If We Had Some Global Warming

A friend of mine from Minnesota (who really likes to rub in the Vikings’ success with Brett Favre, by the way… well, we’ll move past that deficiency for now) sent me a link to this Youtube video. It’s just a fun look at the horrible consequences of Global Warming from the viewpoint of those in, as they call themselves, Minisoota. They call themselves “Minnesotans 4 Global Warming”.

Enjoy:

Flannel-lined Jeans are Really Nice

It was not the coldest we’ll see here today, but it was 1 degree above zero (Fahrenheit for you foreigners) this morning, and despite our valued Wisconsin toughness, that’s still cold enough to give one a jolt in the morning.

In the past, I have worn long underwear in times of particular wimpiness, but I’ve tried to avoid it. First of all, my jeans are comfortable for normal wear, but you throw in another layer and it feels a little bulky. Second, most of these long underwear things fit snug enough where it creates this annoying feeling of discomfort on two levels: (1) the need for an occasional, um, “male adjustment” if you know what I mean, and (2) that weird sensitive feeling you get when something fits a bit too tightly and presses down the hairs on your legs all day.

Too much info? OK, sorry.

Well, enter my birthday this year, where I knew I was getting old when I was actually excited to get a pair of flannel-lined jeans. Visions of swinging an axe while wearing the jeans danced in my head, making me feel like a real man.

But now I realize that I can’t not wear them. They are comfy and warm at all times. I love them. Especially today.

At least they’re jeans. You won’t see me promoting the snuggie. Though, I do favor hot chocolate with peppermint. So sue me for being comfortable with my masculinity…

Giving Thanks for my 15 MPG (on a good day) F150 4-Wheel Drive

Well, they weren’t kidding with the winter weather projection here.

We’re being blasted…

The first major winter snowstorm of the season made life miserable throughout much of the Upper Midwest and the governor of Wisconsin has already declared a state of emergency.

As someone who lives in Central Wisconsin, the Governor’s declaration isn’t an exaggerated response. While we have had high-volume snowfalls aplenty in the last couple years, this is one of the worst overall blizzards I can remember. We’re at a foot or so and counting right now, with windy conditions that are playing havoc. Despite our generally swift ability to clear roads, the wind makes it impossible to keep up, and makes driving dangerous.

And so it is that I was thanking God for my Ford Climate-Changer this morning. I don’t need the 4-Wheel drive all that often, and more often than not the truck is not my vehicle of choice. But given my rural location relative to my place of employment, I only had one choice. As it turned out, even that was touch and go, as I traversed through a half-mile stretch of a side road that had not been plowed at all, with open fields on either side. This created a 2-foot-plus deep area that I honestly thought I would not pass through. Some other poor sap had actually tried to make it with a sedan. As I was calling him or her a fool, I realized that I may suffer the same fate despite my 4WD. But, fortunately, I made it through and on to work.

Why do I relay this? Well, it’s an interesting little anecdote relating to this weather, for one thing. But it highlights another thing that bugs me about this whole climate debate and the cars we drive. Some of us need to have certain vehicles on hand that are not what the talking heads call “green.” Granted, I don’t need this truck most of the time, and if I drove it every day I’d burn through more gasoline than I need to. I pay for that choice (which is why I don’t use it on a daily basis). But more often than not, the users of certain products are labeled as selfish consumers. Oh, sure, that can be true. But all this finds an equilibrium. Supply and demand and all that stuff. Eventually, those spending a lot more than they need to on vehicles and gasoline alike will feel the pinch and this self-corrects as long as we let the market work.

Today We Installed Our Wood Stove – Just in Time

As I type this, a pipe is being fit through the newly-created hole in our ceiling and roof. For some time, we’ve wanted to put a wood stove into our house to keep it a little warmer. We have an all-season porch off our living room area that is nearly all windows. Between the cost to put plastic up on those windows every year, the undesirable residual odor from so much plastic, and the fact that it is still cooler than we’d like out there – and then in our living area – we decided to take the plunge this year.

