Discussion > Predictions for 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 12:39 PM | Richard Drake
Thanks Richard. I've replied to johanna on the other thread.
Richard Betts
Here's an oddball prediction: Cowtan and Way will either be retracted or refuted. People over on Lucia's Blackboard have been doing detailed work on it and it looks as if it is about to fall apart. See this remark:
While I like the Cowtan and Way effort to infill missing data in a rational/justifiable way, you are absolutely right that it should not be a means to emphasize that recent warming ‘is worse than we thought’, unless the same methodology is applied over all the applicable data, where the message turns into ‘it’s about like we thought’. Focusing only on the later period which ‘amplifies’ the Hadley trend sounds very much like a cherry pick, and even more like a cherry pick if the semi-digested pap fed to the mainstream media ignores that earlier period. I think Cowtan and Way have an obligation to note, and even to emphasize, if their method does not lead to a significantly more rapid warming trend in the Arctic compared to the Hadley trend when all the data (back to 1979) is considered.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/lewis-and-crok-discuss/#comment-126691
But realistically, just as some people still consider that trees can be used to measure temperature, despite all the rebuttals and analyses by people including Jim Bouldin (who is a RealClimate approved author), or that the Antarctic peninsula is warming, C&W will become one of those climate myths - Hadcrut misrepresents the Arctic.
diogenes
Both May and June showed record high global temperatures .
On the basis of the January to June figures 2014 is now third warmest and rising. Time to take bets on a record year?
Entropic man
Nice try, replicant; however…
1 – already looks dodgy; Arctic ice extent presently being well above recent past observations;
2 – well, they have already had a long drought, so you could be right;
3 – not too tough, what with the sabre-rattling going on after the tragedy in Ukraine;
4 – unlikely, certainly in my garden – I can’t keep the beggars under control!
5 – probably the converse is more likely;
6 – not too far out of the question; present politicians will take any opportunity to extend their control.
Radical Rodent
Entropic man
Do you know which areas of the globe contributed to the warming? I know the US had a cold winter & spring over large areas and there was ice on the Great Lakes in July (one at least). Western Europe had a mild winter but it was long. http://iceagenow.info/ has been reporting 100 year cold in Australia, decades in Portugal, 2000+ record colds in a week in July in the US. Record cold in Serbia 10 days ago. There are a lot more. From its name you;ll guess the the site isn't looking for heatwaves. The DMI Arctic temperature chart has been below average/normal for quite a while, about the end of May by eyeball; although it spent most of the winter above average having sent the cold south for a vacation.
So, rather divert too much from my main jobs today a couple links would be good, not to the source as I believe what you say, but the the supporting data.
Cheers
Sandy
SandyS
Sandy S
The State of the Climate section of the NOAA website let's you wander their collated data. The choice section at the top let's you examine monthly data for a number of variables though I usually use it for global temperatures. Scan down and you'll find gridded maps of world regional anomalies and considerable tabulated data for land and sea temperatures, Northern and Southern hemispheres, etc.
Entropic man
Sandy S
There is uneven warming. The Northern hemisphere is warming faster than the South and,of late, sea temperatures are rising faster than land temperatures.
Looking at the June map it is notable that North America has both very high and very low anomaly temperatures for June.
Entropic man
Entropic man
Thanks I'll have a browse through.
Do you have any thoughts on Arctic Sea Ice extent minimum this year? I'm not sure it won't be a maximum for last seven years, or even 10 years if you use this particular chart (which, I understand, is due to be phased out).
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php
SandyS
Sandy S
So far it is a typical 21st century Arctic Summer.I don't expect every year to set a new record and see no reason to get excited about whether one year is more or less extensive than the one before. I'm less interested in the short term stochastic variation and more interested in the longer term trend.
Over a longer timescale the downward trend is more visible .
On the graph the years are colour coded, shaded from blue in 1979 to red for 2013. Look at the September period and you can see the trend in the way the colours change.
You mention the cold records on the Ice Age website. Some observers describe increasing frequency of both hot and cold local records. This makes me a little nervous. If climate is chaotic, normal behaviour would be switching between stable states, with each switch preceded by a period of increased variability. Are these more frequent records a sign that we are entering the period of variability preceding a switch to a new strange attractor?
Entropic man
Entropic man,
I was thinking of the greatest extent for 10 years rather than an all time record. If so then that would surprise a lot of people who like to predict things. Predictions is what this thread is about.
(not sure I agree about it being typical 21st century though, but we can leave that for another day)
SandyS
Looking at the past NSIDC June extents , in Figure 3 the spacing between new record June minima varies between 2 and 10 years, with an average spacing slightly over 4 years. The short term variation rarely exceeds 0.5 million sq. Km above or below the long term linear regression.
2013 and 2014 are unexceptional by either standard. Unfortunately I see no reason to regard 2013 as the start of a recovery, any more than the peaks in1986 or 2000 indicated a long term reversal of the downward trend.
Imagine going to your employers, presenting a graph with a declining trend, and saying that your performance was improving because this years figure (above the trend line) was higher than a figure (below the trend line) from a decade ago. Essentially this is what you are claiming about ice extent.
