Monday
Oct312011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Snow in New England
Oct 31, 2011 Climate: WG2 Heavy snow in New England has brought chaos, with trees still in full leaf leading to branches being brought down across roads and power lines. This is apparently the first time the region has had heavy snow in October since 1869.
You can guess what has caused it.
Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, last February linked monster snowstorms with climate change, "This is what the models project," he said, "that we see more of these very large snowfalls."
I can't help but be a little surprised that global warming is going to lead to earlier and heavier snowfalls.
Reader Comments (174)
@ Don Pablo de la Sierra
Models can always be made to predict the past.
"No, they are not predicting the past, they are describing the past. Predictions are forward looking, that is, in the future."
Didn't you bother to read the line I quoted from Niels Bohr, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future"? It should be obvious to anybody that Bohr was being ironic, and so was I. Nobody needs to have the literal meaning of prediction explained to them!
Models can always be made to predict the past.
f you can 'verify' your 'model' with an R2 of 0.00003 then predicting *anything* is possible. Ask Wahl & Amman.
James P
nice quote from Orwell...have you ever read any of Arthur Koestler's stuff from the same era?......he was much more on the Stalinist case than Orwell. And I am not talking about the para-psychological stuff. The essays on his escape from France in 1940 - published now as "Scum of the Earth" -make Orwell - the old Etonian - seem like chicken-shit...it is seriously scary, unless you believe in global warming.
Roy
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future"?
I thought that was a quote from Yogi Berra.
Copied/pasted from:
Aug 31, 2011 at 10:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterRB
RB said last night:
This blog is fast moving down my reading list.
Many items now consist of the original post, then only a couple of comments before intervention by ZDB and then almost the rest of the entire comments are people replying to her and her posting yet more comments about how crap everyone here is and how no-one here knows what evidence is, etc. etc., blah blah.
It is getting tedious.
Aug 31, 2011 at 10:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterRB
Well, I have been following this thread all day.
RB,
If you are out there, please come and rescue us yet again from this noisome troll.
PW 31 OCTOBER 2011
Thanks, diogenes. I'm not really familiar with AK's oeuvre, but will certainly try to correct that.
Zed - gracious of you, for once. Well done.
@hengist:
When did the gulf stream shut down? I missed that one..
Hello Peter,
Up early this morning for work and just reading a bit of internet news and a few blogs over a cup of tea.
Coming here is a bit like groundhog day.
Zed owns this blog now.
Yes, less ice on Arctic ocean = Europe / USA will have colder winters. Those nuclear ice crusher ships cost lots of dollars and roubles to build and maintenance. They are not built to make only 300feet corridor. The Russians are taking shonky climatologist, bias media and other spectators; every two weeks, direct to the north poll. Because the ice moves constantly clockwise – they cannot use same corridor. Big chunks float south and melt. Exposed, ruff water brakes much more.
White ice is full of air – perfect insulator. Less ice on the water – water absorbs much more coldness – currents take that extra coldness south into Atlantic = next year even less raw material for renewal of the melted ice. Strong salty sea-currents below are eating the ice – need regular replenishing. 2] because Arctic’s water without ice as shield accumulates extra coldness + the regular winter coldness; with double strength, as ripples is radiating extra coldness towards Europe / USA. Intercepts all the moisture there = more snow / blizzards.
Before, half of the moisture from Atlantic was for 2feet of snow in USA /Europe – the other half was going north; to replenish the ice on Arctic’s water, by freeze-drying the moist air. For the last 3 northern winters – the extra accumulated coldness was creating blizzards and using all moisture – to create 4feet of snow = no moisture left for renewing the ice on Arctic. The vicious circle has already started. End of last winter, the shonky scientists were expecting more ice on Arctic (because was colder) WRONG! In nature works everything opposite than shonky science.
