Recent modeling work (Schubert et al. 2004a,b, Seager et al. 2005) has claimed that the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s was forced by small changes in tropical SSTs, essentially several persistent years of La Niña-like conditions in the Pacific and a warm subtropical North Atlantic Ocean, both of which are assumed to have had natural origins. If this is so then it means that, had the SSTs been known in advance, it would have been possible to predict that the drought was to occur and, perhaps, the environmental and social catastrophe of the Dust Bowl could have been ameliorated.
If Columbia University knows that the Dust Bowl was caused by similar conditions in the 1930s, why is James Hansen blaming the current heat and drought on CO2?
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath…..
in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country
James Hansen – 1999
More wishful thinking on their part
“If this is so then it means that, had the SSTs been known in advance, it would have been possible to predict that the drought was to occur and, perhaps, the environmental and social catastrophe of the Dust Bowl could have been ameliorated.”
They can not predict the weather accurately for the next week in any region, even today.
The models are not yet in agreement of the ENSO region for the next month. They do not really know what part of the weather patterns drove the Dust Bowl and they are just adjusting parameters until they get the desired answer.
With all their parameters it could just as well have been a pink elephant dancing in Australia that caused the “Dust Bowl” in the Midwest US.
HADCRUT is out for October. All four sets still show temperatures running around the 10 year average.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/global-temperature-updateoctober-2012/#more-1974
In a few more months the troposphere should be responding to changes in ENSO and SST’s and we should get a feel for what the underlying global temperature now is. (La Nada conditions.)
There’s been a bit of information put around lately that we have been in ENSO neutral conditions in the last few months (or as the UK Met puts it “at the tail end of La Nina”.)
In fact we have just had a few months of mild El Nino. I would expect temps to drop slightly in the next few months.
Exactly correct. The middle troposphere takes about 3 months to respond to changes in SST’s and it would still be expressing El Nino like conditions.
And what about Britain’s drought ?
Thousands Lose Power As Rain Batters Britain ………..again
http://news.sky.com/story/1014903/thousands-lose-power-as-rain-batters-britain
What is the definition of a British drought anyway? No rain in the afternoon?
Thanks, Steve. Quite a trip.