# Global Warming progressing far faster than previously thought **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2014, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056 "2014-01-17T13:47:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/161 "2014-01-27T21:17:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That is exactly what I thought, until I really looked into the matter. It wasn’t just the record all time back to back blizzards, which shut down the US Post Office for the first time in history, it was the cold. If it had been a strong warm front producing the snow, followed by warm temperatures, it would been hand waved away with ease. More moisture yadda yadda yadda just wave it away. But the temperature trends, as well as the winter snow trends, that got my attention, since it didn’t jibe with the theory. Not at all. Certainly one anomaly, one cold winter is nothing to worry about much. But to find patterns, trends, and ones that couldn’t just be an anomaly, that was most interesting. Coupled with the quite obvious skull fuckery evident in some the purloined letters, a perfect storm of skepticism swept all before it. > I agree, and seriously, who wouldn’t? Ah yes, of course those who own some stock in fossil fuels, they might object, but what person concerned about the world wouldn’t want to reduce the horrific pollution from coal burning? Coal mining? Or to decrease or even eliminate the horror at the gas pump? The problem I have with this view is that it assumes that weather isn’t variable at all. We get things like a 100 year flood, or a 150 year hurricane season, or such, where it’s few and far between - but it does happen. I can look back in my own area’s history and see that about every 15 [+/- 2 years] years, we get a few very suck-ass winters in a row. On a longer term, using weather records, about every 30 years we also get so much snow that the city shuts down. I don’t expect this to vanish simply because of 1 C of warming. I’d be suspicious of it at the 2 C level, with milder coming into play in the 2.5 - 3.5 C range and “spring winters” in the 3.5 - 4 C range, with elevating dryness up from there. Don’t conflate single or short term events with what’s going on on the global scene. I warn the activists that saying Katrina is the earf trying to hurt us back of the same thing. (And I strain my eyes when people go “We will have a Katrina every year from here on out.” on the network news channels, too.) As for the variable trends, I’d be careful doing that. When I look at temperature series, I don’t look at 1970 as a baseline. I look at the current available year for a baseline (so it becomes a negative or positive change compared to the most recent yearly average) and always look at graphs for as many years as I can. Finding patterns in select data is very, very easy. Especially if you use simple linear trending. Using a polynomial trend helps you identify what can be short term downturns much easier. We all know that it raised, but while it was raising there was fluctuations. If there were 10 down turns this century that lasted 5-10 years, then we are either an extreme version of that same trend due to a confluence of events we can’t explain or we are breaking the mold. We don’t have enough evidence to predict either way, unfortunately. Since we are holding relatively steady on average temperatures, though, I think that something we don’t understand is going on. We can accept that and still understand that things are a-changing. I can also accept that some political shenanigans are afoot in regards to the climate emails, but, to be honest, I have several scientists in my family (not in climate science) and their fields are equally…erm…special. Arguments, rivalries, and claims like what we found in the climategate and climategate 2 emails can be found all over the place, not only in modern science but in old timey science as well. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > I would love to run my already low pollution vehicles on pure ethanol. Or even better, electricity from solar panels. Especially if I owned the panels. Unless you are a lunatic, you are concerned about the world at large, and the effects from the massive amount of carbon mankind is putting into the air, each moment of every day. If you purchased a flex fuel vehicle, odds are good that you can simply pipe in a new fuel and flash the ECM to time for it properly. I had a setup on my old car that would run LPG, Natural Gas, Gasoline, or E85. All I’d do is switch a dial in my dash to tell the ECM what to time for and to power that system’s pump/regulator (E85 and Gas obviously shared system-space, but were timed differently.) My new car isn’t Flex Fuel compatible, but I got it for low gas burn at long commutes. I was looking into getting FF components installed and it was prohibitively expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/162 "2014-01-27T21:24:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Not quite what the researchers are looking for, remember, this is about climate, long range data points are very useful for them, lets not confuse it with weather. Climate is weather plus energy budget times time. Thus, looking at “climate” in terms of how polar air is affecting my city, today, is most useful when looking at in context of long term trends. Thus, you need long term records and historical instances of that same thing happening, which is why I requested data on that. Saying “Well, they studied temperature and wind.” is like me studying quartz and shale and watching a volcano erupt and then saying I understand how the earth works. I need much more data than that, and we need more data to prove that the warming air is causing the so-called “polar vortex” when we had similar coldness in our weather 30-50 years ago, depending on region. If the warming caused it, it should have caused it back then which means the warming has changed nothing. If it didn’t cause it, what caused it, then? And what mechanism drives frosty air into the US in “normal” climate times? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/163 "2014-01-27T21:36:42Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The very reason the cooling trends for large areas of the NH winters are being discussed, is because they are arguing they can’t be “explained away” as natural variation, that bugaboo of climate science. The “they” are not climate scientists, nor are the experts that look at that data, you still need to post a single researcher from GISS, NASA, NOAA, scientific American that agrees that there is no natural variation that was expected or that the cherry picks you are doing are proper. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > You are simply saying it isn’t happening. No, he is talking about the whole winter, not specific locations. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/164 "2014-01-27T21:40:12Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > And you tried to say you alone understand Cohen et al(2012) > > When a peer reviewed actual scientific publication states something as clearly as possible, and you still can’t follow along, there is something besides ignorance at work here. > > The very reason the cooling trends for large areas of the NH winters are being discussed, is because they are arguing they can’t be “explained away” as natural variation, that bugaboo of climate science. Ummm… yes, I do understand Cohen at al. Perhaps we should see who is making unsubstantiated claims here. This is [what you said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17048118&postcount=91): > [@](#): > > In general we are seeing a **cooling trend for the boreal winters** , a completely unexpected event, and it’s now 25 years of cooling, long enough it can’t be ignored, or explained away as “natural variation”. This is [what I said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17051534&postcount=157): > [@](#): > > Even if winters were actually colder – **they aren’t** – just look at the GISS temperature maps for any reasonable time period – there are only short-term **regional effects**. This is what the Cohen paper says: > [@](#): > > boreal winter (December, January and February (DJF)) NH winter land surface temperatures **exhibit no linear trend**. Which is to say, there are (as I said several times now) areas of regional cooling, but also significant areas of boreal winter warming, and boreal winters on average are \*\*NOT \*\*getting colder. And I have to mention this gem, also said by you in the above-linked post: > [@](#): > > It’s this cooling trend that is bringing down the global averages, … now reflecting an apparent lack of understanding of the basic thermodynamics governing the earth’s energy budget, more or less on a par with the water-vapor-as-a-forcing nonsense. Note this statement, from the part of Cohen’s paper that talks about the possible dynamics influencing boreal winters: > [@](#): > > Increasing autumn snow cover has important dynamic implications for the winter climate as its variability can force the wintertime phase of the AO You do realize that the AO is by definition an internal variability, right? It’s an index of atmospheric pressure differentials that determines the degree to which Arctic air penetrates lower latitudes. Its effect on the energy budget is precisely zero, and its persistent effect on global average temperature – in the absence of magic – must therefore also be zero. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/165 "2014-01-27T22:05:44Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Climate is weather plus energy budget times time. Not quite, climate refers to the mean observed in a period of time. And that is why having even just monthly records helps a lot. > **[Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology)** > > NCEI manages the world's largest archive of climate and paleoclimatology data. Our mission is to preserve and make this data and information available in order to understand and model environmental variability on an interannual to millennial time... > [@](#): > > Climate is the weather pattern we expect over the period of a month, a season, a decade, or a century. More technically, climate is defined as the weather conditions resulting from the mean, or average, state of the atmosphere-ocean-land system, often described in terms of “climate normals” or average weather conditions. Climate Change is a departure from the expected average weather or climate normals. > [@Farin](#): > > Thus, you need long term records and historical instances of that same thing