The climate change flip flop. No more winters, no more summers... whatever!

reply to post by soficrow

I'm advocating looking beyond the possibilities offered by a purely adversarial approach. We can't effectively "make war" on plagues, geological events or climate - but we can mitigate the effects. In terms of say the Philippines and other areas being decimated by shifting and intensifying storm patterns - look further than aid. ...What's the point of providing aid when investors are avoiding the region because they can't get adequate insurance coverage, and Filipinos have no hope for jobs or a future - or infinite aid?

That's pretty vague, to be honest. Are you wanting insurers to drop their rates? Are you wanting investors to invest?

As an example, the stated goal for AGW is to stop the production of carbon dioxide (like that is possible) and the stated means of accomplishing this is to tax the production of carbon dioxide (by taxing the use of fuels) so it is too expensive to produce. As ridiculous as this entire scheme is, at least there is a goal and a method for accomplishing it (supposedly).

What is your goal for the Philippines? What methods would you use to obtain that goal?

TheRedneck

Why does global warming make it colder?

The Arctic Ocean is absorbing more heat than it did in the past because there's less sea ice covering the water, less ice cover means less reflecting and more absorbing. As the warmer ocean water meets the significantly colder arctic air, high pressure systems are formed over the arctic region. Those systems begin to swirl and force arctic air throughout the northern hemisphere. These high pressure systems are also carrying more moisture which in winter means more snow.

This would be true of any type of arctic warming, natural or man-made. To deny that it's happening or that warming can cause colder winters in order to deny that the warming is because of burning fossil fuels, is just stupid beyond measure at this point.

Don't let reality get in the way way of your ignorance. I really can't believe the sorts that think just because it is cold outside it is an indication of weather on a global scale. I guess that is how you know they are Americans isn't it. Here you go, read some facts, it MAY make you seem less obvious....

www.usatoday.com...

reply to post by TheRedneck

reply to post by soficrow

I'm advocating looking beyond the possibilities offered by a purely adversarial approach. We can't effectively "make war" on plagues, geological events or climate - but we can mitigate the effects. In terms of say the Philippines and other areas being decimated by shifting and intensifying storm patterns - look further than aid. ...What's the point of providing aid when investors are avoiding the region because they can't get adequate insurance coverage, and Filipinos have no hope for jobs or a future - or infinite aid?

That's pretty vague, to be honest. Are you wanting insurers to drop their rates? Are you wanting investors to invest? ...What is your goal for the Philippines? What methods would you use to obtain that goal?

I don't have an agenda - except to say the current "debate" begs the real issues and ignores real victims. ...Once there is a consensus that climate change is real and real people are getting killed and displaced, then there is the possibility of real dialogue. Until then, it's just a circle jerk.

AndyMayhew
reply to post by UnifiedSerenity

 

Ah, the old "everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't we?" argument

If eveyone in your street dumped their litter in the gutter, would you? Or would you set an example by not doing so and try and duscourgae your neighbours from doing so as well?

If we discovered that, although people die of cancer and lung disease anyway, smoking cigarettes make you more likely to get cancer and lung disease, should we try and discourage people from smoking quite as much? Even if people in China were smoking even more?

Your ignorance is showing in many ways here. I did not say "Let's pollute the environment. America has some of the strictest standards in environmental safety. The only thing climate change is about is sucking money from America to line the pockets of hypocrites such as Al Gore. If you all really cared, you would demand China and other massively polluting countries put in the same technology, and/or pay fines for the clean-up they are requiring the world to do on their behalf.

Global warming is a lie.

reply to post by soficrow




Thanks for your reply. I was hoping you would describe in your own words why do you think weather-related disasters have changed in frequency or intensity. The articles in your post exclusively discuss claims made by the insurance industry. I understand that insurers and re-insurers have vested interests in minimizing risk, but they also have a vested interest in maximizing their profits.

Generally, risk assessment analysis for the insurance industry does not 'treat' climate data in ways that would allow to detect definitive trends of exteme weather events purely related to climate change. In most cases only the inflation-adjusted (economic loss) portion of the GDP is considered and the data is not adjusted for population growth, wealth accumulation or increased urbanization.

As populations grow and more 'wealth' is accumulated economic losses and damage will inevitably also increase over time, even with no changes in climate extremes whatsoever. When the non-climatic factors are taken into account and the data is normalized to isolate a climate signal, the picture is quite different.

Normalizing economic loss from natural disasters: A global analysis

A potential climate change signal is not easily detected from data of economic loss from natural disasters, however. One cannot simply look at inflation-adjusted damages from natural disasters and test for a time trend therein.

