
Why is the Northwest so warm? - aaronbrethorst
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-is-northwest-so-warm.html
======
Daishiman
The author's assertion that this is _not_ anthropogenic is laughably
ridiculous. Robert Scribbler writes
([https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/strong-
west...](https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/strong-westerlies-
push-el-nino-toward-extreme-event/)) that since the last El Niño of similar
magnitudes atmospheric CO2 has increased by 45ppm. Global ocean temperatures
are much higher and it is _definitely_ causing shifts in air currents all over
the world. The Pacific Northwest is just one area out of many that is
experiencing considerably higher temperatures.

The fact that we're having two mega El Niño events in the past 17 years is
indicative, amongst hundreds of other observations, that the climate is
changing at a speed we should be terrified of. The number of global
temperature anomalies going is pretty staggering.

Sam McNamara has written ([http://arctic-news.blogspot.nl/2015/07/east-
siberian-heat-wa...](http://arctic-news.blogspot.nl/2015/07/east-siberian-
heat-wave.html)) about 20+ degree anomalies in the Arctic. This is the part
where we're playing with the possibility of destabilizing underwater methane
clathrate reserves. If that happens, we can just call of all climate change
prevention efforts, because that's extinction-event level shit.

~~~
johnchristopher
How can there be a temperature reading of 0º on the 2nd of July in NW France ?
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DOcnQQULMfs/VZVSXCvJdiI/AAAAAAAAQu...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DOcnQQULMfs/VZVSXCvJdiI/AAAAAAAAQuI/ZOS_eFq4yJM/s1600/July-1-7-2015.png)

What am I reading wrong ?

~~~
wyago
I'm not totally familiar with this diagram, but I think that by "Temperature
Anomaly" they mean the difference between the temperature and what we expected
the temperature to be (or something like that), not the absolute temperature.

~~~
johnchristopher
Ah, I get it now. Thanks.

------
oska
> Here is a thought to keep in mind: the more extreme the weather anomaly, the
> less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global
> warming. The current situation is mega extreme in terms of our temperatures.
> The reason this aphorism makes sense is that global warming due to increased
> greenhouse gases should warm the earth in a progressive, slow way---not in
> huge jumps. Here in the Northwest, temperature increases have been
> particularly slow (about 1F over the past century) because of the huge
> thermal inertia of the Pacific Ocean.

> And there is something else: the warming influencing our region is localized
> and does not have the characteristics of the global warming signal seen in
> climate models. While the Northwest has been hot and dry, much of the
> eastern U.S. has been much cooler and wetter than normal. Even the Rockies
> have been wetter than normal. Global warming would warm them as well. This
> week I was at a weather conference in Chicago....it was quite chilly there
> at times.

I think this section, particularly the second paragraph, shows the writer has
a very poor understanding of what global warming is and how it can and will
have different localized effects across different timeframes.

~~~
mirimir
It's not "global warming". It's "global climate change", in response to
increased greenhouse forcing. The "amplification of the upper level wave
pattern" (kinked jet stream) is arguably one aspect of global climate
change.[0]

[0] [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-evidence-link-wavy-jet-
stream.h...](http://phys.org/news/2015-02-evidence-link-wavy-jet-stream.html)

~~~
mckoss
Cliff is a highly respected meteorologist in the NW. He debunks your citation
in his blog (see his response to comments in this post).

~~~
mirimir
Respected by whom, if I may ask?

Anyone who refers to global climate change as "global warming", and who says
that models predict uniform warming, is arguably either ignorant, or is
intentionally distorting predictions.

------
rando289
"Let's take a look at a comparison of the temperatures (yellow lines) on both
sides of the Cascades (Sea Tac and Yakima) with the normal highs (red lines)
and low (blue lines) for the past year."

I assume the author means the average over many years for the "normal." The
current phrase is like saying "the normal temperate for 1980 did not match the
actual temperature for 1980." Or, "1980 was not a normal 1980." Also annoying
that the graph has incomplete labels, with the full explanation buried in
text.

------
fredkbloggs
At some point, an effect that persists and repeats over an extended period of
time ceases to be anomalous and becomes the new normal. We are at (really,
well past) that point with hot, dry weather in the West. One could even argue
that the hot West/cool East pattern as a whole has become the new normal.
Dismissing it as normal variation just means you haven't yet understood a
causal link with anything else.

