In the wake of an Iowa primary election chilled in a record blast of cold weather – which scientists say may, counterintuitively, have been worsened by global heating – Republican presidential candidates are embracing the fossil fuel industry tighter than ever, with little to say about the growing toll the climate crisis is taking upon Americans.
The remaining contenders for the US presidential nomination – frontrunner Donald Trump, along with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis – all used the Iowa caucus to promise surging levels of oil and gas drilling if elected, along with the wholesale abolition of Joe Biden’s climate change policies.
Trump, who comfortably won the Iowa poll, said “we are going to drill, baby, drill” once elected, in a Fox News town hall on the eve of the primary.
I couldn’t make this sort of schist up, even if I was trying
In the wake of an Iowa primary election chilled in a record blast of cold weather – which scientists say may, counterintuitively, have been worsened by global heating…
While the recent deep-freeze was not nearly as bad as February 2021, it was below freezing in Dallas TX for nearly four straight days.
On Sunday and Monday (January 14-15), it was below 20 °F and overcast for about 30 straight hours. We even had a light dusting of “global heating” on January 15.
Republican (small r) enthusiasm for oil and especially gas
This was the ERCOT fuel mix when I took took the photo of our backyard:
Figure 3. January 15, 2024, 05:59 AM ERCOT fuel mix
Later that day, the Sun came out, the wind took most of the day off and I was still very enthusiastic for natural gas.
Figure 4. January 15, 2024, 12:04 PM ERCOT fuel mix
ERCOT weathered the deep freeze by ignoring the “climate crisis”
As did Iowa and the rest of the Midwest
“The growing toll the climate crisis is taking upon Americans”
Irrespective of whether or not any of the recent warming has been caused by anthropogenic activities, it’s fairly easy to put that “growing toll” into context.
Terando et al., 2020, will help be demonstrate this. It features a variation of one of my favorite {/Sarcam} climate models.
Figure 6. Modeled human plus natural climate forcing compared to three instrumental records (see Terando for specifics)
Figure 7. Modeled human climate forcing compared to three instrumental records (see Terando for specifics)
If the models are reasonably accurate, the early 20th century warming can be explained by natural forcing mechanisms. Whereas, some or all of the warming since about 1975 cannot be explained by natural forcing mechanisms alone. That said, the models only incorporate known, reasonably well-understood, forcing mechanisms. Judith Curry illustrated this concept quite well…
Let’s assume arguendo that all of the warming since 1975 is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. What would this mean? It’s about 0.8 °C. warmer now than it was in 1975 (the last time the models didn’t require an anthropogenic component). Here’s UAH 6.0 overlaid on the Terando, 2020 model:
Figure 9. Is +0.8 °C since 1975 a “climate crisis”?
1975 was the real “climate crisis”
Figure 10. Science News, March 1, 1975
Assuming the climate models are valid, fossil fuel emissions saved us from “The Ice Age Cometh.”
Figure 11. Context
Warming has made cold weather more likely than when “The Ice Age Cometh”?
The current blast of cold weather is “certainly much more likely given how much the planet is warming” said Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at Verisk Atmospheric and Environmental who has studiedthe phenomenon. “There is scientific evidence that makes severe winter weather consistent or explainable in a warming world. One does not negate the other.”
Anyone else not seeing a pattern of global warming-induced deep freezes?
From 1895-1975, the US averaged about 4,700 Heating Degree Days (HDD) per year. Since “The Ice Age Cometh?”, the average annual HDD has steadily declined to about 4,000.
“The irony is pretty rich”
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, said that while it seems counterintuitive, the science was “becoming clear” that extreme cold spells will be a consequence of global heating.
“The irony is pretty rich” that Iowa has experienced such conditions during a Republican presidential primary, Francis added. “Of course, the deniers won’t see it that way, and won’t listen to any science that says otherwise.”
Do these people not know how to conjugate verbs and diagram sentences?
