Slashdot Mirror

A lot. Here's some educational material for you, if you wanna know my citations:

2015-2017 are the hottest years on record on Earth. Citation: https://public.wmo.int/en/medi... and multiple countries and weather stations confirmed this

2018 is looking to be #4, but not 100% confirmed yet; but last April was the third warmest on record: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/...

The higher temperatures are affecting all crops, but their effects are most pronounced under Middle East and African Desert countries currently, but their effects should be closely examined to find ways to stop them in general. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Do you want some proof? I'll just copy a previous post I made and you can verify it yourself.

2015-2017 are the hottest years on record on Earth. Citation: https://public.wmo.int/en/medi... and multiple countries and weather stations confirmed this

2018 is looking to be #4, but we can't actually say that without actually going through the whole year obviously; but last April was the third warmest on record: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/...

The higher temperatures are affecting all crops, but their effects are most pronounced under Middle East and African Desert countries currently, but their effects should be closely examined to find ways to stop them in general. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

I got some numbers for you to chew on.

2015-2017 are the hottest years on record on Earth. Citation: https://public.wmo.int/en/medi...

2018 is looking to be #4, but we can't actually say that without actually going through the whole year obviously; but last April was the third warmest on record: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/...

The higher temperatures are affecting all crops, but their effects are most pronounced under Middle East and African Desert countries currently, but their effects should be closely examined to find ways to stop them in general. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://public.wmo.int/en/medi...

This is my source, with citations, although not necessarily the GP's:

(countries emphasized by me)

WMO uses datasets (based on monthly climatological data from observing sites) from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the United Kingdom’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom.

It also uses reanalysis datasets from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and its Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the Japan Meteorological Agency. This method combines millions of meteorological and marine observations, including from satellites, with models to produce a complete reanalysis of the atmosphere. The combination of observations with models makes it possible to estimate temperatures at any time and in any place across the globe, even in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions.

https://public.wmo.int/en/medi...

The last 3 years are the hottest ever recorded. Citations by many weather stations around the world, from NASA, NWS USA, NWS UK, and the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

The water is boiling sir, and you can't jump out because that would mean leaving earth.

I strongly disagree. This article is about technology that's used in training for one of the sports at the Winter Olympics. I fail to see your objection, and it's actually very cool to see the spread of technology that's used to monitor athlete performance.

There's a lot of science and technology going on behind the scenes at the Olympics, and sometimes it's an opportunity to demonstrate new ideas. I'm a meteorologist and I worked for someone who participated in the Sydney forecast demonstration project. That project involved testing several systems for making short-range forecasts on the scale of a few hours to predict thunderstorms. Papers about this were published in meteorology journals, such as: https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0434(2004)019%3C0131:SFDPCS%3E2.0.CO;2, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0434(2004)019%3C0115:TSOGFD%3E2.0.CO;2, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-8-1041, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0434(2004)019%3C0168:TSSAEI%3E2.0.CO;2, and https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0434(2004)019%3C0097:TIOANS%3E2.0.CO;2. All of those were published in peer-reviewed journals operated by the American Meteorological Society.

This sort of thing has been done at more recent Olympics. For Beijing 2008, papers include https://doi.org/10.1175/2010WAF2222336.1 and https://doi.org/10.1175/2010WAF2222417.1. For Vancouver 2010, here's a scientific paper about forecasting during the Olympics: https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-11-00114.1. Also for Vancouver 2010, here's an article in a peer-reviewed AMS journal that's intended for a more general audience: https://doi.org/10.1175/2009BAMS2998.1. The UK Met Office developed forecasting systems that they tested at the London Olympics: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00102.1. There was a similar project called FROST-2014 at the Sochi Olympics: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00307.1 and https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-16-0048.1.

There's a similar project at the PyeongChang Olympics: https://ams.confex.com/ams/98Annual/webprogram/Paper329045.html and https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/SCMREX.html. The latter of those links, the WMO page, has a lot of links about past projects at various Olympics. These aren't journal papers because the project is taking place right now at the Olympics, but I fully expect there will be peer-reviewed papers about this as well.

In my field, the Olympics are frequently opportunities to test out new systems and advance our forecasting capabilities. These are often organized by the World Meteorological Organization and are opportunities for international collaboration that advances the science of meteorology.

