Odds of Record-Breaking Summer Heat Happening Without Climate Change? Try 1 in 1.6 Million
Amazing as it seems, there are actually still people out there who refuse to accept the fact of anthropogenic (or man-caused) global climate change, despite the consensus of nearly every climatologist on the planet, despite a growing mountain of scientific and statistical confirmation, and despite the fact that these same people are sweating their *sses off this summer.
Then again, there are people who still believe that man never landed on the moon or that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Some people are just incapable of rational thought, I guess.
Article excerpt follows:
Odds of Record-Breaking Summer Heat Happening Without Climate Change? Try 1 in 1.6 Million
—By Kate Sheppard
Wed Jul. 11, 2012
You don't need science to tell you it's been really crazy hot lately in much of the United States. But seriously, it's been really stinking hot. How hot? Well, the last 12 months have been the hottest since recorded-keeping started in 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Average temperatures in the continental US for the month of June were a full 2 degrees above the average for the 20th century. It was even worse in Colorado, where temperatures for June were 6.4°F above average. In the latter half of June, 170 record temperatures were broken or tied, hitting 113 in South Carolina and 112 in Georgia, for just two examples.
Sure it's summer, and summer is supposed to be hot. But not this hot—not without global warming at least. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center says that the odds of this heat wave occurring randomly would be 1 in 1,594,323. Pretty low odds. Even critics of that figure say the chances of this summer happening without global warming would be extremely low at 1 in 100,000.
It's not just this year. A new paper published by the American Meteorological Society this month, highlighted in the New York Times on Wednesday, looked at the data on 2011. That paper found that the drought due to high temperatures in Texas last year were “distinctly more probable” than they would have been 40-50 years ago, thanks to global warming. And the high temperatures in the United Kingdom in November 2011 were made 62 times more likely to occur by global warming.
Of course, saying any specific weather event happened "because of" climate change is difficult. But the AMS paper does a good job of explaining what these attribution studies really show:
One analogy of the effects of climate change on extreme weather is with a baseball player (or to choose another sport, a cricketer) who starts taking steroids and afterwards hits on average 20% more home runs (or sixes) in a season than he did before. For any one of his home runs (sixes) during the years the player was taking steroids, you would not know for sure whether it was caused by steroids or not. But you might be able to attribute his increased number to the steroids. And given that steroids have resulted in a 20% increased chance that any particular swing of the player’s bat results in a home run (or a six), you would be able to make an attribution statement that, all other things being equal, steroid use had increased the probability of that particular occurrence by 20%.
Read More: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/you...
Top Opinion
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Skeptikat 2012/07/12 21:36:03
Hmm... tricky...
http://online.wsj.com/article...
Might want to think about that one a little.
Hmm...Not so tricky
We have an opportunity to look forward and adapt, to evolve with a situation rather than fight over what caused it and essentially mimic the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.
This is a test of your objectivity on the issue.
The consensus of the scientific community is "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. . . . the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability."
1. As a matter of FACT, "consensus" IS used regarding scientific judgment:
[QUOTE]
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method. Nevertheless, consensus may be based on both scientific arguments and the scientific method.[1]
Consensus is normally achieved through communication at conferences, the publication process, replication (reproducible results by others) and peer review. These lead to a situation in which those within the discipline can often recognize such a consensus where it exists, but communicating to outsiders that consensus has been reached can be difficult, because the 'normal' debates through which science progresses may ...
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The consensus of the scientific community is "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. . . . the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability."
1. As a matter of FACT, "consensus" IS used regarding scientific judgment:
[QUOTE]
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method. Nevertheless, consensus may be based on both scientific arguments and the scientific method.[1]
Consensus is normally achieved through communication at conferences, the publication process, replication (reproducible results by others) and peer review. These lead to a situation in which those within the discipline can often recognize such a consensus where it exists, but communicating to outsiders that consensus has been reached can be difficult, because the 'normal' debates through which science progresses may seem to outsiders as contestation.[2]
Scientific consensus may be invoked in popular or political debate on subjects that are controversial within the public sphere but which may not be controversial within the scientific community, such as evolution[3][4] or the claimed linkage of MMR vaccinations and autism.[2]
[END QUOTE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ]
2. Further, as a matter of fact, SCIENTISTS use the term "consensus" regarding climate change:
[QUOTE]
Scientific consensus on Climate Change
A question that frequently arises in popular discussion of climate change is whether there is a scientific consensus on climate change.[125] Several scientific organizations have explicitly used the term "consensus" in their statements:
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006: "The conclusions in this statement reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Joint National Academies' statement."[32]
US National Academy of Sciences: "In the judgment of most climate scientists, Earth’s warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. ... On climate change, [the National Academies’ reports] have assessed consensus findings on the science..."[126]
Joint Science Academies' statement, 2005: "We recognise the international scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."[127]
Joint Science Academies' statement, 2001: "The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognise IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus."[13]
American Meteorological Society, 2003: "The nature of science is such that there is rarely total agreement among scientists. Individual scientific statements and papers—the validity of some of which has yet to be assessed adequately—can be exploited in the policy debate and can leave the impression that the scientific community is sharply divided on issues where there is, in reality, a strong scientific consensus.... IPCC assessment reports are prepared at approximately five-year intervals by a large international group of experts who represent the broad range of expertise and perspectives relevant to the issues. The reports strive to reflect a consensus evaluation of the results of the full body of peer-reviewed research.... They provide an analysis of what is known and not known, the degree of consensus, and some indication of the degree of confidence that can be placed on the various statements and conclusions."[128] -
[END QUOTE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
3. As a matter of FACT, scientific consensus is irrefutable. The list of concurring scientific organizations includes:
American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/po...
