Real Climate Science

It has been 806 days since any hurricane made landfall on the US, and 6,670 days since a category 5 hurricane made landfall.

But it hasn’t always been like that. In 1886, seven hurricanes struck the US – including two major hurricanes. CO2 was 293 ppm at the time.

Year	Month	States Affected 	Highest Saffir-		
		and Category by 	Simpson U.S.		
		States			 Category 			
 
1886	Jun	TX, N2; LA, 2			2		
1886	Jun	FL, NW2; I-GA, 1		2		
1886	Jun	FL, NW2; I-GA, 1		2		
1886	Jul	FL, NW1				1		
1886	Aug	TX, C4				4		
1886	Sep   #	TX, S1, C1			1		
1886	Oct	LA, 3; TX, N2			3		

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/ushurrlist18512009.txt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/8542905

http://guardian.touch-line.com/

How many will Torres score today?

If you can’t accurately model the climate next month, then you certainly can’t model it for next year. If you can’t model it next year, you certainly can’t model it for 50 years.

The whole point of climate models is to run them iteratively in order to compound feedbacks – which means that errors increase exponentially. People claiming that errors average out have no idea what they are talking about.

If you drive faster and faster in the wrong direction, you get further and further away from your destination.

In 1988, Hansen forecast 1-3C warming for Antarctica by  the “2010s”

It better get warming fast. This month, Antarctica has been running as much as 15C below normal, with record sea ice.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.30.gif

The 1914-15 drought

The drought of 1914-15 became seared in the memory of Australians, primarily due to the disastrous failure of the wheat crop that year.

The first signs of drought became evident in 1913, when rainfall in western Victoria, central areas of Tasmania, and settled areas of South Australia, was well below average in the normally wet April-July period. Timely rain in early spring then saved the wheat crop and gave good pastoral prospects. But there was to be no such respite the following year, a strong El Niño year. 1914 started off very hot, and southern Victoria suffered from widespread bushfires in February and March. Good rains fell over most of eastern Australia in March and April, but thereafter extremely dry conditions set in over most of the southern half of the country.

Except in coastal NSW, drought became widespread and severe from July to October. Across large areas of the southern states the period May through October 1914 remains the driest such period on record. As conditions worsened, stock were transported as fast as the railways could carry them to more favoured locations, where – naturally – prices for agistment rose substantially. From the Deniliquin district alone over half a million sheep, and thousands of horses and cattle, were moved out. Rivers throughout southeastern Australia fell to extremely low levels. The Murray River at Echuca fell to its lowest level ever recorded to that time, to just 2 percent of its normal flow by December. Downstream of Swan Hill the Murray was reduced to a series of stagnant pools.

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Drought, floods, heat, cold, snow, rain, lack of rain, lack of snow, winds, hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, cloudy days, sunny days, etc. have always been normal climatic patterns.

No matter what you predict, you are guaranteed to be a winner. Unless you predict something like 5C temperature rise or 3m sea level rise. When you get to that level of stupidity, you can be declared the world’s greatest climatologist!

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/

we saw in 2008 just what can happen when we fail to connect those dots – climate change, oil prices, protectionism and global economics collided to push food prices up and hang a cloud of starvation over the heads of millions of people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/