Well said. This is the sort of nuance we're going to need to face these sorts of challenges. I particularly appreciate the clarification about the extent of impact. literally no pundits are discussing this.
We are seeing exactly what you say about intensifying. We’ve had colder colds and hotter hits each year for the last three years to a level they makes you really take notice. I’m in Texas and lived through the massive winter grid failure where many people lost their lives. Even our local weather forecasters are talking about how climate change is making this current heat wave more intense. They are using something called the Climate Shift Index to show how much of the weather intensity is most likely the effect of climate change.
The long term rise in ambient mean temperature over decades, even centuries is a minor contributor to maximum daytime temperatures (1 or 2 degrees C at most for post industrial warming of 1.2C). Attributing extreme temperatures which exceed previous observed record maximum temperatures by several degrees principally to climate change (thermodynamics) is not feasible and it invariably turns out that such extremes are due to other factors: land use, urbanisation, changing or highly unusual atmospheric circulation patterns (dynamics).
Your point makes intuitive sense and that’s also my gut feeling. I don’t know though if it is true. For instance warming is not uniform across the globe even without the factors you describe. Is there any literature on this?
Regional long term warming does vary, but even so, only by 1 or 2 degrees, not enough to explain the observed regional increases in maximum daytime temperatures during several notable recent heatwaves. Other factors must be in play. There's plenty of literature available if you search. You could start with the attribution of the recent Pacific NW heatwave to climate change, which has been questioned by other researchers in the field who find that long term regional warming did not contribute significantly to the observed extreme temperatures.
This just shows how stunted and unimaginative our current discourse on this issue is. Why should these be the questions we're asking, twenty five years into the problem?
"Thus, the right way to think about climate change is that it injects an extra dose of intensity into existing weather patterns."
Is this really what you mean? Read in isolation, it implies that every type of event will be more extreme - not only will hot spells will be hotter, but cold spells will be colder, rain will be heavier, droughts will be droughtier, tornadoes and hurricanes will be stronger, etc. I've read such claims from various sources, but without any scientific backing. And the claims about tornadoes and hurricanes don't hold up to examining long-term trends.
You later say "Based on this, you might want to ask if climate change is making the Texas heat wave worse. The answer is an unambiguous yes." This certainly seems reasonable - a hot spell will be hotter if the world is hotter. But this is not the same as what you said earlier.
Yes, that's a good point and it was sloppy phrasing by me. I think that the null hypothesis has to be that climate change is making cold events less severe.
There are some nice diagrams indeed showing the ratio of cold records to hot records decreases over time. This diagram is unfortunately for Washington DC only but I’d expect global trends to be similar:
certainly there is a contingent in the community who argues that climate change makes these more likely, which would increase the chance of an extreme cold event. however, I don't think there's consensus on this yet. future research might convince people, but we're not quite there yet.
Climate deniers essentially deny the obvious. Weather is the climate system moving energy around, and more energy means worse weather. If it didn't it wouldn't matter.
The scale of the floods we have had in New Zealand might be due to all sorts of reasons but the amount of water falling is explained by Clausius-Clapeyron: 1K increase = 7% more water vapour. Where it came from and where it fell is another story.
And if you think increasing the CO2 level in the atmosphere does not increase the amount of energy retained by Earth then you don't understand Stefan-Boltzmann and the level that CO2 molecules radiate energy to space. Humanity has increased the level 50%. How anyone can believe that's not serious is beyond me, but I'm not a psychiatrist.
global warming tends to reduce gradients, so you do get more warming at night, during winter, and at high latitudes. but climate change certainly does cause warming during the day, in summer, and in the tropics. so this has no implications for the interpretation.
Rob, your question makes zero sense & and I don't have the patience to deal with people like you. Please crawl back under the rock you emerged from or I'll ban you from my substack. Seriously: your next comment that displeases me is your last, so make sure it's a doozy.
Well said. This is the sort of nuance we're going to need to face these sorts of challenges. I particularly appreciate the clarification about the extent of impact. literally no pundits are discussing this.
We are seeing exactly what you say about intensifying. We’ve had colder colds and hotter hits each year for the last three years to a level they makes you really take notice. I’m in Texas and lived through the massive winter grid failure where many people lost their lives. Even our local weather forecasters are talking about how climate change is making this current heat wave more intense. They are using something called the Climate Shift Index to show how much of the weather intensity is most likely the effect of climate change.
https://www.kxan.com/weather/weather-blog/texas-heatwave-an-exceptional-event-driven-by-climate-change-scientist-says/
https://www.climatecentral.org/tools/climate-shift-index
The long term rise in ambient mean temperature over decades, even centuries is a minor contributor to maximum daytime temperatures (1 or 2 degrees C at most for post industrial warming of 1.2C). Attributing extreme temperatures which exceed previous observed record maximum temperatures by several degrees principally to climate change (thermodynamics) is not feasible and it invariably turns out that such extremes are due to other factors: land use, urbanisation, changing or highly unusual atmospheric circulation patterns (dynamics).
