Thursday, July 19, 2012

30 Year Climate Forecast -- 2 Year Update.

The original Forecast was posted on 6/18/2010. Two more years of Termperature, Ocean Current patterns, and  Solar, and "weather" data have considerably confirmed and strengthened the original forecast.
In brief  - NOAA -  HCN -  SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997  - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003  the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.
Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of  successful predictions in bold.

".  A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world.  Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .
There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."
 
The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed
"The most general advice is that world food production will be subject to occasional serious severe restriction because of cold and drought. The use of food crops for biofuels should be abandoned and stockpiles built up for possible lean times ahead.. Northern cities and transportation systems should prepare for more frequent heavy snow and ice storms.
There is no threat from the burning of fossil fuels for the forseeable future, indeed an increase in CO2 would positively help in feeding the burgeoning population."
 
All the recent empirical data - especially the negative phase of the PDO  and the continued decline in the Solar magnetic field strength  now ( July 2012) suggest  that once solar cycle 24 starts its decline  in 2014-15  we will see an acceleration of the current slight cooling trend and that this trend  might well last for 25 -30 years. Beyond then we do not know enough at this time to make useful predictions.
 
 

4 comments:

  1. I first read this post on WUWT.

    There is much of interest there, but please confirm one state made parenthetically:

    'there is currently no observed empirical connection between CO2 and measured global temperatures'

    This is something I have been inquiring about for some time, and up to this point, have found no answer.

    If this is true, why hasn't it received more attention? It seems to me the the entire AGW ediface rests on making a causal relationship between rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures.

    And there is not one shred of evidence for this?

    Please confirm this at osopolitico@hotmail.com

    Sincerely - Oso Politico

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  2. Now that the leaked IPCC Draft Report for 2013 indicates something of a backdown, you may be interested in my climate analysis and projections as in Appendix 1 of my paper published March 2012. You will need to open it to see the graphics and supporting links, but the text reads ...

    Q.1 How do you explain the fact that the Earth has been warming?

    Technically the Earth is currently in an interglacial period and the last few glacial periods have occurred at roughly 100,000 year intervals. This indicates the possibility of there being natural cycles, short and long, which appear to be related to astronomical orbital events. For example, the planet Jupiter has an effect on the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit in such a way that the difference in the distances between the Sun and the Earth at the aphelion and perihelion can vary (over many thousands of years) from just over 0% when its orbit is nearly a true circle, up to about 5% when it is elliptical. Such variations affect the mean distance and that will then affect the mean radiative flux over the course of a year.

    Many scientists also believe there is clear evidence of a 60-year cycle which may be related to the alignment of the planets Jupiter and Saturn every 59.6 years. This cycle appears to have been the main cause of the observed temperature increases which raised alarm in the 30 years or so leading up to the maximum in 1998. However, there is also a longer cycle which appears to be very approximately 1,000 years. The underlying trend in the rate of ncrease can be detected when a trend line is added to the plot below (from this site) which shows 30 year trend gradients.

    It appears that the mean rate of increase per decade has decreased from about 0.06oC early in the 20th century to about 0.05oC per decade in recent times, as you can see from the green trend line. Perhaps the 1,000 year trend will reach a maximum in the next 100 to 200 years and be 0.5 to 1.0oC warmer than at present. So natural trends can and do explain the historic climate record, right up to the current slight decline which is probably due to the 60 year cycle declining, but being mostly countered by the underlying upward trend of the 1,000 year cycle.

    You will find an explanation in my new paper linked here.

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  3. The world needs a paradigm shift in thinking about climate change and what causes what. In my peer-reviewed paper "Planetary Surface Temperatures. A Discussion of Alternative Mechanisms" I provide proof that there is no runaway greenhouse effect on Venus - or any on Earth. Consider watching this 10 minute video, and maybe reading the paper. http://youtu.be/r8YbyfqUvfY

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  4. Doug I enjoyed your web site and obviously generally agree with your views. As I see it the key to estimating the temperature trends for the next 50 years or so is inknowing where we are relative to the peak in the 1000 year cycle. Is the peak broad or narrow? You might like to look at the shape of the last one for a possible clue. see
    http://www.clim-past.net/8-765/2012

    Figs 5,6,7. Best Regards Norman

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