West Coast Warming Linked to Naturally Occurring Changes

[Shady]

A new study has linked changes in the west coast climate to NATURALLY occuring wind changes, NOT human-caused climate change.

Naturally occurring changes in winds, not human-caused climate change, are responsible for most of the warming on land and in the sea along the West Coast of North America over the last century, a study has found.

The analysis challenges assumptions that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been a significant driver of the increase in temperatures observed over many decades in the ocean and along the coastline from Alaska to California.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-pacific-warming-20140923-story.html

But, I thought the science is settled? That's what we've been told. Now, they also make sure to assert that this study doesn't call into question the concept of global warming. But it sure as hell calls into question the bogus notion of the science being settled. After all, if naturally occuring wind changes are doing this to the west coast of North America, why wouldn't the same thing be possible elsewhere? Answer. Of course it could be. Is this newly discovered fact factored into the ever so accurate climate models? If not, how can this be since the science is settled?

[On Guard for Thee]

What link would you suggest to explain the hottest global summer season since we have been keeping records?

Edited September 24, 2014 by On Guard for Thee

[waldo]

oh noooos! Not another silver bullet AGW killer... say it ain't so, Shady... say it ain't so!

not that there was ever any doubt you haven't the most basic of understanding of anything... that you actually think this is thread worthy! Given the number of times on MLW that caution is raised about putting too much emphasis on any single study, particularly before informal and formal peer responses are received, one would think you would be a bit more reserved. Nah, of course you wouldn't! On that same single study theme, here's another recent study that counters your linked study reference and puts the emphasis on anthropogenic forcing in that same regional area - go figure, hey Shady.

of course, if you were to accept your linked article's study interpretation at face value, the study authors don't provide an actual causal tie behind the atmospheric pressure changes... the changing wind direction and (decreased) velocity. In that regard, the authors make a claim concerning observed temperature increases, but don't provide an underlying causal tie/mechanism to support that claim. Go figure, hey Shady? Is that underlying cause natural and unrelated to climate change, hey Shady? Just how much climate signal is within that natural variability? But watch out Shady... you'll have to actually acknowledge ocean warming since the crux of the study puts the emphasis on regional winds over GHGs in explaining the regional ocean warming. Notwithstanding the study is utliizing early (and less precise) 1900s temperature and barometric pressure data to leverage its long-term trend findings... and only has sufficient data to represent but two ocean PDO cycles.

certainly more complete scientific comment on the study will surface in the coming days/weeks... given its appearance in PNAS (and the mainstream profile it's getting) there's a strong likelihood formal comment/challenge to the study will come forward.

of course you continue throwing down your ready-reach "science is settled" meme... and a shot at models too! It's always a hoot to read some neophyte ripping on models while at the same time presuming to "say something" about a study that is steeped in model simulations! Some models good, some bad... hey Shady!

.

[Michael Hardner]

I agree that if you quote a single study, you need to acknowledge that it's an anomaly. You're tacitly accepting the field of climate science, so why not acknowledge that hundreds of papers exist that contradict the one that you're linking to ?

[On Guard for Thee]

It's much easier and less time consuming to just go la la la la la la.

[jbg]

What link would you suggest to explain the hottest global summer season since we have been keeping records?

Where was this "hottest summer season"? All of the U.S. and most of Southern Canada was at or below normal for most of the summer, though I do understand that Newfoundland was pretty hot.

I am getting tired of hearing that the measurements must be worldwide. Or else why do the offending hot temperatures seem to be where very few people live, such as the high Arctic or the center of Antarctica?

[On Guard for Thee]

I don't think the climate really gives a damn about where people do or don't live. Do you actually think global warming won't affect you because it know's where you live?

[Michael Hardner]

NASA announced August 2014 was the warmest worldwide since it started keeping track in 1880.

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/world/2014/09/17/15731367/

[bush_cheney2004]

NASA didn't exist in 1880.

[jbg]

Apologies to Shady for a possible thread hijack, but this article (link to article, excerpts below) shows what a steaming load of BS the global warming press perpetrates. The article is loaded with internal self-contradictions. It is almost as if no one checked the article before publishing. Now this article was published on the front page of the Science Times section on September 22, 2014. The first page of the article, which continued into the paper, was written in 14 or 16 point font.

I cannot, within the limits of what I am allowed to quote, highlight all of the garbage. The premise of the article is set out in the opening, quoted below:

LA PÉROUSE BAY, Manitoba — The sea ice here on the western shore of Hudson Bay breaks up each summer and leaves the polar bears swimming for shore. The image of forlorn bears on small rafts of ice has become a symbol of the dangers of climate change. And for good reason. A warming planet means less ice coverage of the Arctic Sea, leaving the bears with less time and less ice for hunting seals. They depend on seals for their survival.