Just because something is done in relation to the Olympics doesn't make it PR at all. I've linked to plenty of scientific articles about meteorological research and testing of forecasting systems at the Olympics. You should reconsider your statement.

The slashdot link is really useless. Further rant: I really hate sites that highlight a word/organisation/site and then when you click on that link will show all articles on that subject in their own site (Looking at you, engadget! )That's what bloomberg seems to do.
Here's the original link
https://public.wmo.int/en/medi...
and the actual bulletin:

https://ane4bf-datap1.s3-eu-we...

The 1951-1980 baseline is just the average temperature of those 30 years (the classical climate period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization). It includes all of those "wild swings" that you mention. It doesn't matter what you use as a baseline. The anomalies are just the temperature minus the baseline so the relative differences between temperatures is preserved. If you wanted to use the actual temperatures rather than anomalies you could show a graph that went from 55F to 61F (or 13C to 16C) but the curve of the graph wouldn't change.

The "stability" of the baseline period doesn't matter. Even during the baseline period when you plot the actual temperatures of individual years they are above or below the baseline unless they just happen by coincidence hit the baseline.

May 9, 2013 400 PPM: Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Reaches Prehistoric Levels

But wait!

May 26, 2014 CO2 concentrations top 400 parts per million throughout northern hemisphere

But this is different! Yes, it's two years late, but it's March of 2015. So that means... What does that mean exactly?

It means that Batman v.s. Superman will be the top-grossing film of 2015! (For July 18th only. From 8PM to 10:30PM. In New Jersey.)

Aside from the hysteria button being pushed enough to have rubbed off the "H" from its now highly polished surface, can we consider two things?

1. There has been a huge uptick in volcanic activity in the first half of this year. Seriously; there's been more eruptions than in any previous year on record, and the year isn't even half-way over. -Aside from the inherent weirdness alarm *that* should set off (in conjunction with solar changes and the continuing rise in comet activity), can we please pause to wonder if maybe all that extra ash in the atmosphere might possibly be related?

No? Of course not. Check out the level of spin required to make the problem of too many exploding mountains go away. https://earthtrembling.wordpre...

Bravo. That's insane.

But who am I to get in the way somebody's well-crafted delusions?

Nevermind.

I'm assuming we can start from what ever date we want?

Not really. To qualify as a climate graph it needs to be at least 30 years long (as defined by the World Meteorological Organization).

No global temperature increase in 10 years?

I call bullshit.

http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1119_en.pdf

I'm trying to figure out what makes you think climate scientists are ignoring those factors. The reason the World Meteorological Organization defines the classical climate period as 30 years is that it smooths out the short term variability of cycles such as ENSO and solar cycles. The reason that the confidence ranges spread out as projections extend into the future is the uncertainty around those things. Long term variations such as Milankovitch cycles can be ignored for projections on time scales of a few centuries.

It brings to mind a quote from Charles Babbage:

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

30 years is the classical climatological period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. That is long enough for many cyclic things like ENSO and solar cycles to average out so the long term climate trends are discernible. Of course there are many climatological effects that take place over far longer periods such as the cycles of glaciation/deglaciation that have been occurring for over a million years but a 30 year average is long enough to define the current state of the climate.

There's nothing insightful about the AC's comment. Instead it just demonstrates a very shallow understanding of of the subject that shows the AC has no idea what they are talking about.

While last year was a new record low for Arctic sea ice very few people in the cryology field thought it "would be gone in a few years with cataclysmic results". It's true though that late summer Arctic sea ice could be gone sometime in the 2020's and it's impossible to rule out cataclysmic results from that at this time. This summer the Arctic sea ice is no where near a record high but has merely moved back to the general declining path it's been on after last year's exceptional melt.

Climate scientists are trying to predict climate, not weather. The World Meteorological Organization's definition of climate is:

Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.

To expect them to predict in detail the weather next year or even in 10 years is expecting too much. What they're predicting is what the average weather will be over a 30 year period given a specific input scenario. If you don't understand that in the first place you have no business commenting on the subject.

Well actually the standard climatological period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization is 30 years. I think I'll go with the experts.

Le sigh.

From a recent WMO report titled "2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes":

Every year of the decade except 2008 was among the 10 warmest years on record.

The 2001-2010 decade was the second wettest since 1901. Globally, 2010 was the wettest year since the start of instrumental records.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2001-2010 was the most active decade since 1855 in terms of tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic Basin.

