It would be easier to point out the sections that are factually correct than what is wrong with the NIPCC report. To be generous it probably wouldn't take more than a paragraph or two.
Tornadoes can cause tremendous damage where they hit but they have a very small footprint compared to a storm like Sandy. Tornadoes will never approach the total damage of a Sandy but it still sucks if you happen to be in their narrow path.
It was a "Superstorm" largely because of its size. It caused damage from Michigan to Nova Scotia to Florida and was the largest such storm ever observed. By the new total energy measurement they're starting to use on storms like this it was the largest ever measured. Here is a quote from Dr. Jeff Masters at the wunderground blog:
1) Hurricane Sandy was truly astounding in its size and power. At its peak size, twenty hours before landfall, Sandy had tropical storm-force winds that covered an area nearly one-fifth the area of the contiguous United States. Sandy's area of ocean with twelve-foot seas peaked at 1.4 million square miles--nearly one-half the area of the contiguous United States, or 1% of Earth's total ocean area. Most incredibly, ten hours before landfall (9:30 am EDT October 29), the total energy of Sandy's winds of tropical storm-force and higher peaked at 329 terajoules--the highest value for any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1969, and equivalent to five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. At landfall, Sandy's tropical storm-force winds spanned 943 miles of the the U.S. coast. No hurricane on record has been larger. Sandy's huge size prompted high wind warnings to be posted from Chicago to Eastern Maine, and from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Florida's Lake Okeechobee--an area home to 120 million people. Sandy's winds simultaneously caused damage to buildings on the shores of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore, and toppled power lines in Nova Scotia, Canada--locations 1200 miles apart. Over 130 fatalities were reported and over 8.5 million customers lost power--the second largest weather-related power outage in U.S. history, behind the 10 million that lost power during the Blizzard of 1993. Damage from Sandy is estimated at $65 billion, making it the second most expensive weather-related disaster in world history, behind Hurricane Katrina of 2005.
The slow motion disaster that is heading Arizona's (and southern California's) way is the long term drought in the Colorado River basin since around 2000. In that time the storage in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has dropped to less than half of capacity. If the Colorado River basin drought continues before too much longer it will start to severely restrict the amount of water that Arizona and southern California can draw from the river. This will be a disaster for lower basin agriculture and may also affect the amount of water available for major metropolitan areas such as Phoenix and Los Angeles.
There's more data available over this thing we call the internet than you could analyze in a lifetime. There are links to some of the major data sets and climate model code on this page. The IPCC lists references to all of the work it uses to make its conclusions. All it takes is a few clicks of the mouse to start looking at the data.
Further, reproducing the results of others is a valuable scientific undertaking.
At some point reproducing the results of others becomes a waste of resources on an already well studied area. Besides, building on the results of others (rather than simply repeating them) is a validation of the results (or could cause them to be reexamined if you get unexpected results). That's the way science advances.
It's impossible to scientifically prove them wrong because they presuppose an intelligent being that has started/guided the evolution of life on Earth. The supernatural is outside the purview of science.
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.
I think it's more like asking biologists to study the effects of antibiotic resistance, but they're not allowed to use evolution and must assume that the DNA of the bacteria doesn't significantly change over time.
Excellent analogy! If I could still use my mod points you'd get an Insightful.
If science is done correctly it shouldn't matter what the funding source is. All of the money in the world can't change reality. You can try to put whatever spin you want on science but ultimately the real world will trump it.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be easier to point out the sections that are factually correct than what is wrong with the NIPCC report. To be generous it probably wouldn't take more than a paragraph or two.
One would think if you had done all of those mods to your vehicle you would know how to spell brake correctly.
Yep, that's why we should have a single payer system of health care coverage. The hell with the insurance company middle men.
The last time Kentucky went Democratic in the Presidential election was for John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Tornadoes can cause tremendous damage where they hit but they have a very small footprint compared to a storm like Sandy. Tornadoes will never approach the total damage of a Sandy but it still sucks if you happen to be in their narrow path.
The reason many datacenters are so close to Wall Street is to minimize the round trip time for high speed trading purposes on the NYSE.