While such an analysis would be interesting for other reasons, any trend found may simply be due to the fact that areas affected by natural disasters have become wealthier over time. For example, people often move to disaster-prone areas such as floodplanes and coastal areas because other characteristics of these areas attract them, which provide a higher expected benefit than the expected cost following from damage in the uncertain event of natural disaster.

Even in the absence of migration, existing populations in affected areas are bound to increase over time, while property values are bound to rise. Hence, any increase in natural disaster damage may be entirely due to an increase in what can potentially be destroyed, i.e., an increase in exposed wealth, rather than because of an increase in the frequency and/or intensity (potential destructive power) of natural hazards. Even then, a policy response may be required of course – for example, in the form of discouraging people from migrating to disaster-prone areas and undertaking measures to protect the lives and property of existing people in such areas.

This is one of the few studies that analyses natural disaster damage and loss statistics for a potential contribution from climate change. Two normalization methods are applied, one developed for the study, and the normalized time series are then compared to each other, seperated by region (developed/developing countries) and split into geophysical and exteme weather events.

Independently of the method used, we find no significant upward trend in normalized disaster loss. This holds true whether we include all disasters or take out the ones unlikely to be affected by a changing climate. It also holds true if we step away from a global analysis and look at specific regions or step away from pooling all disaster types and look at specific types of disasters instead or combine these two sets of dis-aggregated analysis.

Much caution is required in correctly interpreting these findings. What the results tell us is that, based on historical data, there is no evidence so far that climate change has increased the normalized economic loss from natural disasters. More cannot be inferred from the data. In particular, one cannot infer from our analysis that there have not been more frequent and/or more intensive weather-related natural disasters.

The last paragraph probably the most important. The authors repeatedly stress the fact that even after the data is correctly normalized for non-climatic factors, insurance industry statistics remain a poor metric to detect any significantly changed trends.


A way to overcome problems with inherently noisy, data-rich statistics is to study time series of individual weather events on a country-by country basis. The U.S. has a comparatively long observational record for tornando frequency and intensity that can be correlated to a long-term statistic of estimated tornado-damage and economic loss.

Normalized tornado damage in the United States: 1950– 2011

This article normalizes U.S. tornado damage from 1950 to 2011, using several methods. A normalization provides an estimate of the damage that would occur if past events occurred under a common base year’s societal conditions. We normalize for changes in inflation and wealth at the national level and changes in population, income and housing units at the county level.

Under several methods, there has been a sharp decline in tornado damage. This decline corresponds with a decline in the reported frequency of the most intense (and thus most damaging) tornadoes since 1950. However, quantification of trends in tornado incidence is made difficult due to discontinuities in the reporting of events over time.

The normalized damage results are suggestive that some part of this decline may reflect actual changes in tornado incidence, beyond changes in reporting practices. In historical context, 2011 stands out as one of the most damaging years of the past 61 years and provides an indication that maximum damage levels have the potential to increase should societal change lead to increasing exposure of wealth and property.

There is always an advantage when exteme weather and climate-related effects are analysed individually for a specific region. In cases where long-term observations exist, like the U.S. tornado index, any change or trend can be more reliably detected.

With increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency.

To better understand the variability and trend in tornado frequency in the United States, the total number of EF-1 and stronger, as well as strong to violent tornadoes (EF-3 to EF-5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed.

These tornadoes would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years

www.ncdc.noaa.gov

reply to post by soficrow


see above

The first choice should always be to look at the climate data directly. This is something everyone can do, or anyone who is willing to invest the time and energy to examine the data sets.
Most meteorological records and climate data are publically available in excellently presented or easy-to-handle formats. Anyone with access to the internet can check whether or not significant changes are becoming more apparent.


You've repeatedly stated that you are convinced more people have died or are dying in the Pacific region due to some kind of change in tropical storm activity. I'm not completely sure if you would single-out one specific aspect or if this would include more intense storms in general.

Cyclone activity is arguably the best-monitored climate phenomenon in the Pacific, continuous detailed records from satellite observations go back to the 1970's. The records are often extended with observational data from ground-based weather radar and reconnaissance flights prior to the satellite era.

No significant trend in any of the TC characteristics (number, intensity, track types, landfall locations) can be identified. In other words, TC activity in the western North Pacific does not follow the trend in the global increase in atmospheric or sea-surface temperature.

Instead, all such characteristics go through large interannual and interdecadal variations.

