Linking Drought and Climate Change: Difficult To Do

Geoffrey.landis writes An article about the current California drought on 538 points out that even though global climate warming may exacerbate droughts, it's nearly impossible to attribute any particular drought to climate warming: "The complex, dynamic nature of our atmosphere and oceans makes it extremely difficult to link any particular weather event to climate change. That's because of the intermingling of natural variations with human-caused ones." They also cite a Nature editorial pointing out the same thing about extreme weather.

Comments

It's difficult but

[Spy Handler]

they do it anyways.

Linking hurricanes to global warming is also difficult but that didn't prevent climate researchers from claiming Katrina-level events will drastically increase in frequency. (we're still waiting on this one)

Re:It's difficult but

[neilo_1701D]

If anything, it's the opposite:

http://models.weatherbell.com/...

The graph shows the global annual counts for all hurricanes and major hurricanes. From '92 through '98, there was around 35 major hurricanes per year, falling this year to 29 major hurricanes. The peaks of the graph roughly correspond to el Nino years, with the stronger the el Nino the more hurricanes. If you consider a hurricane to be a heat transport mechanism to move heat from the oceans to space, this comes as no surprise.

Of course, the "more hurricanes" argument morphed into "less hurricanes but stronger" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/global-warming-to-bring-s_n_471227.html), but once again the planet isn't co-operating with theory.

Re:It's difficult but

[sr180]

Some people think reducing CO2 emissions will somehow make the world cleaner, but it won't. If not for AGW, there's no real urgency to reduce CO2 emissions, it's not a pollutant.

Except for Ocean Acidification. We are already starting to hit the turning point where hard shelled marine creatures are unable to form their shells because of acidification. Visible effects are starting to be seen in the Antarctic - pteropods are now starting to become unviable due to the cold water amplifying the effects of acidification. These little snails are a key food source in the ecosystem, if their population collapses, it will wreck untold damage on the marine ecosystem.

So yes, there still is an urgency to reduce CO2 emissions, and yes, it is a pollutant.

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/?prmid=4939

Preponderance of the Evidence

[ScottChi]

During the 1980s, the tobacco companies frequently cited the fact that no case of cancer had ever been demonstrably proven to be caused by cigarette smoking. I had a close relative with a severe addiction who repeated this whenever nonsmokers (like me) complained. This highlights the dichotomy of statistical evidence versus absolute proof. In order to prove that a cancer victim inhaling burning tobacco caused their cancer, you would have to track the specific molecules of the smoke's chemicals that damaged the initial cancer cell's DNA. You'd need to observe the cell dividing out of control, and verify that that particular tumor was the one that lead to the diagnosis. Apparently, the fact that something is incredibly hard to prove can be used as evidence that it can't possibly be happening. Fortunately, most open minded people are willing to accept a vast amount of statistical evidence as proof.

10 years ago on Slashdot

[mi]

They also cite a Nature editorial pointing out the same thing about extreme weather.

Extreme weather, huh? 10 years ago we were discussing right here, how continuing global warming will make hurricanes more frequent.

The usual suspects were writing "insightful" posts lamenting "deniers" and the sorry state of the uneducated populace preventing the sophisticated elite from saving the planet.

Today, 10 years since that discussion, we are living through a 30 year low hurricane-frequency — something, none of the "Global Warming" models predicted...

That was the last straw...I've had it..

[Irate Engineer]

I'm going to lose my shit if you damned CS majors don't stop trying to correlate local weather to the frigging climate! It's a fucking non-linear system. Small scale does not equate to large scale behavior, in space or time.

Will you *please* go read up on chaos theory? At least smoke some weed and read 'Chaos' by James Gleik, try to see some pictures. Read A First Course in Turbulence by Tennekes and Lumley. I mean, shit, chaos theory has been around for longer than most of you have been alive. Read a goddamned book once in a while. The dead tree kind of book.

Maybe I need some weed.

The universe is filled with non-linear chaotic systems. Earth's climate is part of one. Deal with it!

Yep...I do need some weed.

Re:Duh.

[Capsaicin]

...there is no way to link any particular snake eye event to the hidden weights.

Therein lies the quandary. You know the dice are loaded to come up snakes-eyes; they come up snakes-eyes; but you cannot with any certainty state "those snakes came up because the dice were loaded."

Instead you have to say, "those snakes-eyes coming up again so soon is consistent with the fact that the dice are loaded," or "we could see more and more snakes-eyes with these loaded dice." That doesn't make for so compelling a narrative. And narrative thinking comes much more naturally than statistical thinking.