Your point makes intuitive sense and that’s also my gut feeling. I don’t know though if it is true. For instance warming is not uniform across the globe even without the factors you describe. Is there any literature on this?
Regional long term warming does vary, but even so, only by 1 or 2 degrees, not enough to explain the observed regional increases in maximum daytime temperatures during several notable recent heatwaves. Other factors must be in play. There's plenty of literature available if you search. You could start with the attribution of the recent Pacific NW heatwave to climate change, which has been questioned by other researchers in the field who find that long term regional warming did not contribute significantly to the observed extreme temperatures.
Change is due to "changing ... patterns". 😆 Is that all you got?
Obviously, from my comments, that is not 'all I've got'. Emoticons and single sentence snide responses appear to be all you've got.
I kind of doubt you have ever wrangled Navier-Stokes equations to get a handle on natural climate variability.
"Attributing extreme temperatures ... to climate change is not feasible ..."
If climate were simple but it's not, it's a chaotic system (within boundaries) and a cascade can follow a perturbation. Eg polar amplification.
The water vapour ejected into the stratosphere by the Tonga volcanic eruption changed the weather in Australia (BOM).
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/how-a-tongan-volcanic-eruption-almost-guarantees-a-flooded-summer-for-australias-east-coast/news-story/3b1be3a36b5681ce70d7327392ed0129
This just shows how stunted and unimaginative our current discourse on this issue is. Why should these be the questions we're asking, twenty five years into the problem?
https://thespouter.substack.com/p/the-punchline-to-history
"Thus, the right way to think about climate change is that it injects an extra dose of intensity into existing weather patterns."
Is this really what you mean? Read in isolation, it implies that every type of event will be more extreme - not only will hot spells will be hotter, but cold spells will be colder, rain will be heavier, droughts will be droughtier, tornadoes and hurricanes will be stronger, etc. I've read such claims from various sources, but without any scientific backing. And the claims about tornadoes and hurricanes don't hold up to examining long-term trends.
You later say "Based on this, you might want to ask if climate change is making the Texas heat wave worse. The answer is an unambiguous yes." This certainly seems reasonable - a hot spell will be hotter if the world is hotter. But this is not the same as what you said earlier.
Yes, that's a good point and it was sloppy phrasing by me. I think that the null hypothesis has to be that climate change is making cold events less severe.
There are some nice diagrams indeed showing the ratio of cold records to hot records decreases over time. This diagram is unfortunately for Washington DC only but I’d expect global trends to be similar:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2013/06/Record-highs-vs-record-lows-DC.png
"climate change is making cold events less severe."
What about the wandering polar vortex?
certainly there is a contingent in the community who argues that climate change makes these more likely, which would increase the chance of an extreme cold event. however, I don't think there's consensus on this yet. future research might convince people, but we're not quite there yet.
Description mechanism for the record:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/03/world/extreme-cold-arctic-polar-vortex-climate-intl/index.html
https://cpo.noaa.gov/Divisions-Programs/Communication-Education-and-Engagement/CEE-News/ArtMID/8293/ArticleID/2369/Research-Links-Extreme-Cold-Weather-in-the-United-States-to-Arctic-Warming
Amplifier analogy is great!
Climate deniers essentially deny the obvious. Weather is the climate system moving energy around, and more energy means worse weather. If it didn't it wouldn't matter.
The scale of the floods we have had in New Zealand might be due to all sorts of reasons but the amount of water falling is explained by Clausius-Clapeyron: 1K increase = 7% more water vapour. Where it came from and where it fell is another story.
And if you think increasing the CO2 level in the atmosphere does not increase the amount of energy retained by Earth then you don't understand Stefan-Boltzmann and the level that CO2 molecules radiate energy to space. Humanity has increased the level 50%. How anyone can believe that's not serious is beyond me, but I'm not a psychiatrist.
global warming tends to reduce gradients, so you do get more warming at night, during winter, and at high latitudes. but climate change certainly does cause warming during the day, in summer, and in the tropics. so this has no implications for the interpretation.
why do you ask questions that are clearly answered in the post? pls re-read the last 2 paragraphs.
Rob, your question makes zero sense & and I don't have the patience to deal with people like you. Please crawl back under the rock you emerged from or I'll ban you from my substack. Seriously: your next comment that displeases me is your last, so make sure it's a doozy.