Such variations are very much related and apparently caused by similar variations in the planetary-scale atmospheric and oceanographic features that also do not have the same trend as the global increase in air temperature.

www.cityu.edu.hk

Tropical cyclone (TC) activity over the western North Pacific (WNP) exhibits a significant interdecadal variation during 1960–2011, with two distinct active and inactive periods each. This study examines changes in TC activity and atmospheric conditions in the recent inactive period (1998–2011). The overall TC activity shows a significant decrease, which is partly related to the decadal variation of TC genesis frequency in the southeastern part of the WNP and the downward trend of TC genesis frequency in the main development region.

An Inactive Period of Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Activity: 1998-2011

The article is still paywalled, but the key points are discussed in a recorded lecture at the City University of Hong Kong and in a follow-up paper on forcast verification for tropical cyclone activity.

In the absence of a clear trend, either up or down, and the especially inactive period in last 10-15 years, it is hard to reconcile claims of increased storm activity with the fact that the data shows the exact opposite.




Full lecture (10mins - requires Quicktime)

Verification of Forecasts of Tropical Cyclone Activity

You can practically do the same basic analysis for most, if not all weather extremes, the data and research is mostly open access.

reply to post by Kali74

Your explanation makes sense if and only if the water is warming faster than the air. Otherwise there would be no temperature inversion.

The carbon dioxide based theory, however, states that the warming is coming from the air, not from the water. Carbon dioxide is a gas, not a liquid. If it is absorbing and re-emitting heat energy, then this is happening in the atmosphere and the atmosphere is necessarily leading the warming trend. Any surface heating is occurring as a result of more heat in the atmosphere.

Should the atmosphere heat enough to melt the arctic ice, then yes, the water will absorb more energy than ice would due to the higher reflectivity of the ice. But the temperature change for the water would be much less than the temperature change for the air, since air has a much lower specific energy than water and demonstrates a higher temperature differential given the same amount of absorbed energy.

That is not what we are seeing.

We are seeing an increase in water temperatures underneath the arctic ice, due in part to an influx of warmer than normal water from the Bering Strait currents. Why is this occurring? I don't know; I do not have the time and money to research the currents and no one else apparently cares because "it must be the carbon dioxide levels."

You say denying weather anomalies in order to deny governments taxation privileges is "stupid"; you may have a valid point. I say that adjective applies moreso to refusal to investigate anomalies to determine their actual cause because the actual cause might not be the politically desired cause.

TheRedneck

reply to post by talklikeapirat

...insurers and re-insurers have vested interests in minimizing risk, (and) maximizing their profits

Exactly. Insurers and re-insurers have vested interests in minimizing risks and maximizing profits. It's well known that insurance companies' actuarial reports are different than 'scientific' and 'political' documents - they do not have the same goals. Insurance companies' studies are used to minimize risk and maximize profits. It's a completely different kind of butt-covering. And they are minimizing their risks on climate change related 'weather.' ...As they say, they are stopping coverage in some geographic areas, raising premiums in others and lowering premiums in still other areas. This suggests seasonal storms may be moving 10 degrees to the north while increasing in severity. Whatever. Things are changing and the insurance industry is responding. Because they have to respond, accurately, or go bust.

reply to post by soficrow

This suggests seasonal storms may be moving 10 degrees to the north while increasing in severity.

Do you have any source for this. What seasonal stroms, where and how much more severe?

reply to post by TheRedneck


AFAIK the only thing needed to create a high pressure system is that the air be colder than the surface it's over, whether that's water or land.

The warmer Arctic and changes in the Arctic atmosphere may impact the Polar Vortex

The elevated pressure surfaces above the North Pole persist into early winter, setting up conditions that tend to weaken the strong Polar Vortex winds that normally circle the Arctic in a counterclockwise direction, and may impact large scale wind patterns over the Northern Hemisphere, potentially allowing cold air to move southward.

Sea ice retreat contributes to Arctic cyclone generation

The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, due to the decrease in Arctic sea ice. With less sea ice cover, the ocean absorbes more heat from the sun during summer, increasing the temperature contrast between the warm ice-free ocean and cold ice surfaces in autumn. The large temperature contrast contributes to the generation of Arctic cyclones. In the late September 2010, Japanese Research Vessel Mirai observed the explosive generation of an Arctic cyclone, shown in Figure 6.4

Scientists analyzing observations from the Mirai concluded that this is an invaluable example of the fact that sea ice retreat contributees to polar amplification of surface air temperature increase and that cyclone generation is important in the transfer of the excess heat from the ocean into the atmosphere.4

NOAA

You say denying weather anomalies in order to deny governments taxation privileges is "stupid"

I said no such thing. What I said was:

To deny that it's happening or that warming can cause colder winters in order to deny that the warming is because of burning fossil fuels, is just stupid beyond measure at this point.

