in the ridiculous cherry-picked graphs that you manage to create, using cherry-picked timeframes or comically inept misinterpretations, which have been refuted every time you’ve posted this crap. My statement was simple and straightforward, and the evidence is equally straightforward. The first graph here is NH summer trends from the middle of the 20th century to the present, the second graph is winter trends. The boreal regions and further north, where seasonal insolation varies the most, are clearly seen to be color-coded with vast swaths of red and burgundy in the winter (meaning rapid warming – 2-4°C – and very rapid warming – 4-5°C, respectively). In summer, there’s hardly any red areas at all. The same thing is also observed if one maps the trend from the beginning of the 20th century.
This graph clearly quantifies summer vs. winter warming for the NH.
Furthermore, the whole argument is a red herring anyway. No one disputes that in some regions, in recent years, some winters have become colder than in prior years. This is why researchers like Cohen and Francis are investigating the circulation changes that are responsible. That is the basis of Cohen’s research. No one except you is suggesting that this proves global warming theory has suddenly gone bad, like a carton of Chinese food that’s been left in the fridge too long. :rolleyes: Yet you suggest this persistently. You’ve turned it into a kind of parlor trick rather than science – trying to confuse the foundational underpinnings of a theory (if certain things are false, then the theory cannot possibly be true) with ancillary predictions about things that have multiple explanations perfectly consistent with the theory.
Every phrase in that statement is wrong. And moreover, whether the papers’ hypotheses are true is not the point at issue; it’s very likely that they are true. Cohen in particular covers so many bases that at least some of his hypotheses are probably true. What is at issue is your ridiculous interpretation of how it supposedly invalidates AGW theory.
So stop saying that it does. To wit: “the entire theoretical framework of current consensus global warming theory, due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, from increasing CO2, might be completely wrong”.
Bummer how the things you say remain on the record.
Maybe you should pay more attention. Scientists like Cohen use these media venues to explain to the layman in simple terms the basic concepts that you constantly get wrong. Given all the above, and the many other egregious mistakes that I’ve pointed out in the past – and let’s not forget polemics like “the IPCC is woo woo science” – I really have to wonder if you even believe your own bullshit.
So I did learn something!
I did as well, And it’s actually quite startling to realize anyone else is still reading the thread at this point!
Unlike you, I can easily show with sources why I state anything, which makes sense, because if there is no scientific basis for something, I can’t really know much about something. The usual “cherry picking” accusation gets old quick, especially since the time periods and trends I mention are also used by actual climate experts. For example, on 02-19-2014 I posted the following.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17120601&postcount=1
This was met with all kinds of bullshit, including accusations of cherry picking, and of course “You know nothing about anything”, pretty much like what you just said above. But in Dec 2014, actual climate experts, including Phil Jones, state the same thing in their paper Trends in hemispheric warm and cold anomalies
Scott M. Robeson, Cort J. Willmott and Phil D. Jones
Article first published online: 17 DEC 2014
It’s not for free yet, so I can’t quote or link to the data they used, but it’s stated in plain language here:
https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/December/extreme-temperatures-CRU
There it is, the warming was offset by cooling during NH winters, exactly what I stated in Feb 2014, before this paper was out. I even said "Various ideas are being discussed to explain WHY it’s happening, like the paper in the first line of this topic. Yet some people are still arguing it isn’t actually happening. "
Which is exactly what I said in the other topic.
I’ve been using the facts, the same time periods and data they used, and wondering why the NH winter cooling is happening. I also noted it was so strong it pulled the global mean down, which is what they discuss in the paper.
Yet the facts made no difference at all to those who already had made up their mind.
Here are some more facts from the discussion of the paper.
Or as I showed, multiple times, winters were warming faster than summers, up until about 30 years ago, where the trends reversed, and now summers are warming, while NH winters show cooling. This is exactly what they are discussing in the paper, as well as a whole bunch of other experts.
It can no longer be ignored or handwaved away. Not by actual climate scientist.
[INDENT]Nobody said the papers undermined anything. I clearly said “if” they turn out to be true, it “may” mean that the basic assumptions about winter warming, reduced snow, and a feedback from water vapor increase, all parts of basic global warming theory, may turn out to be wrong.[/INDENT]
That’s what you calim, that does not make it factual. Anymore than my saying “if this is true, then this may be the case”, which is scientific thought. Of course it can be wrong, that’s part of the debate. One can say the same thing about basic global warming theory, it might be wrong. In regards to the predictions about what will happen, and how fast, and where. That’s the actual issue.