happening, which is why I requested data on that. Saying “Well, they studied temperature and wind.” is like me studying quartz and shale and watching a volcano erupt and then saying I understand how the earth works. Long term records are available thanks to paleoclimate. > [@](#): > > Paleoclimate is that which existed before humans began collecting instrumental measurements of weather (e.g., temperature from a thermometer, precipitation from a rain gauge, sea level pressure from a barometer, wind speed and direction from an anemometer). Instead of instrumental measurements of weather and climate, paleoclimatologists use natural environmental (or “proxy”) records to infer past climate conditions. Paleoclimatology not only includes the collection of evidence of past climate conditions, but the investigation of the climate processes underlying these conditions. > [@Farin](#): > > I need much more data than that, and we need more data to prove that the warming air is causing the so-called “polar vortex” when we had similar coldness in our weather 30-50 years ago, depending on region. If the warming caused it, it should have caused it back then which means the warming has changed nothing. But that is once again demanding weather, not what the main point of climate, what they can tell you is only the likelihood of a weather phenomenon can take place. The problem here is that you are demanding certainty on an area that was already acknowledged as not being as precise as you want regarding extreme weather events, what researchers can tell is that we will see less cold days, but the chances will remain that we will see weather extremes like the polar vortex some day again. Now, about ocean rise, more global warming, ocean acidification, and the intensity of several weather extremes (all that energy and material - more water vapor in some areas - has to go somewhere when a hurricane comes along) there is more certainty. > [@Farin](#): > > If it didn’t cause it, what caused it, then? And what mechanism drives frosty air into the US in “normal” climate times? This is falling for the fallacy many contrarians make, nature is still the cause, the problem is that the warming caused by humans is making many of those phenomenons worse as time goes by. It was like Kerry Emmanuel reported once, humans are not the cause of a hurricane, but all that extra energy and material has increased in the background thanks to us, one does not need to be an expert to figure out where all that is going when a hurricane comes along. We are loading the dice. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/166 "2014-01-27T23:47:00Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Not quite, climate refers to the mean observed in a period of time. And that is why having even just monthly records helps a lot. > > [Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleo.html) The mean of what? Oh, that’s right: Weather. Climate is the mean of weather. Thus, if we are looking to explain why it’s frosty cold, right now, and the answer is “climate change” we need more data on how climate change is affecting the weather, and looking for data from the past, which would reflect what climate was in the past also, provides a greater building block to climate models for the future. So, as I said, and your own source said in a simpler way, climate is weather plus energy budget over time. The energy budget is a key study area of climate science for a reason: If the sun becomes white hot (Angry God Syndrome?) and we get hit with three times the energy, that significantly affects the underlying weather that means into the climate. If energy budget and resulting temperature were completely useless to climate, we wouldn’t spend any time researching historical temperatures through trees and ice cores. The sad part is, temperature is half the picture and the only half of the picture we can reliably derive or have direct historical records for. Remember that 11,700 year temperature recreation (Marcott et al, I think off the top of my head)? We had a couple hundred years of weather roughly as hot (+/- 1C of today) as we are experiencing now about 500-1,000 years after the end of the glaciation – but we have no idea what drove it there or what caused it to drop back down, again. Without those important contexts, we have no idea how much of our current climate is being screwed by CO2. We know we’ve been warming far longer than our industrial age, and some think that we should have dropped back into a second LIA, but it’s hard to know for sure what’s actually supposed to be “normal” right now because we lack this understanding of the climate’s underlying weather. It is a well known weakness that our science community is trying to fix. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Long term records are available thanks to paleoclimate. Long temperature derivations are available thanks to paleoclimate studies. How those temperatures got to be there isn’t. This is a well known failing of climate studies - we can look at various data sets (trees, ice cores, etc) and get the temperature and get a climactic temperature mean – but that’s half the picture. Climate Scientists are trying to tease this apart and spend some decent time trying to figure out how a volcano affected the actual weather (and not just the temperature) so that we can figure out how to make their models betterer. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > But that is once again demanding weather, not what the main point of climate, what they can tell you is only the likelihood of a weather phenomenon can take place. :dubious: So, climate is the mean of weather…but we can’t ask for data on weather? We can’t research it to help us understand the climate better? > [@GIGObuster](#): > > The problem here is that you are demanding certainty on an area that was already acknowledged as not being as precise as you want regarding extreme weather events, what researchers can tell is that we will see less cold days, but the chances will remain that we will see weather extremes like the polar vortex some day again. I’m not asking for certainty, I’m asking for data. I will ask again: Do you have more data, from which a comparison or maybe even a hypothesis (if it’s a lot of data) can arise that would better define the climate model by making a better model of the underlying weather patterns that compose the climate mean? I will say this to you, again: When I ask for data it’s for research. You have at least 12.9 million links sitting around on climate change topics and I tend to enjoy reading most of them. I know you have this many, I’ve seen you use them. 😉 If you have something handy, I’d love to read it. If you don’t have that information in front of you, you can just say “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything on that topic.” Telling me I shouldn’t be looking in the first place isn’t useful. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Now, about ocean rise, more global warming, ocean acidification, and the intensity of several weather extremes (all that energy and material - more water vapor in some areas - has to go somewhere when a hurricane comes along) there is more certainty. Yes, but often what we think is “somewhere” isn’t where it really goes. We will eventually find the dust bin of excess energy, but not all of the energy we currently think should be flinging tornados, hurricanes, and killer bees our way do what we think they should. We are missing components of the system and if those components are bleeding energy out, we are very much poorer for not knowing what those are. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > This is falling for the fallacy many contrarians make, nature is still the cause, the problem is that the warming caused by humans is making many of those phenomenons worse as time goes by. It was like Kerry Emmanuel reported once, humans are not the cause of a hurricane, but all that extra energy and material has increased in the background thanks to us, one does not need to be an expert to figure out where all that is going when a hurricane comes along. We are loading the dice. …Understanding nature, and reviewing the data, will actually tell us how much we are loading the dice. Are they leaded to only show snake eyes and get us screwed or are they loaded to only make rain harder and snow rarer? We have a gap of understanding and everyone knows it. I certainly didn’t claim that nature is somehow king and that we somehow don’t have any impact. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/167 "2014-01-27T23:59:40Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Not because you say so, that isn’t science, nor of any use. You can’t just make up something, and pretend it has the force of factual information. In the real world, the winters are extremely relevant. And in utmost irony, one reason the winter cold is so important is the need to provide vast amounts of fossil fuels to people, so they don’t die. Same for livestock and transportation, snow and cold are real world events that can’t be ignored. If “global warming” actually means more extreme winters, with the warming happening in the rest of the year, we need to know this, it actually matters. Well, then I welcome you to: 1. Point out existing peer-reviewed research addressing this hypothesis 2. Do the legwork and produce your own, and submit it for peer review. It’s the same thing as when I was presented earlier with someone who earnestly denied that CO2’s absorption spectrum allowed it to have any impact on global temperatures. I don’t know a whole lot about CO2’s absorption spectrum, but I do know where to go to look for peer-reviewed papers on the subject, and it turns out he was full of shit. Similarly, your hypothesis is interesting. I, like most people here, don’t really have the knowledge to critique it effectively, though. So why don’t you compile your data and _publish it in a peer-reviewed journal_ instead of trying to take shortcuts? I mean, it doesn’t help your case that **wolfpup** sort of destroyed your hypothesis in the last thread (and you continued to trumpet it anyways), but it would be an interesting start, rather than a complete waste of time. > [@](#): > > Returning to the OP for a moment The description of people looking at the data as the\*\* “no warming in 16 years” crowd\*\* is quite telling, that this may not actually be a scientific debate going on. Yes! There is no actual scientific debate whether or not the earth is warming. That “debate” goes on in the tabloid press, on FOX News, and in the blogosphere. The “no warming in 16 years” crowd belong in a list alongside the “CO2 is plant food” crowd, the “Medieval Warm Period was warmer therefore current warming is natural” crowd, and for good measure the “Climategate proves it’s all a conspiracy” crowd. You know. Stupid, misguided, and/or crazy people. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/168 "2014-01-28T00:22:13Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > [snip] > > We know we’ve been warming far longer than our industrial age, and some think that we should have dropped back into a second LIA, but it’s hard to know for sure what’s actually supposed to be “normal” right now because we lack this understanding of the climate’s underlying weather. > > It is a well known weakness that our science community is trying to fix. But not a show stopper. Remember, that for the climate change contrarians somehow it should stop those darn scientists. > **[The difference between weather and climate](https://skepticalscience.com/weather-forecasts-vs-climate-models-predictions-intermediate.htm)** > > \Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change.\ > [@](#): > > Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change. > [@Farin](#): > > :dubious: So, climate is the mean of weather…but we can’t ask for data on weather? We can’t research it to help us understand the climate better? > [@](#): > > This argument betrays a misunderstanding of the difference between weather, which is chaotic and unpredictable and climate which is weather averaged out over time. While you can’t predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. Or expressing that in weather terms, you can’t predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation will result the same for the region over a period of time. > > Climate prediction is a difficult and ever refining art. There’s the problem that future behaviour of the sun is very difficult to predict. Similarly, short term perturbations like El Nino or volcanic eruptions are difficult to model. Nevertheless, climate scientists have a handle on the major drivers of climate. > [@Farin](#): > > I’m not asking for certainty, I’m asking for data. I will ask again: Do you have more data, from which a comparison or maybe even a hypothesis (if it’s a lot of data) can arise that would better define the climate model by making a better model of the underlying weather patterns that compose the climate mean? > > I will say this to you, again: When I ask for data it’s for research. You have at least 12.9 million links sitting around on climate change topics and I tend to enjoy reading most of them. I know you have this many, I’ve seen you use them. 😉 If you have something handy, I’d love to read it. If you don’t have that information in front of you, you can just say “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything on that topic.” Telling me I shouldn’t be looking in the first place isn’t useful. Plenty of resources over here on climate: > **[RealClimate: Data Sources](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/)** > > RealClimate: This page is a catalogue that will be kept up to date pointing to selected sources of code and data related to climate science. Please keep us informed of any things we might have missed, or any updates to the links that are needed.... The point stands though, you are indeed demanding that climate researchers become weathermen, however as long as we understand what is the difference we can look at the work done on integrating weather and climate models, on that front it is mostly the Met office in the UK the ones that are doing a lot of work integrating their weather model with their climate ones. > **[Unified Model](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/approach/modelling-systems/unified-model)** > > The Unified Model (UM) is a numerical model of the atmosphere used for both weather and climate applications. > [@](#): > > The Unified Model is continually developed (see figure), taking advantage of improved understanding of atmospheric processes and steadily increasing supercomputer power. The latest version of the atmospheric model uses non-hydrostatic dynamics with semi-lagrangian advection and semi-implicit time stepping. It is a grid point model with the ability to run with a rotated pole and variable horizontal grid. A number of sub-grid scale processes are represented, including convection, boundary layer turbulence, radiation, cloud, microphysics and orographic drag. It can be run as a global model, or a limited area model and can also be coupled to land surface, ocean models, wave models, chemistry and Earth system components. AFAIK this is related to the increase of resolution that we are getting from the improved computer power now available; but, once again as Richard Alley would say, just because we are just getting there and more research is needed in that weather front it does not mean that we should stop or wait to do changes as the more likely problems that are coming in a warming world are still there. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/169 "2014-01-28T00:38:29Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > But not a show stopper. Remember, that for the climate change contrarians somehow it should stop those darn scientists. > > [The difference between weather and climate](http://www.skepticalscience.com/weather-forecasts-vs-climate-models-predictions-intermediate.htm) Why am I remembering this? Once again, you have tried to turn a request for information into a rant about deniers. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Plenty of resources over here on climate: > [RealClimate: Data Sources](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/) All of which are temperature models. I’ll just take this to mean “No, Farin, I don’t have the data you asked for.” See? Simply. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > The point stands though, you are indeed demanding that climate researchers become weathermen, however as long as we understand what is the difference we can look at the work done on integrating weather and climate models, on that front it is mostly the Met office in the UK the ones that are doing a lot of work integrating their weather model with their climate ones. :dubious: Climate is more than temperature. Temperature is a good indicator, but it’s half the picture. I know that the Met has spent 20+ years trying to build bigger and better models that integrate weather and climate. But if you work with it, it switches to different models based on the time span you input. Each time scale is a separate model: 100-11 years, 10 - 1 years, 1 year to 1 month, 1 month to 7 days, 7 days. And, I haven’t looked at it in a few years, but I doubt it suddenly has historical weather records for the arctic. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > AFAIK this is related to the increase of resolution that we are getting from the improved computer power now available; but, once again as Richard Alley would say, just because we are just getting there and more research is needed in that weather front it does not mean that we should stop or wait to do changes as the more likely problems that are coming in a warming world are still there. …When have I said “stop” to anything? While I don’t agree with your particular strategy (which I won’t go into here), I by no means think we should “stop.” Why do you keep arguing that point? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/170 "2014-01-28T00:48:38Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > …When have I said “stop” to anything? While I don’t agree with your particular strategy (which I won’t go into here), I by no means think we should “stop.” Why do you keep arguing that point? Because, once again, one side is not relying on science. I know that you are not a denier, but I have to look at the audience and posters here. > [@Farin](#): > > but I doubt it suddenly has historical weather records for the arctic. And you should know that even if you do not want to see it that way that insistence on talking about the weather is a typical maneuver from the deniers, just saying. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/171 "2014-01-28T01:01:28Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Because, once again, one side is not relying on science. I know that you are not a denier, but I have to look at the audience and posters here. > And you should know that even if you do not want to see it that way that insistence on talking about the weather is a typical maneuver from the deniers, just saying. I feel I’m up front about what’s understood and where improvement is needed in most of my posts. The weather connection to climate is one of those areas for multiple reasons. What I don’t do is go “HEY THEY CAN’T EXPLAIN KATRINA/POLAR VORTEX/HYSTERECTOMIES THEY ARE FRAUDS.” I go "They can’t explain the polar vortex and I’m interested in learning more about this weather pattern, too bad we don’t have weather pattern histories as it would help the science very much. frowny face frowny face " If someone were to extrapolate that conclusion from the limitations, I’d be the first to teach them that a lack of understanding doesn’t negate what **is** understood. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/172 "2014-01-28T01:14:34Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > I feel I’m up front about what’s understood and where improvement is needed in most of my posts. The weather connection to climate is one of those areas for multiple reasons. What I don’t do is go “HEY THEY CAN’T EXPLAIN KATRINA/POLAR VORTEX/HYSTERECTOMIES THEY ARE FRAUDS.” I go "They can’t explain the polar vortex and I’m interested in learning more about this weather pattern, too bad we don’t have weather pattern histories as it would help the science very much. frowny face frowny face " > > If someone were to extrapolate that conclusion from the limitations, I’d be the first to teach them that a lack of understanding doesn’t negate what **is** understood. Once again your posting the strawman of reasonable and rational discourse. No progress can be made when you allow logic to enter towards your posting. As Richard Alley says “climate is what we make of it and if you are denying climate then you are denying 10,000 years of paleoclimate histories that tell us the climate did just do what it did just do.” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/173 "2014-01-28T01:34:22Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > I feel I’m up front about what’s understood and where improvement is needed in most of my posts. The weather connection to climate is one of those areas for multiple reasons. What I don’t do is go “HEY THEY CAN’T EXPLAIN KATRINA/POLAR VORTEX/HYSTERECTOMIES THEY ARE FRAUDS.” I go "They can’t explain the polar vortex and I’m interested in learning more about this weather pattern, too bad we don’t have weather pattern histories as it would help the science very much. frowny face frowny face " As pointed by many scientists, it is important to figure that out, but it should never stop us from going forward on controlling emissions. > [@Farin](#): > > If someone were to extrapolate that conclusion from the limitations, I’d be the first to teach them that a lack of understanding doesn’t negate what **is** understood. Again, just check what Richard Alley is telling us: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/a69_owv4jEE/maxresdefault.jpg ""We don't know enough..." How to talk to an OSTRICH") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a69_owv4jEE) > [@](#): > > It’s true that Earth’s a massive jigsaw puzzle, with lots of pieces intricately fitting together. But, Richard Alley argues, we already know enough to see the Big Picture. The missing pieces of scientific understanding - exactly how clouds work, how extreme weather will change with global warming - are important, but we can already see how Earth works. I know it is a little bit maddening, but I do remember how difficult it was for the IPCC to keep out the best information on the acceleration of the ice loss in the arctic because it was not conclusive back in 2007, sure, it would had matched most of the ice loss that was in the end observed and the IPCC would had an early warning about the ice loss acceleration, but suppose the IPCC had not been conservative, told us about the likely acceleration but it had failed to pan out? Then not only clerical errors like the Himalaya ice loss date would be fodder for the contrarians but also a real mistake. What Alley reports there is a similar situation now regarding weather extremes, AFAIK there is a lean towards those extremes becoming more prevalent than just more intense, but there are many studies that are a mixed bag. The point here is however this one: it is bad enough that we will have to deal with rising oceans, acidification, desertification and weather extremes that are harsher thanks to the background energy and material out there in several regions. I do not think we should continue with the experiment of not controlling our emissions if on top of all that there is a chance that we will get \*\*also \*\*even more wild weather extremes. [https://www2.ucar.edu/news/backgrounders/hurricanes-typhoons-cyclones](https://www2.ucar.edu/news/backgrounders/hurricanes-typhoons-cyclones) > [@](#): > > ``` > A 2008 study (see NOAA news release), led by Thomas Knutson at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, combined a higher-resolution regional model with IPCC projections for the late 21st century of global-scale atmosphere and ocean conditions. The team's technique indicated an average drop of 18% in the number of Atlantic hurricanes and a 2% rise in average intensity. One limitation to this study is that the model had difficulty producing hurricanes at Category 3 strength or greater. (Christopher Landsea discussed this issue in a 2007 article in EOS, as did Knutson et. al. in an online FAQ.) > Using statistics on hurricane development, MIT’s Kerry Emanuel "seeded " a set of IPCC global projections with weak tropical waves, then tracked those that developed, using a more-detailed, hurricane-scale ocean-atmosphere model. His 2008 study (see MIT news release) showed a tendency toward more and stronger tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific, with fewer but more intense cyclones globally. However, there are substantial differences among the various IPCC projections used, plus a good deal of variability from decade to decade (view a PDF of this paper). > > ``` > > \*\*Several groups are attempting to produce global models that can directly depict hurricanes without an intervening small-scale model. The first such study, produced on Japan’s Earth Simulator computer and released in 2005, indicated more and stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic by later this century. \*\*Globally, it showed a 30% drop in the number of tropical cyclones, but a rise in the number and strength of the most intense hurricanes (view a PDF of this paper). Edited to add: so no **RaftPeople** , Richard Alley did not said that. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/174 "2014-01-28T01:34:26Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Once again your posting the strawman of reasonable and rational discourse. No progress can be made when you allow logic to enter towards your posting. As Richard Alley says “climate is what we make of it and if you are denying climate then you are denying 10,000 years of paleoclimate histories that tell us the climate did just do what it did just do.” Cite on that quote, please. The rest of your post is uselessly hostile and irrelevant. If you want to fight ignorance you don’t introduce more of it to a discussion or debate. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/175 "2014-01-28T01:36:43Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [snip] You are arguing points I haven’t made with me. Please stop doing this. You have plenty of real fodder in this thread to rail against. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/176 "2014-01-28T01:47:41Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Cite on that quote, please. > > The rest of your post is uselessly hostile and irrelevant. If you want to fight ignorance you don’t introduce more of it to a discussion or debate. It was joke. It was nonsense. **GIGObuster** was doing to you the exact same thing he has done to me and many others for a loooong time which is to continually not even grasp the point being made and then counter it with a rebuttal of an extreme statement that wasn’t even made in the first place. I don’t think it’s possible to introduce more ignorance into a debate/discussion in which valid points (even from climate model scientists themselves) are argued against in a knee-jerk fashion without even grasping their validity or relevance. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/177 "2014-01-28T01:48:38Z")
[ol] [/ol] > [@Farin](#): > > You are arguing points I haven’t made with me. Please stop doing this. You have plenty of real fodder in this thread to rail against. Sorry, but as you can see from your previous reply to another that claims to be in the middle it is clear that \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*was correct, a lot of the discussion going on where it counts is not in the golden middle, and indeed FX did not had a good point there. The point stands anyhow, thinking that it is “too bad we don’t have weather pattern histories as it would help the science very much” is not really much to the point and once again, a lot of the items in that line of criticism is coming from denial sources. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/178 "2014-01-28T01:49:39Z")
(post #112): > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Not because you say so, that isn’t science, nor of any use. You can’t just make up something, and pretend it has the force of factual information. In the real world, the winters are extremely relevant. In the real world Winters are no more or less relevant than the rest of the year, and so should be assigned equal weight in calculating average global temperature. If Winter is defined as Dec-Jan-Feb then Winter should be weighted 25%, just like the other seasonal 3-month periods. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > And in utmost irony, one reason the winter cold is so important is the need to provide vast amounts of fossil fuels to people, so they don’t die. Same for livestock and transportation, snow and cold are real world events that can’t be ignored. If “global warming” actually means more extreme winters, with the warming happening in the rest of the year, we need to know this, it actually matters. “Global warming” means that _eventually_ average global temperatures will rise at all latitudes for every month of the year. It does not mean that the timing of the increase will be evenly distributed > [@FXMastermind](#): > > As some astute minds have pointed out, nobody actually knows what is going to happen, those that claim they do are nutjobs. Seriously, they are delusional, especially considering the evidence we have now, showing very much how wrong the predictions have turned out to be. For the record I am undecided about AGW, although I am inclined to believe it is taking place. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Nobody has argued that the annual trend from 88 is warming, though the arguments over 1998-2013 are still ongoing. You are using a strawman argument. Please desist. Excuse me, but in post #87 you repeatedly drew attention to Winter cooling going back to 1988 and further, and it was no strawman to provide rebuttal in the form of graphics illustrating full-year 12-month trends rather than partial year Dec-Jan-Feb trends. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/179 "2014-01-28T01:54:00Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > It was joke. It was nonsense. > > **GIGObuster** was doing to you the exact same thing he has done to me and many others for a loooong time which is to continually not even grasp the point being made and then counter it with a rebuttal of an extreme statement that wasn’t even made in the first place. > I don’t think it’s possible to introduce more ignorance into a debate/discussion in which valid points (even from climate model scientists themselves) are argued against in a knee-jerk fashion without even grasping their validity or relevance. Don’t think so, what it is clear in your case though is that just like a contrarian you will get stuck forever with the impression that I did not grasp the point, I actually did and I said what was needed also: Schneider would roll in his grave if he had see you only mentioning just a quote were he explained about direct experimentation not being possible with models and omitting all his lifetime work of observational experiments with models. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/180 "2014-01-28T02:05:41Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > It was joke. It was nonsense. FWIW I got it, and thought it was funny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056.md?page=10)