There's no shame in not knowing how something works, especially something that
is both complex and chaotic. There is, however, shame in asserting that you do
when you don't. The author cannot (or at least does not) explain the root
cause of this pattern; therefore he cannot know whether its increased
prevalence is ultimately anthropogenic or not. The smart money is on the
humans here, but what really matters is _figuring it out_ , not making
unsubstantiated assertions as to what it is or isn't.

------
graycat
Supposedly currently there is a sea floor volcano in the western Paciffic that
has warmed waters in a Pacific current that flows east

Indeed, in one of the author's graphs, can see a long, line of warmer water
from the western Pacific all the way east to the Americas.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
You mean the fourth graph, labeled "Seasonal SST Anomaly", right below "THE
BLOB"?

That's El Nino. You're seeing El Nino in that picture.

(also: which volcano? [http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/pacific-
ocean.html](http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/pacific-ocean.html))

------
Gravityloss
I've found this way of thinking helpful:

"The idea is not: radiative imbalance causes warming everywhere which nudges
the climate a bit. So many people think like this but it is wrong. Radiative
imbalance pushes the climate around so much that eventually it changes enough
to restore the balance. Almost surely surface warming is part of that. But a
lot else is part of it."

Michael Tobis at [http://initforthegold.blogspot.fi/2011/05/black-
birds.html](http://initforthegold.blogspot.fi/2011/05/black-birds.html)

------
rndn
> _the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by
> human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming._

Why is that the case? My knowledge is not based on much better sources than
this blog post, but isn't the warming of the oceans believed to cause extreme
weather anomalies?

~~~
tinco
I think he's referring to the intuitive idea that how bigger the deviation the
less likely it's caused by a small thing. Why should a 0.1C overall increase
in temperature lead to a 5C degree difference this summer and the one 5 years
ago? Much more likely is some larger timescale larger force dynamic. (Unless
of course someone has proven a mechanism for the former).

In the long run yes, warming of the earth will cause more extreme weather. But
it has little relation to that of today.

~~~
taylodl
If weather is known to be a nonlinear system then doesn't it make sense that
climate would be as well? Why should we expect small changes in climate inputs
to have correspondingly small changes in climate results?

~~~
tinco
Well, I'm not a weather expert. But to me climate is a whole bunch of weather,
and a whole bunch of non-linear things don't always make a non-linear thing
together. Molecules in a gas do weird stuff individually, but the gas as a
whole behaves very predictably.

~~~
kaybe
Sadly, the main governing equations of weather (eg Navier–Stokes equation for
fluid dynamics) are still very much non-linear. Non-linear does not mean
unpredictable, it just means that it is very hard to solve (currently no
analytical solution for the Navier–Stokes equation) and that, well, the system
is not linear. (And it applies to gas, btw.)

For weather, other important effects are phase change of water at given
pressure/temperatures (which can store large amounts of energy), radiative
transport (again, non-linear equation, not solved) and heat transfer (non-
linear equation, solved (easy)).

For forecasts, you also cannot measure the full state of the system at any
point in time. This makes it a very hard problem - otherwise weather forecasts
would have been perfect ages ago. With the advent of cluster computing and
measurement satellites, it is now possible to improve the forecasts vastly,
but it's still hard.

------
smutticus
> the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by
> human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming.

I'm not an expert in this field by any measure. However, this assumption goes
against everything I've read from people who are experts.

------
jrapdx3
Tell me about it. Here in Portland temperatures have been in the 90's,
prompting complaints, but nothing to do about it. OTOH relatives in Texas are
complaining about unusually rainy weather in recent weeks, like our respective
typical conditions have been exchanged.