But the polar bears here have discovered a new menu option. They eat snow geese. Because the ice is melting earlier, the bears come on shore earlier, and the timing turns out to be fortunate for them. As a strange side-effect of climate change, polar bears here now often arrive in the midst of a large snow goose summer breeding ground before the geese have hatched and fledged. And with 75,000 pairs of snow geese on the Cape Churchill peninsula — the result of a continuing goose population explosion — there is an abundant new supply of food for the bears.

What’s good for the bears, however, has been devastating to the plants and the landscape, with the geese turning large swaths of tundra into barren mud. Nor does it mean that the bears are going to be O.K. in the long run. What is clear is that this long-popular fall destination for polar bear tourism
has become a case study in how climate change collides with other environmental changes at the local level and plays out in a blend of domino effects, trade-offs and offsets.

Here's the contradiction. The AGW press has been trying to say, for a long time, that polar bears in northern Manitoba were negatively impacted by the melting of Hudson Bay ice and the resulting inability to find seals. Fair enough, even though Hudson Bay has always been ice-free during the summer. The snow geese are arguably devastating the salad of vegetation on the tundra. Again, for the moment and the sake of argument, fair enough. But if the bears now are having a regular summer menu of both the geese and the birds, it is not reasonable to suppose that the bears are somehow causing an increase in the bird's population. Thus, if anything, bears are preserving the balance of nature by killing the errant geese.

The end of the article highlights a glaring omission:

“In some years, summer season starts very late,” she said. “Some years, it starts very early. Sometimes, the fall comes very late. Sometimes, the fall comes very early.” And, she says, “A cold year slams plants down much harder than a warm year advances them.” One aspect Dr. Mulder is studying is how the plants deal with this increased variability. It may be, she said, that for some plants, growth may ultimately be delayed rather than advanced because of the effect of the colder years.

One advantage Dr. Mulder has in her studies is a rich historical database. As early as the 1700s, people associated with the Hudson Bay Company were recording the weather.

The article made no reference whatsoever to any trends disclosed by that "rich historical database" of temperature records. And from my prior reading, for good reason. Canadian author Farley Mowat, in Lost in the Barrens, highlighted an anomalous warm spell that wound up endangering the two protagonists' lives, probably in the same general area. While the book is a novel, Farley Mowat was/is quite the student of the Arctic. The book was written in the 1950's. Fiction tends to hew fairly close to fact. The book described tundra, not palm trees. The article would have no doubt mentioned a steady warming trend since the 1970's if there was was.

Let's see the records. And if anyone wants an e-mail of the PDF of the whole aricle (six pages of PDF) just PM me. I will be happy to send it.

My conclusion is that the believers of AGW will present data in an appealing, simplified and ultimately fraudulent manner.

[jbg]

I don't think the climate really gives a damn about where people do or don't live. Do you actually think global warming won't affect you because it know's where you live?

I don't necessarily believe the data.

[On Guard for Thee]

Data is data. You can argue the the reasons behind the data, but unles you think there is some sisnister conspiracy theory that NOAA, NASA, et al are party to, then...data is data.

[jbg]

Data is data. You can argue the the reasons behind the data, but unles you think there is some sisnister conspiracy theory that NOAA, NASA, et al are party to, then...data is data.

Read my post. The data is omitted from the banner-headline New York Times article. The article points to data from the Arctic from the 1700's. The reference is tantalizing.

I suppose they need more time, a la East Anglia, to tweak the data to make it fit the AGW theories.

[bush_cheney2004]

....I suppose they need more time, a la East Anglia, to tweak the data to make it fit the AGW theories.

Yes...they need to get their story straight...again. Meanwhile, we will be treated to the same narrow source of mostly American data from the likes of NOAA, GISS, NASA, etc., and studies from the American Meteorlogical Society !

[On Guard for Thee]

Believe it or not, they have some more current data than that from the 1700's.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2014-on-track-to-be-hottest-year-on-record/

[jbg]

Believe it or not, they have some more current data than that from the 1700's.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2014-on-track-to-be-hottest-year-on-record/

The point I am making is that if the data since the 1700's is meandering one warm year is not alarming. Particularly if the data from 2014 is jimmied.

[On Guard for Thee]

So peer reviewed data that disagrees with your concept must be "jimmied"? Don't think so. Here's what I don't get about the naysayers. They seem to think anybody who notices alarming data is an alarmist, as if they just wanted to make some noise. Keeping head firmly in the sand hasn't fixed many things in this world yet as far as I recall.

[waldo]

the earlier nonsense from post #10 in this thread was a perfect case example to add to the 'Deniers/Fake Skeptics - mindset' thread: in that regard, responded to here:

[Michael Hardner]

The point I am making is that if the data since the 1700's is meandering one warm year is not alarming. Particularly if the data from 2014 is jimmied.

It's not ONE warm year. I can't understand why you would say that.