When the renewal of ice didn’t happen – they started scaring with GLOBAL warming again. WRONG! Because in their theory is: ice is white = reflects the sunlight, less ice to reflect the sunlight = hopefully small global warming – to get them out of trouble. They cannot realize that: for six months is no sunlight to reflect, but unlimited winter coldness, the exposed water to absorb. IF THE LUNACY CONTINUES, MIDI ICE AGE IS GETTING CREATED, BY THE WARMIST.
Ice ages were NEVER on the whole planet. When north of parallel of Cancer gets colder; Europe / USA air shrinks – to avoid vacuum – lots of air from the S/H goes north = in Australia / south Africa / southern America with less air = much HOTTER days / bushfires. Thanks to the shonky science, silencing my book, and Skeptic Smarties avoiding my website: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com (arctic ocean has less ice for 4 different reasons, none of those are CO2, or the phony GLOBAL warming)
I second RB's comment. The Bish should put a limit to how many times a topic raised by zed hengist or bbd can be beaten to death.
I'm not sure. Every time Zed comes on here spouting rubbish s/he gets a severe bottom-spanking and is forced to run away and hide for a few weeks.
I'm not sure how this translates to ownership of the blog. In the Usenet days pwnership of another poster meant that they had been so comprehensively twitted they had been forced to alter their posting style to avoid it. I'd say that on that basis the blog pwns Zed.
How can recent events be the effect of recent global warming if the globe hasn't recently warmed?
Bob, it has warmed, it's just stopped getting warmer. The conundrum for the warmists is that CO2 emissions haven't abated, so why not given the continued mantra that CO2 is driving the rise in temperatures? Presumably BEST was trying to say there'd been no hiatus because falling back on "natural causes" is (a) lame, (b) begs the question "which natural causes?" Which they can't answer and (c) In any sane mind at least would lead to doubts about the certainties expressed in AR4 that CO2 was the major cause of the Rise in temperatures over the last 200 years or so.
So it's a bit of disaster for the theory, and indeed many of the faithful are beginning to have niggling doubts. Not that they can express these doubts in AR5, they've committed themselves too far to pul back suddenly. It will take another decade, or more for climate science to pull itself together, and certainly science as a whole will suffer because of the fanatical support given to the AGW theory by the politico scientists like King, Rees, Beddington, Nurse etc.
Geronimo
"It will take another decade, or more for climate science to pull itself together, and certainly science as a whole will suffer because of the fanatical support given to the AGW theory by the politico scientists like King, Rees, Beddington, Nurse etc."
If they continue onward with their declaration that there is no need to carry out any prudent due diligence, then they run the risk of it taking at least a generation for the public's confidence to return.
Your comment "certainly science as a whole will suffer" could be a logical conclusion and a real cause for concern..
Re Mann, More Snow, and GCMs. Prof Mann more recently has apparently been hedging his bets re what we are in for as a result of rising CO2 levels. Interviewed at a meeting of the Geological Society of America:
'There's reason to believe there are processes that are not represented in the models that have caused us to be overly conservative in the projections we've made," Mann said.
In the end, he said, how global climate change will manifest itself isn't well defined. There's a wide spread of possible outcomes, including more extreme weather in some areas.
"It may be that the upper-end models are right, and it may be that the lower-end models are right. We typically go with the middle," Mann said, referring to a spectrum of warming scenarios predicted from computer models. "But what if one of these extremes is right?"
Source: http://www.livescience.com/16789-mann-climate-science-sparks-protest.html
He is indeed a Mann in a Muddle. I suspect this is not unusual behaviour for climate lobbyists - in and around science fora, make it clear you see great uncertainties; in and around political fora, make it clear that there is no doubt as to what must be done and why.
Mann is in effect forced, like Zed has been so laughably forced in this thread, to concede that there is no discernible event that can be attributed to AGW anytime soon, or even at all.
This is turn means the hypothesis cannot be validated by being borne out by events, which in turn means it is total hogwash for all practical purposes.
In the usual cowardly fashion, Zed simply fled the discussion as this obvious point loomed. Mann prefers to obfuscate and try to argue that anything can be evidence for AGW. The fact remains that if no observations support the hypothesis, then the hypothesis is not worth diddly.
