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Climate Change And 2012 Tie-In

Bryce Anderson
By  Bryce Anderson , Ag Meteorologist Emeritus
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Following is a summary of a NOAA study which found that there is an identifiable tie-in between some of the extreme weather events the world had in 2012 and global warming. About half of the events had a global warming/climate change connection according to this reseearch.--Bryce

Twitter @BAndersonDTN

Study links warming to some 2012 wild weather

By SETH BORENSTEIN

AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A study of a dozen of 2012's wildest weather events found that man-made global warming increased the likelihood of about half of them, including Superstorm Sandy's devastating surge and the blistering U.S. summer heat.

The other half--including a record wet British summer and the U.S. drought last year--simply reflected the random freakiness of weather, researchers with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British meteorological office concluded in a report issued Thursday.

The scientists conducted thousands of runs of different computer simulations that looked at various factors, such as moisture in the air, atmospheric flow, and sea temperature and level.

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The approach represents an evolution in the field. Scientists used to say that individual weather events--a specific hurricane or flood, for example--cannot be attributed to climate change. But recently, researchers have used computer simulations to look at extreme events in a more nuanced way and measure the influence of climate change on their likelihood and magnitude.

This is the second year that NOAA and the British meteorology office have teamed up to look at the greenhouse gas connection to the previous year's unusual events.

"We've got some new evidence that human influence has changed the risk and has changed it enough that we can detect it," study lead author Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution for the British meteorological office, said at a news conference.

The researchers said climate change had made these 2012 events more likely:

U.S. heat waves, Superstorm Sandy flooding, shrinking Arctic sea ice, drought in Europe's Iberian peninsula, and extreme rainfall in Australia and New Zealand.

The 78 international researchers, however, found no global warming connection for the U.S. drought, Europe's summer extremes, a cold spell in the Netherlands, drought in eastern Kenya and Somalia, floods in northern China and heavy rain in southwestern Japan.

That doesn't mean that there weren't climate change factors involved, just that researchers couldn't find or prove them, said the authors of the 84-page study, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

All 12 events--chosen in part because of their location and the effect they had on society--would have happened anyway, but their magnitude and likelihood were boosted in some cases by global warming, the researchers said.

The two events where scientists found the biggest climate change connection both hit the United States.

The likelihood of the record July U.S. heat wave that hit the Northeast and north-central region is four times greater now than in preindustrial times because of greenhouse gases, Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh found in his analysis.

The kind of surge-related flooding that Superstorm Sandy brought to parts of New York City is about 50 percent more likely than it was in 1950, said study co-author William Sweet, a NOAA oceanographer.

Stott said one of the hardest connections to make is for rainfall. The researchers were able to connect three of the eight instances of too much or too little rain to climate change; the five other instances were attributed to natural variability.

The different authors of the 21 chapters used differing techniques to look at climate change connections, and in some instances came to conflicting and confusing conclusions.

Georgia Institute of Technology professor Judith Curry, who often disagrees with mainstream scientists, said connecting shrinking sea ice to human activity was obvious, but as for Sandy and the rest: "I'm not buying it at all."

Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, said the study provides "compelling evidence that human-caused change was a factor contributing to the extreme events."

The full study report is here: http://bit.ly/…

(ES/AG)