I'm guessing in both regions it's associated with El Nino effects. Also now
wondering if the drought south of us is an El Nino effect as well. Looks like
the drought is creeping its way north, and when it does, it's definitely going
to be a source of serious trouble in this part of the US.

~~~
DanBC
> Also now wondering if the drought south of us is an El Nino effect as well.

Hasn't the drought lasted several years now? This (poorly dated) page talks
about 2011 and the worst drought for 70 years, and it's been drought since
then.

[http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14091&ArticleId=4...](http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14091&ArticleId=470584)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/us-mexico-
drought-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/us-mexico-drought-
idUSBRE82K1E520120321)

------
snarfy
I've noticed the jet stream is shifted. It normally would dip down over the
pacific ocean and then back up towards the pacific northwest. Now it's shifted
east and the dip down happens over the pacific northwest.

I'm no meteorologist, but it seems like if it were over the ocean there would
be wetter and cooler weather on the west coast.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Those graphs are useless wiithout standard deviation intervals. The argument
that "it's hotter than normal" can't be made without knowing the bounds of
normal. The long term average doesn't show that.

------
zackmorris
Here in Boise, ID it's been between 100 and 110. I remember these temperatures
15 years ago when I worked outdoors but what I don't remember is the humidity.
It's odd to be sitting outside at midnight at 90 degrees and 30% humidity,
which feels like midwest weather. It's more usual for the high desert to get
down to the 70s or even 50s at night with any altitude.

While this may be more of a random fluctuation than full on global warming,
I’m concerned because weather has been strange for years now. We often get
excessive rain for months in the spring, which didn’t used to happen. The
weather in this location is getting more moderate, while the rest of the
country seems to be getting more extreme (this is one of the long term
predictions of global warming).

IMHO there is a connection between widespread die offs and weather that hasn’t
been studied well yet. I’m too young to remember what the northwest was like
before things like wildfire control threw everything out of balance. Imagine
150 years ago - there were large animal herds, dense lush forests, pristine
waters, and one of my favorites: 10 foot tall sagebrush as far as the eye
could see where now we only have cheatgrass.

If you go out in the wilderness today, there is so little wildlife. Big game
is rare, no wolves, a handful of bears, few to no birds, orders of magnitude
less fish due to dams. We really have no frame of reference for what settlers
witnessed, when life was everywhere they looked.

In these death zones, we are seeing some pretty apocalyptic $#!@:

[http://www.cdhd.idaho.gov/news/current/groundsquirrelplague....](http://www.cdhd.idaho.gov/news/current/groundsquirrelplague.htm)

The world is so much sicker than anyone realizes. All areas are in decline, so
if you look at things like timber and fishing, the numbers are down 50%, even
90% of where they started. What we do have in abundance now is pests. Mosquito
abatement for West Nile virus is a requirement here now. Pine beetles scurry
everywhere you look, leading to the not-so-distant demise of rocky mountain
forests. So it makes sense to me that global warming may show a blip of 3% off
normal and result in these wide swings. Think of how missing wetlands affect
hurricane flooding, but now apply that to all chaotic systems everywhere. I
don’t know how anyone could come to the conclusion that everything is fine (in
other words, that chaos is at a stalemate or diminishing).

So that’s my radical environmentalist explanation. Global warming is one
thing, but the widespread famine of the natural world is looming within our
lifetimes and I find that really uncanny. Unfortunately people generally only
ponder what’s right in front of their faces rather than extrapolating how it
all plays out. Although in fairness, if doing the projections leads to the
same hollow realization that nothing can be done, then there’s something to be
said for denial. At least we still have good beer! It’s important to keep a
balanced perspective on these things and not let them get you down too much.

My personal solution to this is to live as a hipster and try to make enough
money that I can not be too much of a burden on the planet (living close to
work etc). Unfortunately there’s a case to be made that income and carbon
footprint are relatively synonymous, due to the level of infrastructure needed
to acquire it. Living as a hermit doesn’t really help either because we are
capable of contributing more than 0 solutions to the problem. So I always find
myself back at square one with the struggle against ineffectualism. This may
be a natural evolution in global consciousness, but I just hope that it
happens fast enough that it’s not all gone before we have the spiritual means
to step outside the consumer capitalism matrix and do something.

~~~
zackmorris
In hindsight this looks like the idle ramblings of someone out of touch with
reality. But in truth it's closer to the opposite - I've spent too much time
analyzing the repercussions of everything because that's what programmers do.

If someone ever finds this, this video sums up a lot of what I was trying to
say:

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysa5OBhXz-Q](https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysa5OBhXz-Q)

Now multiply that by every ecosystem that has been tampered with by humans
across the face of the planet and decide for yourself if our climate has been
affected.