Entropic man
EM, you don't feel that ice extent is relevant anyway so what's the issue here?
jones
Entropic man,
I wasn't claiming anything in particular about ice extent in the Arctic, Antarctic or Great Lakes. It was just that you'd re-activated the thread with the temperature posting on the year so far. Most people "in the know" were predicting lower levels than it looks like being, the Arctic temperature according to DMI http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php has been below normal(average) 3 of the last 5 summers and just bumping along just below or at the normal(average) the other 2 (counting this year). Your boss, if you'd presented a warming Arctic scenario 10 years ago (that was the case?) was presented with the DMI data today would be equally unimpressed.
Normally you can give me a well actually link to something and in this case June isn't the month for minima in the Arctic. Not really worth going further as you're not interested and I was curious as I was about the PV, which was more rewarding in information and I learnt a bit about chicken rearing in sheds.
SandyS
Sandy S
The high latitude atmosphere temperatures presented by DMI vary less than you'd think. Look at 2012 and you'll see very similar Summer figures to 2014, but associated with a record minimum extent. Tropospheric temperature several thousand metres above the surface is a surprisingly poor predictor of ice extent.
I regard the long term trend in extent as important, but find it difficult to get excited over whether each year will be a record. If you seek such discussion try here .
I was thinking about CO2 lasing in Earth's atmosphere. If it were happening in significant quantities, it would show as a radiance peak at 10 micrometres in the OLR .
Alas, I see no peak. Pity, it would have been cool science. :-)
Entropic man
Sandy S
You might also find this of interest.
Entropic man
EM: you appear to regard the long-term trend in Arctic ice extent as important… but how long is your long-term trend? What we are talking about, here, is Arctic ice extent “since records began” – in other words, since 1979, with the first polar-orbiting satellites. As 1979 is close to the final gasp of “The ice age is coming!” alarm, perhaps then was when Arctic ice was at an unusually high extent. Look at records from further back, from observations made by mariners, and you will find that “unusually low” sea ice extent is actually quite common, from Russian reports in the 1930s, and Scandinavian reports in the 1920s; and, how could the USS Skate surface at the North Pole in the 1950s if the sea ice was not thin enough or had no leads? In Alaska, the retreating ice is revealing the remains of forests, indicating that the ice extent there was significantly lower in the past, and was so for many years. So, why get your knickers in a twist about what the ice has been doing for the last thirty years?
My own faith in the infallibility of NOAA, NASA and the UKMO has been severely shaken by many of the shenanigans these agencies appear to have been up to; why not have a look to see what the Danes think?
My predictions for the remainder of 2014: any unusually high temperatures in the UK or extension of the summer will be heralded as more “proof” of AGW, as will any drought, any storms or any flooding. Any unusually cold conditions will be dismissed as “weather” (probably with the codicil, “Caused by global warming.”).
Radical Rodent
EM, I have come to the view that you argue simply for the sake of it. I came to this realisation when you asserted that total ice is not relevant. I suspected that this view didn't apply for a downward trend but you pointedly ignored my challenge in that regard. You are certainly clever enough to spot a trap when you see one...Well done.
Can you not see that your faith in the AGW is just not being borne out by the real world?
jones
I remember a time when the pause in temp raises was not long so every Oct the Met office would do a press release saying that particular year was heading to be one of the hottest, they have been a bit quiet on that front recently as it failed to come true for a number of years. When feb came round and the forecast was trumped by reality the silence was deafening. Cherry picking at its worse, but now they have EM to do the dirty work for them.
Breath of Fresh Air
To change direction slightly, as I was interested in potential fails in this years actual minimum and EM is interested in trends there's never going to be any worthwhile discussion.
Over at WUWT there's this piece http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/26/noaas-own-trend-calculator-helps-confirm-the-pause-and-lack-of-ocean-warming-in-the-21st-century/. I was aware of the NCDC site but hadn't actually done anything with it. As I like playing around with stuff I had a play at the NCDC http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global, initially using Anthony's instructions, No problems, then I looked at the entire recordset. Just eyeballing the chart (I admit my eyes aren't that great two pairs of glasses with different amounts of prism for reading and distance, I really need a third pair for in between) the period ~1910 to ~1940 looked very similar to ~1970 to ~2000. So I did the charts and got the trend of +0.16'C per decade for both. This won't be anything new to most people, but I found it confirmation of my posit that the climate isn't doing anything it hasn't done before.
Using nothing more than that I predict the period 2000 to 2030 (possibly 2035) will have a trend the same as 1940 ~ 1970 which is -0.01'C or round to one decimal place 0.0'C per decade. Also we'll have about 10 years in the 10 hottest years ever globally. I may still be around then to see how good the prediction was, although I'll have to inherit my mother's side of the genes for longevity as I've already outdone the previous three generations on the paternal side.
SandyS
SandyS
Alas, I cannot comment on Bob Tisdale's site.
I was banned for pointing out that his ideas violate the second law of thermodynamics
Entropic man
Not long until I do my "Predictions 2015" thread.
TheBigYinJames
Hey, some of those turned out not bad at all.
shub
a rather interesting post from Julia Hargreaves .....(as in Hargreaves, Annan papers)....
the gravamen:
" I think the world listened to the science, understood it, and decided to stick with existing economics, adapt rather than mitigate, while gently encouraging some easy to do green things, like recycling, and putting a bit of money into alternative energy and efficient technologies."
So far, there is no take down from the Steve Blooms and Rabetts and Tobises and ATTPS, Masheys and the other commissars even though this has been up a week. Maybe BYJ has called it right.
diogenes
michael hart
Adjustments like this NCDC Blows Away All Records For Data Tampering although we may be diverting this thread into a specific discussion.