Brett, correct me if I am wrong, but are not thunderstorms more a product of the degree of difference between the warm and cold front interface? If so, then why would an overall warming increase this delta?

Reply: That has an impact, but what these guys are looking at is the increase in severity, and part of that is reliant on the amount of heating and also the dewpoints (humidity). The more heating and higher dewpoints ahead of a line of thunderstorms the greater potential for severe weather. Upper level wind strength and wind shear are also a factor, but the article is not talking about that.

Thanks.

Could it be that warm air form the tropics always comes north and that our intrusments are getting better at measuring wind speed and lightning strikes which would make thunderstroms seem like they are getting worse?

It is becoming increasingly obvious that essentially all AGW science is ultimately based on computer models.

In a normal scientific environment, these models would be subject to rigorous testing vs. the real world. Perhaps spend the next two years comparing predictions vs. actual results?

They would all fall flat on their face and then we wouldn't have to listen to this nonsense any more. There are too many variables in this chaotic system we call climate. For example, Malinkovitch cycles are not yet understood mathematically. Volcanoes and asteroids are not understood mathematically. El Nino and La Nina are not understood mathematically. etc....

Patrick,

The "studies" that say we will go into an economic depression if we reduce CO2 are based on computer models. Of course, climate models have proven to be much more accurate than economic models.

Were these the same computers that predicted severe hurrican activity this year?

Is this the same computers that on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning showed Maryland would get 1" to 2" of snow on Wednesday? (We got over 7" at our house).

I agree with Patrick. Often, these computers can't predict accurately what is going to happen a couple of days from now, yet we are suppose to believe what these coputers say will happen weeks, months (or in the case of this article), decades from now?

I think this is a matter of people believing their own press. "I wrote it, so it must be true".

that article is so burnt- it takes more then just warm air, humidity and low-level winds- you also need opposing air masses such as a dry line, cold front, warm fronts (personally when i chased- i wouldn't chase unless i saw a good triple point) strong jet stream winds, - you would also need more wind shear, and like boondocks said- if the air becomes more and more warmed- then ultimately the air would be so capped- it would have to take a powerfull cold front or surface low to break the cap- you know and theres more individual variables that i can tell you but i don't have enough time to get into

"It appears that the increase in warm, humid air near the surface outweighs the reduction in strong winds higher in the atmosphere," said Diffenbaugh."

This is the kind of rigourous, definitive research we have come to expect from climate scientists.

But what else can you expect from video games?

I love these scare stories! I'm under the covers shivering as we speak.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that essentially all AGW science is ultimately based on computer models.

REPLY: Garbage in. Garbage out, eh Patrick?

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!!

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the most severe thunderstorms in the world in the mid-latitudes, where the winds aloft are strongest? Yes, there are a lot of thunderstorms in the tropics, but the lack of strong winds aloft is the reason why all the tornadoes and such happen at higher latitudes...I don't see an increase in severe storms as being likely...it just doesn't make sense (not that AGW does to being with...)

I DO believe that severe Thunderstorms may become more frequent.
In fact, this increase in the frequency of severe storms is already taking place. For example, Rosario -Argentina- had a severe hail storm last year in November. This year, it was not ONE hail storm... there were two of them, though not as severe. But during late October or early November I can't remember, a potent storm hit Rosario with wind gusts reaching 108 km/h, something that's not so common down here.
Another clear example of this is Colombia: for the first time a TORNADO was reported in this country, together with golf-ball-size hail. Highly unusual for tropical areas, don't you think?
And last, in Villa Maria, Cordoba, Argentina there were 2 hail reports during November. Again, not that common to have so many severe t-storms in this part of the globe.

According to AGW most of the warming is will be experienced at the northern/southern lattitudes and much less in the tropics. From my understanding of severe weather (eg T-storms/tornados)basically requires the clash of warm humid air with cool air from the north and a strong jet stream. If the temp differential between these air masses is reduced, would it be reasonable to expect that severe weather would decrease with AGW?

Hi Mark,

You keep telling us that reducing CO2 emissions by 80% is no problem. If so, please demonstrate for the rest of us.

If you can't do it, then I suggest you don't vote for Hillary or Obama, and definitely don't try to dump it on the next generation with the "not till 2050" excuse.

20% of the nation's CO2 production is agriculture. Are we going to ban all other activities which create CO2? Like breathing?

You remind me of a teenager who says - "I can do it any time I want to - just not now."

The fact is that the bill which went through Congressional subcommittee yesterday would destroy the US economy. The Dems are setting themselves up for another big fall by biting off on this insanity.

Caution should also be used in attaching the word 'likely' to the conclusions of such studies. In some contexts this implies the existence of statistically significant evidence in favor of a hypothesis, such evidence being data gathered through rigorous scientific experimentation. This is not the case here.

Doug,

It is worse than that. Very few of the articles posted here are written by people who have first hand knowledge of the GCMs. An entire cottage industry based around GIGO hearsay. In a proper legal setting it would all be inadmissible evidence.

BTW - I have nothing against the computers - it is the people exploiting the models who are not being honest with themselves, or us.

As long as we're on the subject of what global warming causes, here are a few items that may cause global warming.

