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U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

noaa.gov

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Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#81

Post by hirsin »

mises wrote: post #51
plicense wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think humans are pretty good at warming things up. So I would take a mini-ice age over global warming.

Yeah, heating is usually more efficient than cooling, because energy is usually produced with some kind of heat output. All though agriculture is a serious concern; you might starve several million people in africa.

Surprisingly this is not true. A watt of energy can only produce a watt of heat, but can remove several watts of heat from a space.

That said, we're much better setup to increase total entropy in the atmosphere than decrease it (via heat sinks eg)

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#82

Post by chrisco255 »

mises wrote: post #51
plicense wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think humans are pretty good at warming things up. So I would take a mini-ice age over global warming.

Yeah, heating is usually more efficient than cooling, because energy is usually produced with some kind of heat output. All though agriculture is a serious concern; you might starve several million people in africa.

Not just Africa. Probably every continent, because yields would tank and growing seasons would shrink.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#83

Post by hutzlibu »

ThomPete wrote: post #67
viraptor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few days out projection is hard and influenced by lots of chaotic changes. Long term trends are a completely different thing. I can't tell you what temperature will be where I live tomorrow, but I can tell you it's going to be ~30°C higher in 6 months.

But not whether its going to be 3 degrees hotter in 50 years and not whether its because of humans or natural patterns. This is the part of the story we somehow always forget.

Yes we can. It is called science and modelling.

We understand the greenhouse effect small scale very well. And we know very well, that we humans burned up many things in a short time that were underground before ... so we know there are much more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And the data matches the predictions so far.

So no. Nobody knows for sure and nobody is claiming to know, what the temperature in 50 years will be. But we know that the current models predict bad things. And we know that we burned that oil. Regardles of the sun cycle, you are probably refering to.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#85

Post by ThomPete »

hutzlibu wrote: post #83
ThomPete wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not whether its going to be 3 degrees hotter in 50 years and not whether its because of humans or natural patterns. This is the part of the story we somehow always forget.

Yes we can. It is called science and modelling. We understand the greenhouse effect small scale very well. And we know very well, that we humans burned up many things in a short time that were underground before ... so we know there are much more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And the data matches the predictions so far. So no. Nobody knows for sure and nobody is claiming to know, what the temperature in 50 year…

Its called modeling not science and not science modeling in any shape or form even closely resembling ex physics.

We dont know its going to be bad, we dont know if its us or natural variation and we dont have a single scientifically demonstrated conclusion of climate change we dont know how to deal with. Modelling is NOT science, its more akin to scenarioplanning which is why the results are all over the map. If it was science on the precision of physics we didnt need modelling.

We understand greenhouse effect in a lab well, not in a chaotic non linear system like the climate.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#86

Post by briantakita »

gourneau wrote: post #11

Does anyone know where to get data for macro weather trends like these? I am curious what regions will have the most ideal weather in the next few years.

It depends on what model you believe will occur. If you believe in cyclic climate changes, then the old "green" regions will come back. If that's the case, the fertile crescent & old roman grow areas (North Africa) & American Southwest will have a greening.

Another factor that has been observed is the changes in the jetstreams. This past winter there were Polar vortexes leading to cold temperatures. Europe was recently hit with an Equatorial vortex leading to a heat wave.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#87

Post by ajmurmann »

mirimir wrote: post #44
mc32 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we expect dry (arid) regions around the world to experience more rainfall?

Some, yes, I've read. Africa and Indonesia may get wetter, and the Sahara could even switch back to rainforest. But my "more water, so wetter" comment was about global averages. Given that global air and ocean circulation will change, some areas will probably get drier. Such as the US Midwest and Southwest, and perhaps the Amazon. https://news.uci.edu/2018/04/27/scientists-project-a-drier-a... https://www.northcountr…

Anecdotally it looks like parts of central Europe might also get drier.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#88

Post by malcolmstill »

chrisco255 wrote: post #58
fwip wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about vague shifting definitions of "normal." We're talking about "the wettest 12 months ever recorded," in the 125 years we have data for.

Does anyone know what the odds are of experiencing a 1 in 125 year event in a 20 year time span? I feel like sometimes weather records are given higher significance than they really are in the grand scheme of things. Not saying this is one of them, but just trying to look at things in a balanced way.

Assuming independent events (a bad assumption no doubt) then you're looking for 1 - the probability that for 20 years straight you don't have the event happening.

- E event happens in given year - N event doesn't happen in given year

Then P(E) = 1/125. Conversely P(N) = 1-1/125.

We're looking for 1-P(NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN) = 1 - (1-1/125)^20 = 15%

Though I'm sure someone will tell me how I'm wrong

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#89

Post by mirimir »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #73
TheRealPomax wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the UK is not in the US, no matter how many high school students might guess that it is...

So US-only warming instead of global? Confused. Admittedly I may not understand, is US is expected to be impacted differently by global warming than other countries?

It's certainly gotten warmer in the Arctic.

Re: U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again

#90

Post by godshatter »

noonespecial wrote: post #74
billions wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most powerful supercomputers in the world are focused on weather analysis and they can only project a few days out. Yet, some people think they've got it figured out.

I can't predict the cards in my next hand of blackjack, but I'm sure if I play all night the house will win in the end.

That's a pretty good analogy, but the question is: will you lose your bankroll in 20 minutes, or an hour, or 12 hours, or a week?

Climate models are doing the equivalent of trying to figure out when you're going to broke, which (although much easier than figuring what cards you will get) is still a tough question to answer.

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