It’s just a small thing, meant to heat a few hundred feet. It’s not enough for the entire house, though in an emergency it could get us through.

And what do I see? This coming week’s forecast!

The coldest air of the season is expected to surge southward behind the storm. By midweek, the storm could bring temperatures 20 to 30 degrees below normal and and dangerous, life-threatening wind chills across the northern United States.

“High temperatures will struggle to make it out of the single digits,” Morris said.

Wonderful.

Oh, well. It’s not like I’ve never dealt with it before. But I never look forward to this.

State of the Climate… and Weather 12/04/2009

OK, so in the past couple months, if I did not have time to do analysis and write it up I didn’t do anything. In order to maintain a little more activity, I’ll try to make sure I get a post in at least a couple times a week, if not more. Hopefully it’s not utter garbage, and I can find a way to captivate the attention of the reader.

I’d insert a sex joke here if this was not a family blog. Since it is, I’ll make fun of people instead. It’s the Christian thing to do…

Let’s start with a snowfall in Houston. This is weather, not climate. I get it. And yet…

Today’s daylong snowfall, the earliest in Houston’s history, is beginning to let up as the storm system that caused it moves eastward. Meanwhile, temperatures have fallen throughout the day and as of 3:30 p.m. were sitting at 35 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Factor in the wind and it felt more like the mid-20s.

The National Weather Service noted that it’s the first time Houston has had two consecutive years of measurable snow.

CLIMATEGATE ALERT: After observing the data and pictures of the Houston “snowfall,” Phil Jones has determined that it is really not snow at all, but instead it is “sublimated wator vapor of alien origin” and that the cooler temperature is a result of “residual ufo engine condensation acting as a propeller coolant.” This is Houston, people. It’s warm there and it’s getting warmer. Snow never happened. Fools.

Let’s move on the the experts, who have actually at least admitted to the fact that there were cooler temperatures in recent years. Rest assured, though, that we can still panic. Thank the good Lord in Heaven that all is not well. Funding and taxes may continue as planned.

Cooler temperatures in North America last year do not mean global warming is easing, government and academic scientists said Friday. Their report comes just days before President Barack Obama heads to Copenhagen, Denmark, to speak at a United Nations conference on climate change.

Rising temperatures over decades have prompted scientific concern, and the last decade has been the hottest in thousands of years, according to climate records. However, the warming eased over North America last year, and groups seeking to deny climate change seized on that in an effort to challenge the idea of overall warming.

North America wasn’t as warm as expected because of cooler water in the North Pacific—a condition called La Nina—but the rest of the world continued to warm, researchers said Friday. The overall warming trend is expected to continue worldwide.

Yeah, um… actually it really didn’t continue to warm worldwide last year. I’m pretty sure I have seen some idiot present some charts somewhere that shows a declining short-term trend line around the different global regions. Let’s see… where might I have seen that? Well, maybe I imagined it. OK, I guess since I read it in the “paper” on the internet, and since it comes form experts and trusted government scientists or something, then I better believe it. We all know they’d never lie to us. Just stop it, people, with your conspiracy theories. Michael Mann will come after you with a hockey stick.

Somebody needs to tell Representative Issa that he’s a nutjob.

“The very integrity of the report that the Obama administration has predicated much of its climate change policy has been called into question and it is unconscionable that this administration and Congress is willing to abdicate responsibility of uncovering the truth to the United Nations,” explained Issa, the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Who does this guy think he is, causing all this ruckus and stuff and discrediting our public officials? They know best. In fact, they should decide everything we do and how we do it. They’re smarter, you see.

Well, at least the vaunted and well-respected Mainstream Media isn’t that dumb. Good for them, ignoring a news item on principle. We wouldn’t want to report the news and risk people getting the wrong idea, after all. Heroes, all of them. Especially that guy Keith Obermann. A real truth-teller, that guy.

For the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this?

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.

