BPSDB
I recently made an earlier attempt at exploring probability in relation to climate.
Michael Tobis (citing Andy Revkin) points to a very nice and more succinct analogy by Professor Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales:
The “loading the dice” analogy is becoming popular but it misses something very important: climate change also allows unprecedented (in human history) things to happen. It is more like painting an extra spot on each face of one of the dice, so that it goes from 2 to 7 instead of 1 to 6. This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13.
What happens then?
Since we have never had to cope with 13’s, this could prove far worse than simply loading the dice toward more 11’s and 12’s. I’m not sure whether or not what is happening in Russia or Pakistan is a “13” yet, but 13’s will eventually arrive (and so will 14’s, if carbon emissions continue to rise).
Michael thinks that we have just seen our first thirteen (or possibly our second if you count Australia’s experience in 2009).
He goes on to say
I can define a fourteen easily. We will have rolled a fourteen when there is no controversy at all about whether the given event was in the range of unforced natural variability.
I’m reluctant to argue with someone like Michael – but I guess it depends on how you define “controversy”.
NOAA have published a draft report on The Russian Heat Wave of 2010 (copied and pasted in its entirety by Watts. I do hope he asked for permission to do so).
NOAA point out that Moscow’s average July temperature was 4 standard deviations above the long-term climatology. Since you would expect 99.994% of data values in a normal distribution to fall within 4σ of the mean, calling this a 13 (unprecendented) seems reasonable. And the impact is huge. As Michael points out,
If we consider the Russia and Pakistan catastrophes as part of the same event, we have easily thirty million people directly affected and loss of life in the tens of thousands.
That is without taking crop losses in both countries into account, which is also likely to have a substantial impact.
But can we attribute it to climate change?
NOAA think not:
Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave. It is not known whether, or to what exent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that observations reveal no trend in a daily frequency of July blocking over the period since 1948, nor is there an appreciable trend in the absolute values of upper tropospheric summertime heights over western Russia for the period since 1900.
So that’s alright then, isn’t it?
NOAA think not:
The 2007 IPCC report highlights surface temperature projections for the period 2090-2099 under a business-as-ususal scenario that reveals +5°C to +7°C warming warming of annually average temperatures over much of Eurasia under an aggressive A2 scenario.
As we learn from our 2010 experience what a sustained heat wave of +5°C to+10°C implies for human health, water resources, and agricultural productivity, a more meaningful appreciation for the potential consequences of the projected climate changes will emerge. It is clear that the random occurrence of a summertime block in the presence of the projected changes in future surface temperature would produce heat waves materially more severe than the 2010 event.
I’d rather not wait for Michael’s 14 to be thrown – but even if the Mediterranean Sea boiled dry I’m sure we would still have inane comments like these at WUWT:
etc. etc. etc.
Further reading: Michael Tobis hsd posted a follow-up – worth reading for the comments and the excellent cartoon by Marc Roberts.
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Greenfyre's 
You missed a few key points in the NOAA report.
It actually points out in the main text that apart from the natural blocking event, the greenhouse effect enhanced surface temperatures.
This is the issue really, more severe events caused by GHE enhancing known natural events.
There is also the issue of frequency of events as well.
With respect, unless I missed something in the report, I think you’re wrong.
Certainly NOAA know that warming is happening (and indeed say so in no uncertain terms in the report) – but they state categorically that the heat wave is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and that they do not detect any increase in frequency of such events (in this region).
Certainly there are some that disagree with them (see the comments at the “Only in it for the gold” links – but these seem to be “gut feeling” remarks – nobody appears yet to have done the maths to prove a link.
(If anyone knows of such an exercise please let me know).
Maybe I didn’t express myself well enough. For me, the take home point is the final paragraph. By the end of the century (under an A2 scenario) this July’s temperatures in the region will be the norm. Now imagine what it’s going to be like when a similar blocking event happens under those conditions.
A2 is pretty aggressive, so it might not be quite as bad as that, but it will still be bad – much worse than this year.
To sum up, what I think the NOAA are saying is “you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet”.
I didn’t actually say that they didn’t pin the issue on a blocking event!
As you rightly say, that is the main point that they raise.