[W]hile it seems counterintuitive, the science was “becoming clear” that extreme cold spells will be a consequence of global heating.
“Of course, the deniers won’t see it that way, and won’t listen to any science that says otherwise.”
How can “deniers” (or anyone else) “see it that way,” if it hasn’t happened yet?
The irony is definitely “pretty rich.”
“[T]he science was ‘becoming clear’”
Clear as mud! I suppose these NOAA “experts” must be “deniers”:
Understanding the Arctic polar vortex
BY REBECCA LINDSEY REVIEWED BY AMY BUTLER AND JAMES OVERLAND
PUBLISHED MARCH 5, 2021
In late February, as the Southern Plains and Gulf Coast suffered through an unusually strong blast of wintry weather, weather talk turned to the polar vortex and the possibility that the extreme cold was yet another example of weather-gone-wild due to global warming. In this article, we’re talking to two NOAA experts about the devastating extreme cold event, the polar vortex, and the potential link to global warming.
[…]
The polar vortex and global warming
Among the questions readers have been asking us is whether global warming is affecting the polar vortex in a way that would—paradoxically—make severe winter weather outbreaks in the mid-latitudes more likely. According to Butler, the idea isn’t as counter-intuitive as it seems at first glance.
[…]
No clear trend, but limited data
But while the hypothesis is plausible, Butler said, “I don’t think there is any convincing evidence of a long-term trend in the polar vortex. What we see in the record is this very interesting period in the 1990s, when there were no sudden stratospheric warming events observed in the Arctic. In other words, the vortex was strong and stable. But then they started back up again in the late 1990s, and over the next decade there was one almost every year. So there was a window of time in the early 2010s where it seemed like there might be a trend toward weaker, more disrupted or shifted states of the Arctic polar vortex. But it hasn’t continued, and more and more, it’s looking like what seemed to be the beginning of a trend was just natural variability, or maybe just a rebound from the quiet of the 1990s.”
“It’s tough, though,” Butler continues, “because we don’t have a very long record of observations of the stratosphere. We’ve only been observing it directly since the 1950s. That’s not very long to understand what kind of natural variability the polar vortex might be capable of. One researcher did a historical reconstruction by correlating the overlapping portions of the North Atlantic Oscillation index—which goes back much farther—and the polar vortex record, and then extrapolating the polar vortex record farther back in time using the NAO index. It showed no long-term trend, and no big differences in recent decades compared to previous decades.”
Still, she said, it’s possible there have been changes to the vortex like location that aren’t as well understood and could have consequences for surface impacts.
Models stubbornly split
The uncertainty due to a relatively short history of observations isn’t the only reason experts can’t dismiss the possibility that something could be up with polar vortex. Some climate model experiments do predict that continued warming will lead to a weakening of the polar vortex.
[…]
At the same time, other model simulations predict that warming and sea ice loss will lead to a stronger polar vortex.
[…]
Still, by most of the metrics experts use to describe winter climate, Overland agrees the big picture is clear: on average, winters are warmer and cold extremes are less likely than they were a century ago. That trend is likely to continue with rising greenhouse gases and more global warming. If these intermittent influences of the Arctic on the mid-latitudes won’t fundamentally change the overall trajectory of winter climate with global warming, then why is the subject still such a hot research area?
Some models predict that global warming will cause more cold snaps in the future…
Other climate models predict that global warming won’t cause more cold snaps in the future…
And no actual observational data support the idiotic notion that global warming had anything to do with the January 2024 deep freeze.
Reference
Terando, A., Reidmiller, D., Hostetler, S.W., Littell, J.S., Beard, T.D., Jr., Weiskopf, S.R., Belnap, J., and Plumlee, G.S., 2020, Using information from global climate models to inform policymaking—The role of the U.S. Geological Survey: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2020–1058, 25 p., https://ift.tt/UWbauXy.
Iowa Climate Science Education 