New Game: Predict the Date

I clicked on the Ice Area chart a few moments ago. It had actually been a while since I looked at that. The link is to the right (IJIS).

To recap 2009: Ice minimum was again below average, but rebounded over 2008, which had rebounded over 2007. The current value is with the pack of normal values for this time of year – perhaps slightly low, but nothing that is unusual.

As much as two years ago, I essentially predicted exactly what has occurred through simple common sense. With the 2007 La Nina ushering in more of a freeze to see an ice rebound, I said we could reasonably expect 2008 to still melt quite a bit, but not to the extent of 2007, and that we’d probably see a slow cycle over the next few years with an overall rebound in ice. It wasn’t a spectacular prediction, and I didn’t use any fancy models. I just know that there is enough energy that needs to be dissipated before we can see a huge rebound from minimum levels, but the winter in 2007 seemed to be a kind of jumping off point from the rpevious melting trend.

The current El Nino may make things more interesting this year, but I’m maintaining my prediction of even more of a rebound in 2010. And that means that we’ll be getting up into the more average/typical levels of the previous decade.

So, given my thoughts, I decided to solicit predictions:

As of today, when will be the first published article quoting an “expert” predicting an “ice-free north pole” for 2010? And, yes/no – will we still see predictions of a completely melted north pole by 2012 or 2013?

My prediction: April 17, 2010. And yes.

Have at it.

Eastern Pacific Oscillation and Random Stuff – Believe it or not, a New Post…

Ah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? My friend Jeff at The Air Vent asked me if I’m giving up. I understand the appearance of this, given my lackluster performance (or more accurately, zero performance) as of late.

Before I present a chart of the EPO Index, which most of us probably don’t care all that much about anyway (if we’ve even heard of it), I have a few random observations:

1) To Docattheautopsy: Ha! I told you! (Check out comment #6 here: http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/el-nino-is-back-with-the-fury-of-a-woman-scorned/#comments). Good thing, too, because I get enough spam. Anyway, as complex as climate is, it is actually kind of amazing that so much of the simplicity can be missed among the complexity. I know it doesn’t always hold, but there are some rules of thumb that stand up pretty well. La Nina in spring/summer ==> cold Wisconsing Winter. El Nino in Spring/Summer ==> mild Wisconsin winter. It’s not really rocket science. So, each of the last two years gave us frigid temps and lots of snow, and so far this year we have above average temperatures in November. It’s supposed to cool off soon, but nothing unusual. I admit I was nervous in October – it was a very cold and wet October, but November has been beautiful.

2) Climategate: I love it. I don’t “love it” in the sense that it should have ever happened. That part ticks me off, because it’s simply a blight on the scientific process and public trust, and a validation of the more underhanded aspects of the whole thing – it’s about money, politics, control and power. That’s a major shame. But I do “love” the fact that this has been exposed. It may well be true that much of their analysis doesn’t change, and they may actually believe their conclusions. But what is lost in making that simple argument of dismissal about the relevance of the situation is that there are other scientists who have reached different conclusions who were essentially shut of of the public debate, and in doing this it led to a global, incessant mantra that brainwashed policymakers and citizens alike. It’s not whether or not their studies are meritorious, it’s about the fact that the full debate and scientific process was not implemented, and the full range of views were shut out of attaining credibility through reprehensible methods of collusion and intimidation. And really, it just shows the overall poor character of the participants in these exchanges, which also leads to a lack of trust.

3) Where are the temperature charts? Well, I’ll get back to them. I really wanted to spend time on the Oscillation Data, so I’m continuing down that path at the moment. The trends don’t change so much from month to month, and I am in no way avoiding it due to recent uptick in temperatures. I don’t do that, even if Phil Jones and Michael Mann may suggest implementing a trick to disguise the uptick, if they were skeptics.

