While on the 700 club Tuesday going over the upcoming hurricane season , the question was put to me at the end by Pastor Pat Robertson, is another ice age lurking?
(Here is the link for those who wish to watch the entire interview).
NOAA’s numbers btw agree with what our company put out in March, and has been touted here several times. It does not mean I am right, and if wrong, it means I was wrong, longer ha ha)
I answered no, but there are some things that I could not address in a 15 second response that I can address here. I think Pastor Roberston has been hearing some of the low solar talk out there and as I have tried to make clear, the climate is a function of the total picture of current and past events of various intensities and strengths that have gotten us to where we are now. The big 4 are the Sun, the oceans, stochastic events and the very design of the system. Co2, though having always been around, is now being touted as the climate control knob, but it is merely one of many things, and its role demands skepticism given the known variance of the planet’s climate. In any case, the question is especially concerning due to something called the snap back or rubber band theory which I learned when I was at Penn State back in the 1970s. Simply put, the further one gets away from whatever set point the system wants, the harder it is to get further away, it’s like stretching a rubber band. So if conditions change the response can be a sudden turn in the opposite direction or a snap back and sometimes even an over compensation. While the snap back is sudden, the conditions for it mount up over a long period of time and like a small leak in a dam, suddenly will burst. But once it does, the rout is on and can have much greater consequences than gradual warming. The current warming, despite being portrayed the way it is, is gradual when one looks at the long-term picture of the planet’s temperature. It has occurred most strongly in areas that are cold and dry, where life does not thrive, which would point the finger at increased water vapor which would be an offshoot of cyclically warmer oceans, which is largely natural. So it can be adapted too and we have quite nicely. Since our way of life globally now assumes a warmer planet than 50 or 100 years ago and we have adapted, the combination of that adaptation and so many more people on the planet means a snap to colder would have major harsh implications for life on earth, far more than whatever gradual warming has taken place. The fact is before fossil fuels, life on planet earth was short and brutish. But if it is co2 and you stop its influence, the sudden turn around could be a disaster. I do not believe it is co2, but if you fear it there is a way of getting rid of that fear without destroying our economy. (see this blog: https://www.cfact.org/2021/05/18/kerry-montreal-protocol-kigali/ side note: I am amazed at the lack of urgency on the right on this matter. They have the way to take this issue off the table and even use it, yet it is as if they do not wish to win. Instead, they let John Kerry, AOC, etal and whoever beat them over the head with it. It is amazing).
But the idea on why models can’t not see cooling should be intuitive. Once a system is feeding back, unless something new happens, it will keep feeding back. How can it “know” if 30 year from now there are 3 volcanoes that limit incoming solar radiation for instance. It can’t. So it simply keeps starting from a higher point and goes from there. If we look at climate models we see they have grossly overestimated the warming, as they simply get carried away. There is always a built in resistance to extremes in nature, this is what Le Chatelier’s principle is about. That modelers, and quite frankly agenda driven zealots, shove the idea these models “know” the future down the throat of people is ignorance or deception, Look at the modeling vs what has actually happened as far as the warming.
This is unbelievably bad, yet has received a free pass, and is even defended as being right which is astounding. It is akin to me telling you a foot and a half of wind whipped snow is coming to paralyze your town, an inch falls, and then me saying see I was right, it snowed.
The lack of perspective on this matter never ceases to amaze me. It does not mean doom and gloom and that we are all burning up. That model consensus is somehow science now, and people accept that consensus and then try to force feed it down our throats is borderline tyranny. It gives credence to the statement of Margaret Thatcher that consensus is the first refuge of scoundrels. It also shows that many times the idea of trying not to be wrong by playing the middle is going to be the least likely answer. Just as often as being in the middle, its either one way or the other. Average and normal are not the same thing as the averages are made up of swings, and its normal for any chaotic system to have swings, some of them, extreme.
The busted model forecast this spring over the heartland furthers the point that modeling can not see cold when its coming and relative to the overall scheme of what it means, the only hysteria should be among forecasters realizing these tools are not what they have been lead to believe they are. The danger is that the model by feeding back will miss a turn to colder that would make the bigger impact. The spring is a micro study in the larger potential problem we could face.
So here was the European, Canadian and CFSV2 ( US model) on March First, the 3 month forecast for March, April and May:
euro
Canadian
CFSV2 ( US model)
All showing MAJOR AND LARGELY UNCONTESTED WARMTH THOUGH THE SOUTHERN PLAINS The increments are 1-3C above average.
Here is what happened:
That is amazing for how OPPOSITE IT WAS
But it gets even more astounding looking at precipitation
European
Canadian
US CFSV2
What happened was opposite ,blue is above average)
This is mind-bogglingly bad. I have never seen anything like this or at least remember seeing something turn out so opposite.
And it has implications for the summer. Instead of the boiling hot summer the models had over the south, its cooler because of so much rain. This is because wet ground means more energy goes into drying the ground out, than in heating it. The old saying is where its dry you fry, if its wet, forget it. We even use that in shorter term. Never trust a warm up that starts with rain, for it means there is resistance and the warm up is likely not going to last as long as the classic situation where its dry for days then it heats up.
Now imagine the implications of simply buying this forecast if you are doing any kind of business that has anything to do with the weather (which is about everything, directly or indirectly). You plan for warm and dry and you get cold and wet. That costs you money and plenty of it.
But that should be a huge story in meteo/climate communities now. Yet not a peep.
What we need to do, those of us trying to be more objective, is to see what we can garner from this. I have the idea that when the overall global temp is trending colder, to perhaps look for ways for the areas of uncertainty to break toward the colder. Certainly, a recognition of what people in the climate debate on my side of the attribution issue know, that models are over-warmed in general from one month out and on and wash out any cooling response, is on the table.
But this is one heck of an example and its in the breadbasket of the nation.
Now we see what that can kind of busted forecast can do. Imagine setting policy based on faulty climate models. Bad enough we have NO run-away warming, but what happens if it does snap and it cools. I don’t believe it at this time, but believing and KNOWING are 2 different things. My point is that adaptation to the gradual warming, and much of that warming is where its coldest and driest anyway, is a far better plan going forward than crashing the economy over warming that has been overblown. Unless of course, crashing the economy, driving up huge cost and making future generations indentured servants that are forced to be compliant and complacent to a top- down rule, is your goal. I think younger people should fear that more than a co2 induced climate disaster.
But as to Pastor Robertson’s question, put it this way. God Help us if it does suddenly cool.
Come to think of it, God help us if the agenda driven phony climate war is not countered with reason and common sense.
Either way I don’t have much faith in man-made models.