What I infer has nothing to do with taxes.

reply to post by Kali74

Revisiting the evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in midlatitudes

Previous studies have suggested that Arctic amplification has caused planetary-scale waves to elongate meridionally and slow down, resulting in more frequent blocking patterns and extreme weather. Here trends in the meridional extent of atmospheric waves over North America and the North Atlantic are investigated in three reanalyses, and it is demonstrated that previously reported positive trends are likely an artifact of the methodology.

No significant decrease in planetary-scale wave phase speeds are found except in October-November-December, but this trend is sensitive to the analysis parameters. Moreover, the frequency of blocking occurrence exhibits no significant increase in any season in any of the three reanalyses, further supporting the lack of trends in wave speed and meridional extent.

This work highlights that observed trends in midlatitude weather patterns are complex and likely not simply understood in terms of Arctic amplification alone



We find that the metrics disagree on whether a significant trend in wave extent has been observed, and we explain this disagreement as arising due to the methodology of defining the wave on either daily or seasonal time scales. In addition, we demonstrate that when both metrics focus on a narrow range of isopleths to track the ridges and troughs of a passing wave they incorrectly interpret a shift of the geopotential height field as a change in wave extent. When this shift is accounted for, no significant trend is found.

We further investigate whether large-scale waves have slowed down in the recent decades and find no significant trends except in the Autumn months, although the significance of this trend is sensitive to the diagnostic field and the specific averaging domain.

Furthermore, no significant increase in blocking occurrence is detected in any season. We conclude that the mechanism put forth by previous studies, that amplified polar warming has led to the increased occurrence of slow-moving weather patterns and blocking episodes, appears unsupported by the observations.

reply to post by talklikeapirat


Another way for me to have put my post is this:

As long as there is ice and cold air in the arctic in the winter, the northern hemisphere will continue to be cold in winter also, with periods of extremes because of what I said before.

Kali74
As long as there is ice and cold air in the arctic in the winter, the northern hemisphere will continue to be cold in winter also, with periods of extremes because of what I said before.

The Earths rotation and axis beg to differ.

The poles will always be cooler then the equatorial belt, so long as the Earth continues to spin on her axis.

reply to post by talklikeapirat


As I said, "Whatever." Meaning, "Hypothetically speaking."

Didn't mean to be unclear.

reply to post by Kali74

AFAIK the only thing needed to create a high pressure system is that the air be colder than the surface it's over, whether that's water or land.

Actually, let's address this first. That is how a low pressure system develops. The warmer surface warms the air, which then rises and reduces surface air pressure. Winds then develop to offset the lower pressure area and can bring in moisture from warmer climates. This moisture mixes with the cooler air already there and creates precipitation a'la lake-effect snowstorms that affect areas of the Northeast US.

Even the link to NOAA you provided does not state what you are arguing. All it does is show the anomalies along with some explanation of the potential of future progression. Pressure has increased, but this cannot be attributed to warmer water underneath colder air. Such a condition should produce lower pressures and increased winds; the report shows the opposite.

Now if we have cooler surfaces, such as ice, with warmer air above them, that would contribute to a high pressure system developing... as the ice cools the warmer air, it becomes denser and tries to sink, drawing more air from above and resulting in an overall downdraft. But that means the ice would melt very slowly since it takes a huge amount of warmer air to melt a small amount of ice. The speed at which arctic ice has been melting indicates warmer water instead of warmer air. Water has a much higher specific heat than air, meaning it holds more heat energy than air does, and the warm water would tend to rise toward the ice instead of away from it. This is indeed apparently the case:

Ice extent in the Arctic was below average during November. There was substantially less ice than average in the northern Barents Sea, likely due to an influx of warm ocean waters and the persistence of a strong positive Arctic Oscillation (AO).

Source: nsidc.org...

The temperature of the Bering Sea was rising at one point, and NPR pointed this out to us in 2006 in this report dated 2006, complete with implied references to the doom porn of AGW theory. NOAA as well agrees that up until 2007 the Bering Sea was warming - see figure 3 in this report. But figure 3 also shows lower temperatures beginning in 2007, strangely contradicting NPR's attempt at propaganda.

And of course, we had this thread pop up in Septenber:
Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year

So, to summarize, we have evidence of influx of warmer waters through the Bering Sea until 2007 and a return to more normal influx temperatures since. Warmer waters would have led to melting ice along with low pressure over the area, which would have caused winds to blow from warmer regions toward the low pressure. Beginning in 2007 this situation reversed itself and led to the slightly warmer air now above the arctic circle being over colder waters and ice, which would account for the high pressures and the decrease in winds NOAA reported in your link.