And so, with that, let me explain the following chart: The Eastern Pacific Oscillation Data are available since 1950 (link to the right) and is just another one of the Oceanic Oscillations. It’s not one we hear about much, and may well not be highly important in the climate discussion. That’s OK. By plowing through the different indices, I hope to isolate the ones that do have an apparent oscillation pattern, because it seems to me that this is an indication that the Oscillation is a driver of temperature, rather than the other way around. The interesting thing about most of the oscillation patterns is that they tend to cycle on a longer time period. Even ENSO, with its shorter term spikes (not on particularly predictable intervals, it seems) has a longer term cycle. The EPO index suggests something else – an 8.9 year cycle.

Caveat: there are no December values in the data set. I have adjusted this by using the average of the November and January values. I have sent an e-mail to NOAA seeking an explanation for this. If I receive a response, I’ll either comment about it or update the post.

EPO Data as of 200910

It’s hard to say how much impact this metric has on global temperatures, and I probably won’t know until I can do a full correlation analysis of all the oscillations, solar index, and CO2, at minimum. But it may have some impact. There is almost no linear trend whatever on this, and the index seems well-centered around a zero anomaly.

There also does seem to be a very shallow 40-year cycle, if I expand the analysis out to look at that, but nothing worth more than a note. The driving cycle is the shorter-term one.

Hope all is well with everyone. If I find I cannot get to data analysis, I will try to do better at posting some fluff just to let you know I’m still here .

It’s Been Snowing All Day

I’m a bit tied up with some things here, and probably won’t be putting up a post with an meaningful analysis for at least a couple days more. Last week I went up north to close up our camper, to find that the awning was torn off and flopped on to the roof. My fault for not rolling it up, but it’s never happened to us before, so that must have been one heckuva wind. Had some damage that needed repairing immediately to prevent water damage. Ugh.

I felt compelled to share that it’s freakin’ 25 degrees below normal temperatures today and has been snowing all day long. The temp is just over freezing, so despite what would normally have been 1-2 inches of snow accumulation, it’s just wet, mostly. But still…

Doc, I still stand by my prediction of a milder winter – at least a milder start to winter. But if we get many more days like this, then I shall accept my ridicule.

El Nino is back with the Fury of a Woman Scorned!

OK, not really. But the headline is kind of catchy, no?

El Nino is, in fact, back. And to hear some of the early prognostications about it, we would all melt like the Wicked Witch of the West mighty soon. And this was going to prove once and for all that global warming was real, because – we heard – the recent cooler temperatures were a byproduct of recent La Ninas. (Please forgive my laziness in not including the squiggly lines over my n).

I admit to not quite understanding that argument. The skeptics among us have pointed out that the increase in global temperatures that took place a decade ago were driven by a Super El Nino. And at the time, we heard that global warming was causing more severe El Ninos. But then the severity decreased and we had La Nina, and we were told that such statements were never really made. Or, at least, not by serious scientists. Which, if true, would mean that they should have agreed that the increase in warming at that time was exacerbated by the big and mean El Ninos. (Which, as an aside, brought very enjoyable winters in the Midwest. Why do people want to send us really cold weather all the time?) But other than some footnoted statements on page 23 of the reference section in a boring document, few people have been told the story about how El Nino affects should be viewed independently from overall warming.

That is, they didn’t know this until La Nina affects brought us some cooler temperatures. Then, suddenly, we heard about some “unusually cold” La Ninas, and how this affected global temperatures, and skeptics were being disingenuous by not properly considering that. And to the extent that such a criticism is true, they are right. But there is a strange thing that happens when ideology is part of the equation: you fail to heed your own criticism when the reverse occurs.

And so we have now seen three consecutive measures above 0.5 in the ENSO index. This is hardly unusual, but it does qualify – to my understanding – as a true El Nino. And before that, the La Nina waned, so we had a relatively neutral index for a couple months leading up to El Nino. So it’s been 5 consecutive measurements now since the La Nina has ceased. I remember when it became evident that an El Nino was on the way. This was going to prove skeptics wrong! Why? I have no idea. If El Nino had an anomaly of 1.00, 2.00, or 5,432.00 it would not prove anything other than when there is a natural warming of the Ocean, it warms our global temps. Wow… there’s a revelation. The fact that this has nothing to do with Carbon emissions is beside the point when it fits the argument.

