Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn

[BlasterBates]

So the rain is the anomaly then.

More rain than average is an anomaly and less rain than usual is an anomaly.


http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Australia

Does climate change cause floods or droughts?

[d000hg]

More rain than average is an anomaly and less rain than usual is an anomaly.


http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Australia

Does climate change cause floods or droughts?

Whichever is happening, duh.

[pjclarke]

It's sneaky, it causes both to become more extreme. I'd give you a link to the relevant IPCC report, but that would be a waste of electrons ...

[BlasterBates]

originally posted by d000hg
Whichever is happening, duh.

Is there a discernible trend? or are you saying it causes more flooding when flooding is in the news and more droughts if they're in the news.

Does it create more tornados or less tornados?

http://http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/

or are there variations that can go on for several years, which climate scientists can claim is due to global warming, even though warming stopped 17 years ago?

How can you claim a trend over the last 17 years is due to global warming when global temperatures have been flat over this period?

...and if the climate has changed how do long range forecasters find similar patterns from several decades ago which match the pattern they see today (try following Joe bastardi on weather Bell), and why can you find even worse droughts in the past (eg US 1930's) , when Global warming makes them worse?

[doodab]

How can you claim a trend over the last 17 years is due to global warming when global temperatures have been flat over this period?

You know how engines turn heat into motion and stuff? Has it occurred to you that the energy might end up somewhere else than just heating?

[EternalOptimist]

You know how engines turn heat into motion and stuff? Has it occurred to you that the energy might end up somewhere else than just heating?

Yes , but wouldn't it be nice if they predicted that before it happens ?
rather than predicting it afterwards

charlatans and crooks, the lot of them

[doodab]

Yes , but wouldn't it be nice if they predicted that before it happens ?
rather than predicting it afterwards

charlatans and crooks, the lot of them

Or maybe they are just people doing their best when asked for predictions by policy makers?

We're probably still ignorant of a lot of how the climate works and we will remain so unless we do more research and build better models. Someone has to do it.

[d000hg]

or are there variations that can go on for several years, which climate scientists can claim is due to global warming, even though warming stopped 17 years ago?

So when they told you the temperatures were rising you didn't believe their data because you don't believe in global warming. But when the data shows temperatures are not rising, you do believe that data because it supports what you believe? Hardly setting yourself up as objective.

How can you claim a trend over the last 17 years is due to global warming when global temperatures have been flat over this period?

Do you really need an answer to that, how when something happens the effects can continue long after the original event?

[pjclarke]

So when they told you the temperatures were rising you didn't believe their data because you don't believe in global warming. But when the data shows temperatures are not rising, you do believe that data because it supports what you believe?

Meh. There are 4, arguably 5, agencies that produce independent estimates of the average global surface temperature. NASA (GISTEMP) and the Hadley Centre/University of East Anglia (HADCRUT), who combine surface station readings and sea surafce temperature to produce gridded averages while RSS (a private company) and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) convert brightness measurements of the troposphere from Microwave Sounder Units flown on satellites into an estimate of temperature, albeit in the lower atmosphere rather than at the surface.

Inevitably there are differences in the estimates, RSS and UAH use the same input data but apply different algorithms, and NASA and UEA have different but equally defensible methods for catering for areas of sparse coverage. Over the long term, the four datasets show remarkably good agreement - warming in line with model predictions - over the shorter term there are variations and so you can pick and choose the dataset to suit your prejudices. At the moment RSS shows a flat trend for around 17 years (likely to come to an end if the now-building El Nino comes to fruition), in the NASA data its more like 12 years, in the 17 years ending in 2006, RSS showed warming at a rate about 50% higher than model projections, I don't recall this dataset's current champions telling us the IPCC were being over-cautious back then

[BlasterBates]

Firstly there won't be a super El-Nino. That will only occur in the "fantasies" of climate scientists.

Super El-Nino's occur during the warm phase of the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation). Preceeding a Super El-Nino you will find several years of moderate El-Nino which allow the heat to build up. This has not happened.

The NOAA are predicting a massive recovery in the Summer arctic ice minimum, not a bit, or a small recovery, nope..... a f***ing massive recovery.

When the feeble EL Nino has completed it's cycle and pushed up global temps by a paltry 0.1 degrees of so, it will be followed by a La Nina which will push global temperatures down.

It's probably going to be a difficult few years for the "faithful"....

Me ....I'll sit back and watch the "climate unfold".