According to the 2011 Global Assessment Report, the average population exposed to flooding every year increased by 114% globally between 1970 and 2010, a period in which the world’s population increased by 87% from 3.7 billion to 6.9 billion. The number of people exposed to severe storms almost tripled in cyclone-prone areas, increasing by 192%, in the same period.

But apart from that, no new records.

To quote Bill Hicks: “Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what well tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”

No, climatologists have always used 30 year running means since it was defined by the World Meteorological Organization as the standard for measuring climate which was before the IPCC was formed in 1988. Here's a FAQ from the WMO on climatology.

I doubt climate modelers will ever try to predict specific weather events. It's probably not possible more than a few weeks ahead in any event. It comes down to the difference between climate and weather. One way to look at climate is it's the statistical description of weather. Here is the World Meteorological Organization's definition of climate:

Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.

Weather is too chaotic to predict for any length of time but it is chaotic within bounds. Their will never be at 100C or -100C temperature recorded and there are limits to how much precipitation and wind you can get. Climate describes those bounds and to the extent the bounds shift because of anthropogenic climate change weather will shift to remain within them. Because climate describes the chaos within weather it can not be chaotic in the same way. Chaos in climate comes from such things as the variability of the Sun, long term changes in geological processes and human influences on climate but climate is mostly an energy balance problem and the secondary effects of temperature, precipitation, wind and other things will change in response to changes in the energy balance.

Climate models, especially regional models, can predict some things like likelihood of long term dryer conditions in the US southwest which appears to be happening but they will never predict with precision something like Sandy or the big Midwest drought this year, just the probability of such an event happening.

a) 16 years is certainly not long enough to measure a climate trend. There is too much noise from natural variation. If you look at graphs of global temperature you see plenty of times where temperatures dipped on longer than a decadal time scale. The long term trend is still up. Climatologists generally use 30 year running means* to describe climate. That's probably a bit arbitrary, maybe 25 years would work but I think 20 years would be getting pretty iffy.

*By definition of the World Meteorological Organization the classical period for climate is 30 years.

b) Climate models are tested by hindcasting all the time, especially using period of detailed climate knowledge since the 1950's. And again, climate models are not even really attempting to predict the last 16 years in the detail you seem to demand. It's that 30 year climate period thing again.

Satellite temperature trends aren't that much different than surface trends.

c) While summer Arctic sea ice has declined by around 2.5 million km^2 Antarctic has only grown by around 0.3 million km^2. (ref.) I'd say that is a significant difference.

You need to learn what climate is:

"Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)."
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/ccl/faqs.html

The WMO claims 2010 will be in the top three warmest years and that this has been the warmest decade on record: http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_904_en.html

"I wonder if we could work more closely with Europe and Japan so together we'd get all the data we need without having to foot the whole bill."

Weather data has been shared for many years via the WMO. IIRC when you take in the cost of the satelities the US spends about as much as the rest of the members combined.

Now for those of us here in Ontario, we're in a mini-heatwave. But the rest of the country? Below average, last I heard even the easties were hoping for spring to start, they're still getting snow.

Uhuh. So? Local climate != global climate. And sadly:

The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989).

Citation.

But, hey, who wants to look at actual facts, when looking out the window is, like, totally scientific and stuff, right?

Although yes, the Sun's becoming more active there's been a lot of discussion as to whether the low solar activity was responsible for the coldest winter in 17 years in England (and longer than that in Scotland).

Doubtful, given that:

For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 13.3C (56.0F) was the warmest January-April period. This value is 0.69C (1.24F) above the 20th century average.

Citation.

Furthermore:

The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989). More complete data for the remainder of the year 2009 will be analysed at the beginning of 2010 to update the current assessment.

Citation. Which, of course, makes the idea of solar drive GW look pretty silly, what with the solar minimum during this decade.

So, alas, apparently I *once again* need to point out: Local temperature != global temperature. Seriously, people, how many times does this have to be repeated before you start to actually get it?

[...] there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2 (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence of a link).

It's hard to receive "really good scientific evidence" if you have your head in the sand.

not yet recognized by the World Meteorological Foundation

Not surprising, since it's called the World Meteorological Organization.

Then how about:
The InterAcademy Council
The National Academies
The International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
The European Academy of Sciences and Arts
The National Research Council
The Federation of American Scientists
The World Meteorological Organization
Need I go on?