Even stranger, skeptics tend to accept the cyclic variations as the legitimate explanation for warming. We don’t dispute warming periods. So, the skeptic will nod and agree that an elevated ENSO index will probably lead to warmer global temperatures. But then, we kindly point out, don’t blame carbon. Or people. And don’t get all in a tizzy when a La Nina comes around and we see cooler temperatures. What the hell do you expect? Sorry it doesn’t fit the model.

Having said all that, I certainly don’t expect any records to be broken in this recent El Nino. Sorry, experts. I base this simply on data analysis, admittedly knowing very little about all the climatolological influences that could prove me wrong. But what does the data indicate? Looks like it’s time for a chart:

ENSO Data as of 200908

The first observation from the data is that we’ve had four consecutive positive anomalies, and three consecutive positive anomalies greater than 0.5. Note here that a single data point is actually a two-month running average, which helps smooth out month-to-month fluctuations. The latest reading is 0.978, which is the largest of the four positive anomalies. Prior to this period, there were 9 consecutive negative anomalies, with a stretch of 7 months less than -0.50. This was on the heels of only a two month set of barely positive anomalies after a stretch of 12 consecutive negative anomalies that included an eith-month stretch less than -0.5.

So, it is pretty clear that after some real solid La Nina-esque reality, we’ve now flipped to El Nino. What is not clear is the ultimate magnitude and persistence of our new friend, Mr. Nino. But we can talk likelihoods. And for that, we observe the path of the best-fit sine wave.

The red curve below has been fitted in accordance with the other Ocean Oscillations I have observed. Take a sine wave and manipulate it in a few ways in order to ascertain the minimum least-squares deviation from the curve. You see, while El Nino exhibits noticeable short-term variation, it seems to do so about a longer-term cyclical pattern. Thus, a large deviation in one direction at point A on the curve will not produce the same magnitude El Nino at point B on the curve.

The specifics of the best-fit curve are as follows: The 1950 starting point in the data looks to be at 268 degrees in the full 360 degree cycle. The length of the best-fit curve appears to be 102 years for a full cycle. This is an imperfect estimate, since we don’t even have 102 years of data. It is also a longer fit than what was made last year when I did a similar exercise. But the calculation is what it is.

You can see from the chart that the magnitude of ENSO events can have quite a range: -2 to +3 in the data provided. The scale factor applied to the wave is +1.24 in order to achieve the best fit. However, it looks as if the anomalies in the index may be significantly overstated, at least near the beginning of the curve. The best fit line requires an upward shift of all values of the curve of +0.98. This means that the early part of the curve should have appeared “colder” than it did. The interesting thing to me is that, despite the apparent rise in the average ENSO index levels, the best-fit curve actually has a negative linear slope element to it that is pretty significant: -0.00316, or -3.792 degrees Celsius per Century. This actually means that those high El Nino anomalies are centered around a curve that, without that negative trend line, would have been significantly higher – possibly as much as a degree and a half.

So, where are we now? We are 122 degrees into the cycle, which means we have a ways to go into the negative yet, if this best-fit curve is correct. While it appears to the eye that we’re past the 180-degree point, this is not so because of the negative linear slope the curve lies along. No, if this is right, we will not reach the minimum depth of the ENSO curve until around 2050. The curve itself has a staggering implication of coldness – what was a depth of around -0.4 degrees in the 1950s would be -4.0 degrees in 2050. Should we proceed along these lines, we can continue to expect positive and negative significant deviations from the curve, as we see today. But the positive deviations will produce fewer, shorter and less severe El Ninos while the negative deviations produce more, greater and more persistent La Ninas.