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Comments

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bbob
9/12/2013 | 7:16 PM CDT
Your a little out there Jay. Those pesky liberals are trying to create a sort of panic whereas global warming is causeing extremes in weather "climate change" and we humans are the blame. If the liberals are successful, they will get to create another government bureaucracy to support a bunch more useless liberals....
GORDON KEYES
9/12/2013 | 4:50 PM CDT
When Al Gore equates global warming skeptics with racism you have to know these fools are totally desperate. Why even V. Putin says there is no global warming. He seems to be the new hero of the leftist for bailing Obama out of his latest foolish mess. Obama, Putin, two of a kind.
Brandon Butler
9/12/2013 | 1:35 PM CDT
Come on Jay, it is cooling now, not warming. Try to keep up. Another question...why, as the article states, is the meeting deemed a "crisis meeting" if we don't have warming? Wouldn't that be a good thing? (Hint...if a person doesn't think anyone on the 'left' is making money off of this thing, then they probably aren't breathing, let alone paying attention.)
GORDON KEYES
9/12/2013 | 9:38 AM CDT
Obama says he cant get anything done because of Rush. The smartest man in the world sits in the top job in the country and whines because he cant get anything done. Everyone is starting to figure out just exactly what he and the liberal left really are. Koch Bros. create good jobs at a living wage, Obama and his leftist buddies just tear things down. They are so arrogant they can control the weather. Maybe they should call Putin and ask for advice it seems to be the kind of Govt. leftist loons would like. I don't think they would be quite as exited about Global Warming or is it Climate Change now if they could not extract more money for their precious govt.
Jay Mcginnis
9/12/2013 | 7:16 AM CDT
Those pesky liberals that want to live in a cleaner world that has to use less fossil fuels which provide huge amounts of money to the Mid East terror states, tear down mountain tops, build pipelines, leak oil in the Gulf of Mexico,cause wars in another Gulf, choke the air with carbon,,,, HOW dare they want to replace all that with solar, wind, geothermal, electric cars and railroads!!!! HOW would Koche brothers and corporate execs fuel their jets and build their next mansion?????? Those bad freeloading liberals how dare they want a cleaner world with sustainable energy! How dare they beleive 98% of all scientists that say global warming is real,,,, don't they listen to Rush and Hanity?????
Mark Knobloch
9/11/2013 | 7:56 PM CDT
amen
bbob
9/11/2013 | 7:18 PM CDT
The impact climate change has on extreme weather events? The dry spells we have had the last few years were less extreme than the dust bowl years. Nothing new about hurricanes and tornados. They do more damage today than any time in history simply because there is more people and buildings than any time in history. What makes weather events stick out today is the media. There is too much of it. A storm does damage somewhere and it is reported as being the worst ever. Looks to me like the freeloading liberals are getting desperate for there global warming tax they want.
Brandon Butler
9/11/2013 | 7:54 AM CDT
Or as late as 100 years from now. Or a thousand. Or ten thousand. I've got a question. If we are going to stop climate change (one incredible trick, seeing as the climate has never been static in the history of the earth), won't weather stop? After all, it is weather that makes the climate, isn't it? I just wish one person in charge would admit that this whole thing is a big scam meant to get money for whatever political party is in charge, or to get ratings for entities such as the Weather Channel (who by the way have been practically crying on the air for the lack of hurricanes), or to create jobs (albeit meaningless) to sit around and pontificate about "what ifs" or dream up b.s. as the article in question exposes.
Bryce Anderson
9/10/2013 | 5:38 PM CDT
Quite likely the outlooks cited included such phrases as "...as early as..." Such a phrase denotes a portion of uncertainty--a measured conclusion which is also contained in the study report on the impact of climate change in last year's extreme weather events.
Brandon Butler
9/10/2013 | 8:15 AM CDT
Ice wasn't the gist of the article; cooling, not warming, was. But to the point of ice cover, "Well above last year" vs. the forecast of "None at all by 2013" is just a tad off, wouldn't you say?
Bryce Anderson
9/9/2013 | 10:27 PM CDT
Per the National Snow and Ice Data Center-- "Ice extent is still well above last yearâ?™s level, but below the 1981 to 2010 average." Here is the link to the Snow and Ice Data Center home page: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Brandon Butler
9/9/2013 | 2:08 PM CDT
I think it is funny that they are showing their hands in that article by all getting together for a "crisis meeting", i.e. meeting so they can all synchronize their lies. As Gene Hackman said to Morgan Freeman in Unforgiven, "When your lies, don't match up with their lies, I'm not going to be gentle like before."
GORDON KEYES
9/9/2013 | 12:48 PM CDT
I really like the Koch Bros idea, finally a liberal has realized we should leave it to people who actually created something.
Brandon Butler
9/9/2013 | 11:49 AM CDT
Exactly. Whoever is swinging the bigger stick, in this case "stick" being dollars.
Jay Mcginnis
9/9/2013 | 11:16 AM CDT
Lets leave it to the Koche Brothers to decide.
Brandon Butler
9/9/2013 | 10:17 AM CDT
So which is it, warming or cooling? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html
Agri Okie
9/7/2013 | 8:14 PM CDT
s.o.m equals soil. soil is made up of 50% co2. I have fields with less than 1% organic matter, 99%+ dirt. (it was closer to 10% 120 years ago). mistakes were made. predesert starts at 1.5% s.o.m. S.o.m. less than 1% is desert. plug that into your computer. and noah's flood was man made. It was because man was corrupted and greedy like today. read leviticus. god tells us how to farm in the bible 2000 plus years ago. get your soils tested, have faith and never stop learning.
bbob
9/7/2013 | 7:29 PM CDT
ask your computer
Mark Knobloch
9/7/2013 | 7:05 PM CDT
when noah built the ark/ it had to be climate change/im almost sure it was HUMAN related
bbob
9/7/2013 | 7:07 AM CDT
computers are programed. my computer says 1+1=3. it must be true. I programed it to say it is!!