No, if the theory turns out to be true, it’s a big issue, and quite important. If snow in Siberia and Asia is actually forcing colder winters, that’s huge.
I have said as much, stating the obvious is obvious.
That’s one issue. It seems from your perspective, your opinion, that even if Cohen is right, and colder winters with more snow are actually caused by warming, that doesn’t invalidate anything. Which is nonsense of course.
If the opposite of what a theory predicts actually happens, and it’s not just natural variation, we are actually seeing global climate change happening, in the case of the drastic increase in cold and snow, you seem to think it means global warming theory is still right.
Which is where the rubber hits the road in science. Claiming the warming winters were due to global warming, and now the cooling winters is due to global warming, and then claiming in the future winters will once again start to warm, and it’s all due to global warming (AGW), due to human causes, is more than absurd, it’s comical.
It actually is the issue.
Changing the narrative, the claims of a theory, as conditions change, is actually what happens in science. But you can’t claim that your predictions were correct, by changing the story after the facts become evidence. That’s the part that rational people object to. If the claim was “snow is vanishing, winters are becoming milder, global warming is most evident in the winter changes, there will be more flooding from rain instead of snow, and early melting of the snowpack , and water supplies are threatened due to lack of snow”, if those were the claims (and they were), you can’t change it AFTER it becomes obvious that didn’t happen. And then say global warming predicted colder winters, with more snow.
Well you can, but you lose your credibility. Certainly we are seeing some serious efforts to somehow change the past, to try and avoid the simple facts. Facts like “we did not predict this at all”, and “this does not fit with the theory at all”.
My idea, which drives some people into a frenzy, is simple and easy to state.
If the colder winters are not just natural variation, if they are instead actually caused by warming, then basic global warming theory is wrong about a few things. AGW does not predict or explain colder winters, more snow, and it sure doesn’t predict the cooling in NH winters would be so strong it causes the annual global mean to look flat. (the pause)
Which is exactly what Phil Jones is discussing in the 2014 paper I linked to. This connects as well to the MIT paper, about models showing the AGW will be from increased SW energy, not LW. And that this will be due to a reduction in snow and ice.
Which leads back to why I stated “if this is true”, it means the basic theory is wrong about the most warming being in NH winters, and that extreme warming will result from lack of snow. If the opposite is happening, then we won’t see what the MIT models at all.
That is what Cohen reported already, and he is not confused, he told us that the arctic region is warming.
To put it more clearly: Cohen and his group are telling us that the warming going on in the arctic is clear, and the cold extreme weather events are happening in mid-lattitudes, once again: it is not in the whole hemisphere and not enough to counter the global warming observed.
Of course you have to continue with your continuous mistake about Cohen because then there is very little to complain about it.
As per your go to guy Cohen, it is still.
And this where the mistake is, the cooling is not happening in all regions, and many expected that cold records would happen still in a warming world.
It was very comical to think that the universe turned around the earth, science has showed many, many times before that what you feel is not the correct thing.
That’s not what Jones and others are talking about.
https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/December/extreme-temperatures-CRU
In the last 30 years, however, that pattern reversed, with warm anomalies increasing at a faster rate than cold anomalies. They are talking about how in the last thirty years, winters have cooled, rather than the expected warming. The NH trend for winter is negative, from 1990-2014
This shows that Earth’s temperature was becoming more homogenous with time, but that this trend has recently reversed. The trend, faster warming in winters, has reversed. Now summers show warming, while winters are cooling. It’s exactly what the paper is about.
They want to know why. Just as Cohen is theorizing about, why is it happening? It’s not just regional. The NH land winter trend is negative, for 1990-2014
Even with the arctic warming, and tropics slightly warming, the mid latitude cooling is so strong, the entire NH land trend is cooling, for 1990-2014
This a fact.
It’s also a fact, as they point out, it’s Jan and Feb that show the cooling trend, while other months show warming. More recent data, and shorter trends, also show December cooling. Not for small regions, for large regions. And it’s so much cooling, it actually may be, as they say in that paper, the reason for the pause.