OK, here’s the good news: unlike climate modelers, I don’t proclaim this analysis to be infallible. First of all, we’re fitting the best curve to data that is quite variable in its short-term fluctuations. Second of all, the best-fit curve tells us that the cycle period is a longer period than the data period for which we are evaluating. I already know that this supposed cycle period has fluctuated quite a bit from analysis a year ago.

If I had to rank my certainty on the subject, I would bet confidently that (1) there is a long-term ENSO cycle of somewhat indeterminate period, probably somewhere between 60 and 100 years, (2) that we are entering the negative phase of the cycle and we can expect less severe El Ninos and more severe La Ninas.

I am far less certain about the linear trend of the cycle, and the extent of any such trend, as I am about the shift of the curve. These elements are probably much better measured as more data arises over time.

However, in any case, I think it looks very unlikely that we will see any record-breaking El Ninos for quite some time, in either persistence or in magnitude. We may, however, see some major La Ninas surface over the next few decades.

And that won’t be our fault, either.

A Gander at the Caribbean Oscillation Index

We hear a lot about the ENSO index, the PDO Index, and the AMO Index.

I’ve also taken a look at the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillation Indices.

But there are more. Quite a few more, actually. While I have not done a comprehensive study on these, myself, one would assume that the reason we hear about the PDO, AMO, and ENSO is because these have quite evidently shown correlation to weather patterms that affect a lot of people. And it may well be the case that these are the main drivers that matter, and all the other ones have only negligible contributory effects.

Nevertheless, some time ago I decided I wanted to take a closer look at these. Readers here will notice that I’ve been focusing on Ocean Index posts recently. Based on the wide discussion that has broken out on these posts (yes, that’s sarcasm) it doesn’t appear that this is the main point of interest to a lot of people. That’s OK. Hopefully it’s interesting at some level. But it’s an important aspect of a full study on global temperature. And I still have the goal of doing a full analysis at some point combining the impacts of all these measures, along with solar cycles and CO2 levels.

As the next step in this journey, I have compiled the data from the Caribbean index. It is found as part of this data set (under the CAR column). The permanent link to this is on the right of this page.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on this index. As you recall, the polar regions didn’t demonstrate any shorter-term cyclicality to speak of, while the majors that everyone speaks of did show clear cyclicality.

The results of the raw data plot with the best-fit sine curve are shown here:

Caribbean Oscillation Data as of 200908

It certainly looks as if there’s some cyclical thing occurring here, based on a best-fit analysis. It’s not quite as predominant as the AMO and PDO, but it’s there. There do seem to be short-term spikes with some months of persistence, similar to ENSO.

The best-fit line has the following parameters: A phase reduction of 0.61 degrees per month implies a full cycle of 49.15 years. There is a vertical shift downward of -0.053 needed, with a linear trend of 0.000187 – which is a rate of 0.224 degrees Celsius per Century.

Thus, the index, on average, has been understated enough to be noticeable and has exhibited an upward trend over time. This longer-term upward trend is more noticeable in the charts below as we collapse the data into longer-term rolling averages. Caution is needed to make sure we understand the autocorrelation, but even considering that there is an upward trend in the Caribbean surface temps exhibited.

Similar to ENSO, however, there look to be shorter-term spikes that may play more immediately into the local temperature/weather patterns. Since October 1989, we’ve seen the following stretches of positive/negative anomalies (keep in mind that the best-fit implies that there should be a shift from these figures):

198910 – 199108: 23 consecutive positive anomalies
199109 – 199410: 31 of the 38 months – negative anomalies
199411 – 199601: 15 consecutive positive anomalies
199602 – 199703: 5 consecutive negative / 4 consecutive positive / 3 negative / 1 positive / 1 negative
199404 – 199910: 31 consecutive positive anomalies
199911 – 200007: 9 consecutive negative anomalies
200008 – 2007121: 89 consecutive positive anomalies

Since then, it’s been back and forth.

Caribbean Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 12 month Smoothing

Caribbean Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 5 Year Smoothing

Caribbean Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 10 Year Smoothing