American Physical Society: http://www.aps.org/policy/sta...
The Royal Society: http://royalsociety.org/polic...
European Academy of Sciences and Arts: http://royalsociety.org/polic...
American Association for the Advancement of Science: http://www.aaas.org/news/pres...
American Chemical Society: http://www.aaas.org/news/pres...
American Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/0...
Australian Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org.au/about.p...
American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/po...
American Public Health Association: http://www.apha.org/advocacy/...
Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences: http://geoscience.ca/_ARCHIVE...
European Science Foundation:
American Medical Association: http://www.ama.com.au/node/44...
World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/world-heal...
American Statistical Association: http://www.amstat.org/news/cl...
American Association of Petroleum Geologists: http://dpa.aapg.org/gac/state...
American Association of State Climatologists: http://www.stateclimate.org/p...
NASA: http://climate.nasa.gov/evide...
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/...
4. As a matter of FACT, dissenting opinion is relegated to the fringe:
[QUOTE]
No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.[2][3] Some other organizations, primarily those focusing on geology, also hold non-committal positions.
[END QUOTE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ]
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)
Farting dinosaurs produced the methane, which a is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
http://news.discovery.com/ear...
http://www.skepticalscience.c...
All that happened and guess what the earth eventually cooled as it will now. The atmosphere holds more moisture when it is hot. So is CO2 levels higher because it is hot or is Co2 causing it hot? Co2 is needed for growth of plants.
There are many other things that cause climate change. Below, please find a graph of several of them. Note that the green line, representing man-made greenhouse gas emissions easily dominates all other potential causes of the observed warming today and that they are growing the fastest.
Please see:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/mod...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.grida.no/climate/i...
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/pale...
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/d...
Some of us think that NASA and the National Science Foundation are more credible sources.
Did you even read my post? Did you follow the links? I don't think so.
Numerous different analyses show that a long slow cooling trend lasting thousands of years, consistent with orbital cycles, has suddenly turned into very rapid warming in precisely this period of rocketing greenhouse gas levels -
This is exactly what was predicted would happen by 19th Century scientists as a consequence of human industrial output.
So... amazing coincidence, or cause and effect? What do you think?
But earth doesn't raise it's CO2 level by 40 percent in a century on its own, it takes humans to do that. And the resulting warming that also happens over decades is purely Man's doing.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1...
The last 10,000 years have been unusually stable in the context of the large climate swings between ice ages and interglacials which have been going on for several million years -
The long slow cooling trend which has been going on for several thousand years, and would have led to a new ice age in perhaps 10,000 years' time, has been turned into very rapid warming by our enormous emissions of greenhouse gases in the last 250 years -
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/846...
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu...
The only question now is how much more warming we have to see before governments start taking it seriously and take some real substantial action.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1...
The last 10,000 years have been unusually stable in the context of the large climate swings between ice ages and interglacials which have been going on for several million years -
The long slow cooling trend which has been going on for several thousand years, and would have led to a new ice age in perhaps 10,000 years' time, has been turned into very rapid warming by our enormous emissions of greenhouse gases in the last 250 years -
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/846...
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu...
The only question now is how much more warming we have to see before governments start taking it seriously and take some real substantial action.
It's no wonder America is the butt of the world's jokes.
(One might guess that if one knew that most of global warming happens at night.)
During a period of measured increases in the global mean near surface temperature, net solar irradiance, as measured by satellites carrying dual cavity radiometers, has very slightly decreased.
(Please click to enlarge the graph.)
The green line is the computed long term trend with the first harmonic removed.
The red line is the first harmonic and the linear trend.
IF THE SUN IS SLIGHTLY COOLING, WHY IS THE EARTH WARMING?
Hint, CO2.
And unfortunately, if you are going to go with the "big orange ball" theory, that would mean that Earth would never have had any ice ages, since I think you'll agree the sun is always there.
They also have nil effect on global mean near surface temperature, long or short term.
Friday Saturday
Night Morning Afternoon Eveni...
Mild.
Temperature: 62 °F 63 °F 67 °F 63 °F 58 °F 58 °F 66 °F 64 °F
That is NOT to HOT. Rather cool don't you think?
http://www.washingtonpost.com...
Records were broken in all kinds of cities, not for July 7 but EVER. (according to FOX news report I was watching from airconditioned comfort of our hosts living family room at a cookout that day)
I remember back in the 80's here in Michigan having over a week and more of 100 degrees and going to swim in Lake Superior. The water felt like bath water.
I and dare anyone to jump into Lake Superior without screaming when the temp is 80.