But the other issues that are buried in the report are that the drought resulted in increasing surface temperatures:
I would have thought that increasing GHGs would enhance surface temperatures. So, when an event like this occurs again, the land feedbacks would be greater.
They also mention day and night temperatures are getting warmer, although I suspect that is a general observation of the effects of GHGs.
The general point I was making was that ‘natural events’ like this are enhanced by GHGs and that is the concluding point that they make in the report.
I think we’re totally in agreement here. 🙂
Oh, and I do like your simulator (and your reasons for developing it). 🙂
Thanks.
It was sort of a culmination of assimilating a lot of info and realising that most people just accept the insulating blanket analogy without understanding how the ‘blanket’ works.
Also there is a big jump between understanding IR spectroscopy at molecular level and seeing that work out into a bigger picture. You can do it in your head as a game, trying to imagine what is happening, or I guess a lecturer would draw pictures. I decided to see if it could be modelled in a simple fashion and would the model work??
To my surprise, it did, so I continued to build the thing, thinking up new controls and stuff.
Yes, NOAA says that the blocking event that caused the heat wave is not attributable to global warming. However, given that the world as a whole is 1-2 degrees warmer than it used to be, I would argue that the temps experienced during this heat wave were likely 1-2 degrees warmer than if the identical blocking event had occurred several decades ago.
So maybe global warming can’t be implicated as a cause of the heat wave, but it most certainly may have contributed to exacerbating it.
(Also, as a federal agancy, NOAA’s reports are public domain, so Watts does not need permission to reprint.)
Nice …This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13.
What happens then?
Since we have never had to cope with 13’s
but may have contributed to exacerbating it….it’s a good point
Bliss was it in this dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven…und young i am not
and youre focusing in a single abnormal event
and 2010 is full of abnormal events
at 23 Aug Sermeq Kujalleq- give birth to the second ice cube with 4.35miles
calved another massive chunk of ice expected to eventually drift south into shipping lanes off Canada East Coast.
There has been notably warm weathers in the Ilulissat region this summer and last winter and if we have a nice warm winter…. this year
oh and nice links
some are very basic ones
for instance a tree-planting program has launched in Mauritania in 1988 aimed at protecting its capital from the advancing desert ,a project that eventually extend thousands of grant’s money without a “green belt”, except in the wallets of some people
this is a new 88 with more people and less perspectives
is similar to the global warming issue
just wanted to share, poptech caught being a denier rather than a skeptic, stating that no matter how much temperature changes, will never support AGW.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=252689&page=6
I think you are right to worry that some people will never accept the evidence, given that their aim will never deviate from opposing regulation.
What needs to happen is for the relatively sensible majority of people to appreciate the scale and importance of the problem we are facing, and begin supporting the kind of policies that can actually address it.
“some people will never accept the evidence, given that their aim will never deviate from opposing regulation”
A well-stated worry.
Unfortunately, these are people who refuse to think.
cheers
Back to dice:
As there are still cold spells possible (e.g. southern america just before the russian heat wave), painting an additional spot does not quite fit for me.
How about throwing one 6-sided away and replacing it with a 7-sided or 8-sided die?
A 7-Sider would push the expected value from 7 to 7.5, while the lowest yield ist still 2, but there’s an 13 possible.
(or with an 8-sider: 13 and 14 possible with 8 expected)
I like this comment. 🙂
Rather than a 6-sided die plus an 8-sided die, you could have two 7-sided die, but that is splitting hairs.
Regionally this makes sense, as cold snaps still happen as you point out – but global temperatures keep on rising. It is rare for us to throw a double one (globally) these days.
Thanks 🙂
Yes, the Russian Heat Wave is a regional event.
But global temperatures are composed of a lot of regional mesurements – so the regional double one is outshone by the additional 13s and 14s nowadays. And the rise of the expected value is consistent with the risen global temperatures.
If we are going to wait until it is a sure thing, we will lose the fight. Risk analysis already says to go full out on carbon emission reduction. Natural science has not been the frontier for a long time. The frontier is social science. Let’s get rid of the private auto. You only need the most intuitive economics to see the need. And free transit is moving people who will never read or understand the NOAA work.