No carbon dioxide needed. No planetary disasters required. Just a shift in currents which reversed itself and the associated effects of re-stabilization of the areas affected.

So where did this influx of warmer water com from? I do not know at this time. To be honest, I'm not really concerned at this time, because they were, in the end, not persistent. I'm sure some with more scientific curiosity in that field than I will eventually discover the whys and hows; it is sufficient for me that it is not a persistent trend.

What I infer has nothing to do with taxes.

What you infer has everything to do with taxes if you base it on AGW theory (regardless of you call it "Climate Change" or not). The theory exists as an excuse to raise taxes, not to correct any temperature anomalies nor to explain any planetary changes that may be occurring.

One cannot separate AGW theory form carbon dioxide-related paranoia, because that is the basis of the theory. One cannot separate carbon dioxide-related paranoia from "carbon-credit" taxation because the former exists to allow the latter.

You may think you are not implicating taxation as a response to planetary concerns, but as long as your arguments are based upon AGW theory, you are in reality doing so.

TheRedneck

tothetenthpower
reply to post by ketsuko

 

Right, but there is a certain ammount of it that certainly is man made. China's factories don't actually help the atmosphere right?

Do pray tell, what part of it is "certainly...man made"?

So, there's work we need to do. The carbon tax thing is just a scheme.

~Tenth

Agreed here, but this message is being overwhelmed by the "we need money because we are going to be 6 feet under the sea" crowd. Many people, even "deniers", recognize that there is a better way to utilize resources, but constantly being beating down by the crowd that calls them deniers, doesn't help.

reply to post by soficrow

As I said, "Whatever." Meaning, "Hypothetically speaking."

If it's only (your) hypothesis then how do you reconcile your own ignorance with making statements like this.

Amazing, isn't it - even with the internet and our new-found ability to inform ourselves beyond what the MSM wants us to see, people are even more insular, narrow-minded, blinkered, bigoted and uninformed. Go figure.

Maybe you should heed your own implicit advice there and inform yourself beyond MSM reports.

talklikeapirat
reply to post by soficrow

 

As I said, "Whatever." Meaning, "Hypothetically speaking."

If it's only (your) hypothesis then how do you reconcile your own ignorance with making statements like this.

As you know full well, I said, "Whatever." Meaning, "Hypothetically speaking," in the following context:

(Insurance companies) are stopping coverage in some geographic areas, raising premiums in others and lowering premiums in still other areas. This suggests seasonal storms may be moving 10 degrees to the north while increasing in severity. Whatever. Things are changing and the insurance industry is responding. Because they have to respond, accurately, or go bust.

Nothing hypothetical about the context - just my 'guesstimate' that "seasonal storms may be moving 10 degrees to the north." Clearly I have a valid point about insurance coverage else you would not find it necessary to misrepresent my statements, focus on manufactured side issues and generally indulge in fallacious logic.

reply to post by soficrow

(Insurance companies) are stopping coverage in some geographic areas, raising premiums in others and lowering premiums in still other areas. This suggests seasonal storms may be moving 10 degrees to the north while increasing in severity. Whatever. Things are changing and the insurance industry is responding. Because they have to respond, accurately, or go bust.

That is my point. Seasonal storms did not 'move' 10 degrees to the north and did not increase in severity, assuming you mean tropical cyclones in general. Hence, my recommendation to take a look at the climate data directly.

Why bother with insurance industry data at all when you have detailed tropical storm landfalling statistics in continuous records for, at least, the last 60 years?

The U.S. has gone seven (eight including the last season) consecutive years without a landfalling major hurricane, the longest stretch since the 1860s, a meteorologist with Aon Benfield’s catastrophe modeler says.

In fact, Bowen said 2012 marks the fourth consecutive year of below-average tropical-cyclone landfall on a global basis.

However, despite the slowdown in tropical-cyclone landfalls, global catastrophe losses in 2012 were 36 percent higher than the 10-year average, an Impact Forecasting report notes.

Bowen observed in an interview with PC360 that the level of loss does not necessarily correlate with the number of events that occur in a given year. Insurance penetration and economic development contribute substantially to the final figures.

source

Tropical storm tracks depend on highly localized variables and changing landfalling patterns do not follow any linear long-term trends.

The U.S. Atlantic coast is currently in the longest phase on record without a major hurricane landfall. That's more than eight years without data for strong/strongest hurricanes. Why would you even try to claim something has changed that didn't occur at all.


What do you think is changing? It can't be global cyclone activity, much less U.S. hurricane strikes.