* Christmas causes Global Warming
* Kangaroo farts could ease global warming
* Flatulent sheep cause global warming
* The Koran inveighs against global warming
* Canadian beer drinkers are causing global warming
* Using toilet paper causes global warming
* Hanukka causes global warming
* Making pasta causes global warming
* Having children causes global warming

Ok, I lied (I thought I'd admit it before bt caught me and chastised me for it), kangaroo farts actually ease global warming.

Leave it up to the Canadians to cause global warming. If only they'd give up their beer fridges, the world would be colder and they wouldn't need them.

I'm doing my part to ease global warming, also. I've decided to not have any more children (two is more than enough).

Thanks to the Belmont Club.

"The research team used climate models to examine future weather conditions favorable to the formation of severe thunderstorms....."

And that's where the whole study simply falls apart!

Sayeth Patrick Perhaps spend the next two years comparing predictions vs. actual results?

But didn't mother nature actually provide that test in the last decade? And isn't it still ongoing? I refer to the lull in warming that started in the late 1990's, and continues to this day.

How well did the GCM's model this? Hmmmm.

Claude,

I'm still waiting for the hot UK summer, record hurricane season, and hottest year ever which the Hadley and NOAA modelers predicted for 2007.

When the models failed, they invoked the "La Nina" defense. I suppose next time comes the "Chewbacca" defense.

ClaudeC,

What lull in warming?

And yet another AGW big lie bites the dust.

"The bear industry in Churchill is big bucks, and what better way to keep people coming than to tell them they'd better hurry to see the disappearing bears."

After almost three months of working with those who know the Arctic best - among them Inuit Indians, who are appalled at the way an animal they have lived beside for centuries has become a poster species for "misinformed" Greens

When outsiders question whether anyone would be so cynical, they are reminded of that now-famous photograph of a polar bear which appears to be teetering precariously on an Arctic ice-floe, melting faster than ice-cream, in the depths of winter. For a while, it became a powerful symbol of the perils of global warming - until it was revealed to have been taken three years ago and during the height of summer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=500424&in_page_id=1811

there has been no significant warming in the SH since records began unfortunately.....where it should be most noticeable mid-troposphere if it was C02.. in fact the slope is negative -0.02Centigrade per decade
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2/tmtglhmam_5.1
DECADAL TREND= Global =0.059 NH=0.119 SH=-0.002

cbmclean:
"" ClaudeC,What lull in warming? ""

While I have seen several renditions of this data all showing the same thing, I do not remember where they are. This one shows the data as well as any other.
While 10 years is statistically insignificant, it does show the recent "Lull in Warming"

http://denerding.blogspot.com/2007/12/global-warming-earth-cooled-005c-in.html

There is another amusing article in ICECAP.us today that suggests references to modern temperature trends should be stated as EG: 2007 was the 7th coolest year of the 21st century.

Relax, folks. The world is not coming to an end because of a few more storms and receeding ice.

If you were living in the northern states 10,000 years ago, many generations would have become accustomed to looking north at a 5,000 ft thick chunk of ice that was 4,000 miles wide and keeping the temperature just right.

When it began to melt and receed, you would have probably thought the world and the human race was coming to an end, but alas, it didn't, to the dismay of environmental fanatics of that time period, who probably believed they could convince everyone to stop burning wood, or invent something that would stop the heating and save the ice sheet, to keep everything as it had been for thousands of years.

Imagine if they did stop it. There wouldn't be any Canadians today.

A bit of interesting information about Arctic sea ice. I noticed an error in the Cryosphere today graphs which is causing the fall 2007 extent to be underreported. Hudson Bay is nearly saturated with ice, yet their graph is showing it at less than 50% of last year's levels. Same for Baffin Bay. This accounts for a nearly 1,000,000 km2 deficit in their current numbers, which means that Arctic sea ice is actually very close to the 30 year mean.

I have contacted the person in charge at uuic, and he is trying to figure out what is causing the problem. Here is his response -

That's a good question. It looks like the maximum area I get is only about half the total according to wikipedia. Either there is something wrong in my area calculations or the total area of the Bay is not 1.2 Mkm2. I'll look into this. Thanks for writing.

This probably does not have a huge effect on the summer minimum because most of the ice loss was on the western side of the Arctic. However it is skewing the current data downwards relative to last year.

Compare their graph vs. their map.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.13.html
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.4.jpg

In March 2007, Hudson Bay made it up to 1.3 million km2. This fall (according to the site administrator) it is constrained to about 1/2 that by their software. Something apparently changed in their software over the summer. I'll keep you all posted about the result, but the upshot is that Arctic sea ice extent is nearly back to normal.

Dishonest political tampering with the science on global warming:

Two detailed investigations by Committees of the House confirm that the IPCC has deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather.

My contribution to the 2007 report illustrates the scientific problem. The report's first table of figures - inserted by the IPCC's bureaucrats after the scientists had finalized the draft, and without their consent - listed four contributions to sea-level rise. The bureaucrats had multiplied the effect of melting ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets by 10.

Full story: http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071205.!15

TH,

Thanks for the information about cryosphere today. When they get that corrected, worldwide sea ice will be reported as 1 million km2 above normal. Every schoolchild in the country has been taught that the polar ice caps are "disappearing at an alarming rate."

Saskatchewan is again getting hit hard by extreme global warming in the northern latitudes. The entire province is below 0F.
http://www.wunderground.com/global/CA_SA.html

Nice weather in the "warm, moist climate" of Siberia too! -47F now and -52F in a few days.