Geronimo makes a sound point about CO2 failing to affect the climate as predicted, but one can go even further and note that besides this, CO2 output does not align with reported levels of atmospheric CO2.
It is as though you had a bath containing 50 litres of water to and from which you successively add and remove 5 and then 6 litres of water in alternation. The amount of water each time should be easy enough to work out - it would 55, then 49, then 54, then 48. Instead, and bafflingly, you find it contains 37, 52, 44, and 60 litres each time.
Clearly some or all of your measurements are wrong, and / or the bath is gaining and losing water from somewhere else besides. The climate science response is to shrug, insist that bathwater be rationed just in case, and call anyone who disagrees a denier.
I acknowledge Zed has responded.
There are other similar problems which need caution. Unintended side effects which feed social prejudice.
In the argy bargy of rapid banter things get said but also memes escape. Note that if Zed had been identified my route would have been direct and only calling out if the response was abusive. Handles have an inner and outer knob.
No doubt many would agree with people who have called me weird and so on. Doesn't mean that age won't knock out a mental tooth, yours.
Earlier this evening the BBC broadcast an item about Marmot and whilst the style and editing is (IMO) dismal populist some gems were said by Marmot. Try maybe 15 to 20 minutes in, showing remarkably rare common and tolerance, a fine balancing act. What he is talking about actually has total applicability across life and in the context of this blog I think examples become clear in the power and control by government and others over the people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ld4q
Finally an example, another issue.
You will have heard politicians and medical people breaking their duty of trust by trying to demonise fat people, create a meme in society,
Now consider an individual who has a choice of being overweight or dying, they are diabetic. consider what happens when other people see them as weak, pathetic fat. Fortunately I am neither.
There is much more I could say about eg. communication, the effect of change to online, I'm certainly a veteran. Similarly the abuse cliques which occur in organisations, with dire examples of consequences.
And we have evolved? Long way to go.
Note: I thank Andrew for being a safe pair of hands, I could not have risked what I have done here without that, it would have had to be tolerated in silence.
You can be sure categorically that the models NEVER predicted snow like this. Dr. Hansen's one-size fits all "model" is a lie. He probably never boots up the model any more. He just makes it up as he goes, knowing that with a little reprogramming he can make the model do anything he wants.
How does a political shill and liar like him get to keep his job? He should have been canned years ago!
AGW theory accurately predicts everything that happens. After it happens, that is.
Why is it that you all KEEP talking about what Zed has done or said?
You've all been doing this for ever. Is she your little pet project, or what?
Who gives a flying [snip] what Zed says? She is the archetypal leftist scornful warmist - she comes here EVERY SINGLE TIME and calls us all names - we are either "nasty", "borderline autistic", whatever. FFS I do recognise the need in life to try and compromise or take into acount other peoples' opinions, but this woman has shown time and time again over many many months [snip]. Until you all get a [snip] grip of this situation, this blog is STILL unreadable.
[Please mind your language. BH].
RB
Your brilliant use of the English language to express yourself is beyond reproach.
Succinct, to the point and beautifully written.
But will anyone notice, or even take note, I wonder?
Regards,
Peter
Peter, I get what you're saying - but I also get what RB is saying. He's probably worn to the end and felt free enough here to vent his frustration. Lord knows, I have it often. I'm out in the world of groupthink and sanctimonious absolute refusal to think of us as anything but cranks. I do disagree that the thread is ruined, because there are still so many interesting comments - even those instigated by a reaction to her.
Maybe you just have better friends than we have - where you don't have to constantly censor yourself, where you don't have to walk on eggshells. I'll take RB's primal scream over Zed's condescending snark any day.
Kendra, Nice to meet you here.
Please have a look at the Thread: Stripping the land Bare and my post (in answer to RB's comment) at 10.35 a.m. and you might see where/why I am coming from.
Rgds
Peter
Peter, just now online since I posted. I will do that but thread probably dead now so just to let you know I'll "take it on board." Thanks, Kendra