It was a "Superstorm" largely because of its size. It caused damage from Michigan to Nova Scotia to Florida and was the largest such storm ever observed. By the new total energy measurement they're starting to use on storms like this it was the largest ever measured. Here is a quote from Dr. Jeff Masters at the wunderground blog:
1) Hurricane Sandy was truly astounding in its size and power. At its peak size, twenty hours before landfall, Sandy had tropical storm-force winds that covered an area nearly one-fifth the area of the contiguous United States. Sandy's area of ocean with twelve-foot seas peaked at 1.4 million square miles--nearly one-half the area of the contiguous United States, or 1% of Earth's total ocean area. Most incredibly, ten hours before landfall (9:30 am EDT October 29), the total energy of Sandy's winds of tropical storm-force and higher peaked at 329 terajoules--the highest value for any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1969, and equivalent to five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. At landfall, Sandy's tropical storm-force winds spanned 943 miles of the the U.S. coast. No hurricane on record has been larger. Sandy's huge size prompted high wind warnings to be posted from Chicago to Eastern Maine, and from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Florida's Lake Okeechobee--an area home to 120 million people. Sandy's winds simultaneously caused damage to buildings on the shores of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore, and toppled power lines in Nova Scotia, Canada--locations 1200 miles apart. Over 130 fatalities were reported and over 8.5 million customers lost power--the second largest weather-related power outage in U.S. history, behind the 10 million that lost power during the Blizzard of 1993. Damage from Sandy is estimated at $65 billion, making it the second most expensive weather-related disaster in world history, behind Hurricane Katrina of 2005.
The slow motion disaster that is heading Arizona's (and southern California's) way is the long term drought in the Colorado River basin since around 2000. In that time the storage in Lake Mead and Lake Powell has dropped to less than half of capacity. If the Colorado River basin drought continues before too much longer it will start to severely restrict the amount of water that Arizona and southern California can draw from the river. This will be a disaster for lower basin agriculture and may also affect the amount of water available for major metropolitan areas such as Phoenix and Los Angeles.
The raw data is just as available as the processed data. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
What makes you think that isn't being done already? In the new IPCC AR5 Working Group I report there are two chapters that address this, "Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing" and "Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional". The attribution of climate change to it's various causes is an important part of the field already.
I am sure there are many grad students / post docs willing to take on this research.
Publishing stuff that ignores the elephant in the room wouldn't help their careers.
There's more data available over this thing we call the internet than you could analyze in a lifetime. There are links to some of the major data sets and climate model code on this page. The IPCC lists references to all of the work it uses to make its conclusions. All it takes is a few clicks of the mouse to start looking at the data.
Further, reproducing the results of others is a valuable scientific undertaking.
At some point reproducing the results of others becomes a waste of resources on an already well studied area. Besides, building on the results of others (rather than simply repeating them) is a validation of the results (or could cause them to be reexamined if you get unexpected results). That's the way science advances.
It's impossible to scientifically prove them wrong because they presuppose an intelligent being that has started/guided the evolution of life on Earth. The supernatural is outside the purview of science.
You have stated your hypothesis. Now go do the work to provide empirical evidence for it.
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.
Mod parent insightful.
And mod you "Sadly Uninformed" since you don't know that the study of what you call "noise" is already a fundamental part of climatology.
I'd bet he as thinking of Al Gore. After all, isn't he the leader of the worldwide conspiracy? {wink}{wink}
I think it's more like asking biologists to study the effects of antibiotic resistance, but they're not allowed to use evolution and must assume that the DNA of the bacteria doesn't significantly change over time.
Excellent analogy! If I could still use my mod points you'd get an Insightful.
It is the scientists who are refusing to study it who are being political, to the detriment of science.
You think it's better for politicians to dictate scientific truth? It's sort of reminiscent of the Indiana Pi Bill.
It's not like some politicians are trying to force scientists to ignore what they think it relevant information now, isn't it? /sarc
Sort of like the National Science Foundation?
If science is done correctly it shouldn't matter what the funding source is. All of the money in the world can't change reality. You can try to put whatever spin you want on science but ultimately the real world will trump it.
The 500M lines of code is attributed to "one specialist".
I don't care who you are, writing 500M lines of code is impressive. ;)
As far as I can tell Ann Coulter's gig is to be controversial so she remains in the public eye and to sell her books.