I take exception

A recent article appeared on Foxnews.com that I found noteworthy.

I wish to challenge the notion that anyone, with any certainty, can use any recent weather event no matter how large as a sign of or lack of global climate change. Climate as we all should know is about statistics. It will take a decade or longer to know how epic this latest blizzard was.

What Al Gore got correct was the scientific evidence. He correctly stated that under global warming scenarios it has been shown that variability increases. And even during a warming trend, globally, there can be dips, significant dips (even negative anomalies) regionally. This evidence suggests that this CAN be part of global warming scenarios. Of course we don't know the reverse because I am not sure that anyone has done a global cooling experiment. Please enlighten me if such a study has been done.

The second issue I wish to be picky about is the notion of predictions associated with climate. We are assuming a CO2 increase in what can only be described as complex models, but models that do not represent the full coupled climate system. This is necessary because building complex models requires a solid foundation upon which to add complexity. And unfortunately by building complex models we can not say that a model error at this point is actually wrong because all the processes we observe in the real world are not present in the model. It is an interesting problem to say the least. One that is being tackled on the weather side as well.

What we do know is that as model resolution improves we get better, but not perfect solutions. That is good news for weather and climate. But long term climate prediction is still not an initial value problem. Though some argue this point feverishly. It is a true scientific issue and debate will continue in the scientific arena, not in the media.

Speaking of media:

            "If it all seems confusing and contradictory, other experts say, the real blame lies not with the     climate, or with science, or even scientists or former politicians, but with the incompetent media for failing to provide critical context for readers. "

Indeed. In this very article! Examine it closely. The first half of the article presents one side and then trails off into the other side and only by the late middle does context begin to appear. And then just as context settles in, they bring in the 1970's cooling argument. This argument was created and propagated by press reports which misrepresented the science. Which makes it irrelevant in the current discussion.

And then they close by stating that science changes! Of course science changes. It does so because we update our theories based on new evidence, new data, new analysis. And yes even scientists can be wrong. They go where the science leads them and not every avenue leads somewhere or even leads to the correct somewhere. Thats why we attempt to make results reproducible.

We call it climate change because we know way more about the weather and climate and can state with confidence that change is the best way to describe it. Some regions will warm, others may cool. Some will get more precipitation, others less. It is an important scientific distinction. It is not changing the message, however. 

Climate change is not contentious because the science is weak. It is contentious because the science is young. It is further complicated because of the economic impact any action on carbon emissions might have. Scientists still have the duty to warn about impending climate fluctuations or even climate change. And the climate scientists have spoken, in consensus, to warn us about the effects of increasing CO2. They do so with uncertainty; the range of possible warming scenarios. They do so with caution. What our policymakers should be doing is deciding how to act responsibly not deciding which science is correct. The science updates all on its own. 

What is not easily updated is how well scientific communication occurs between scientists and policymakers, scientists and the public, and policymakers and the public.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/03/worsening-winters-come-global-warming/#ixzz1Cx8RXypD

Education on Snow

It is late. I am on a snow day. And I feel like teaching.

Real snow days are not for play dates, driving around, or going to the movies. No offense Freakonmics blogger. But snow days in my mind are dedicated to physics, science, engineering, and daredevil stunts. That is, when you have finished getting paid for shoveling driveways and sidewalks around the neighborhood. Lets not forget some good family time where you build a snowman family.*

Designing, building, and organizing an awesome sledding hill complete with jumps is an effort in fun, design, creativity, and organization. Furthermore constructing snow walls or barriers in order to have epic snowball fights is also a must. And lets not forget finding a wall so that you can pile up 3-6 feet and jump into it from above. Going super fast down a hill (engineering, physics, design), jumping off a wall (testing gravity and snow compression), and snowball fights (principles of compression, strengths of materials, chemistry) are all awesome feats of awesomeness (copyright jimmyc, because its late and I said so)!

Kids don't go outside nearly as often as when I was a kid, but they should, and snow is the perfect excuse. "Its cold" is not a reason to stay inside. Your kids have abercrombie and fitch Eddie Bauer  (I am old) gloves, hats, scarves, underarmour, goretex coats, etc. Use them dammit! I might be strange, but I would walk miles in the snow just to do it. And I know I am not alone. I saw it in a movie once, "O Captain, My Captain". 

The blog post had the air of "old" people having a snow day. Snow days are about kids (movie: Snow Day). And if kids have snow days they should be out being kids learning about the awesomeness of snow. And, yes sometimes that means doing hard work to achieve your goals. Maybe it is shoveling the sidewalk or digging out the family car, or snow removal from the roof. And then its sledding but not before gathering all the snow on your block to make the awesome luge run you saw on the Olympics ... getting water to make it nice and icy (Chemistry, engineering, physics, science!). Just to go faster.**

So stop being "old". You will have plenty of time to make your kids old. Give them the tools to be young, creative, and inventive ... away from the computer (unless autocad can do design work on snow).  I guess I am saying we should always be thinking about investments not immediate, gratifying incentives.

* Not to be confused with collegiate activities which involve constructing *other things* with snow.

**Someone in OK was killed when she tied her sled to a truck and stood in it as they crossed a bridge. Not the kind of activity I endorse.

more storm communication

Did the forecast scenario's and/or forecaster methods work tonight? On one hand, the uncertainty on the depth of snow was well communicated. But both the TV and NWS focused in on a time frame when the precip would start ... 3 hours later and they missed on the precipitation type. Midnight was in numerous forecasts until the radar indicated otherwise. Pesky thunderstorms again. The precipitation type in Norman was rain for like 5 minutes before massive amounts of sleet were being dumped on us.

I don't think this was a failure at all. Just an example of how difficult it is to convey uncertainty information. In the public eye you have to convey a time. But when you do, it needs to be accurate and precise. And it just isn't possible to be precise and accurate in situations like this. I can let the sleet go because it was amazingly awesome that so much sleet fell ... better than freezing rain!

We live in very uncertain times and we simply lack the communication skills, that practical knowledge of how to convey uncertainty, without falling back to hard and precise numbers.  Humans have had to live with but not necessarily convey uncertainty information.  We say things are uncertain then make assumptions and decisions based on that uncertainty probably without thinking too hard about conveying it. We acknowledge it, decide, and move on. Whats in the past may be reflected upon, but the situations are always unique such that it is hard to know what, if any, information may have changed your mind one way or another. Sometimes we make decisions based on gut instinct or informed decisions about "likely outcomes". At least we think we know what the outcome will be. More often than not we stumble upon the outcome while trying to make our way towards our anticipated outcome.

I find it interesting and also compelling that weather information, specifically concerning uncertainty, finds itself in the same situation as personal medical data and also the terror alert system.  There was a good TED talk about the personal medical data; how it is displayed, what information to convey; giving the statistics of where you fit in. They are tailoring the information to the end user. In a similar way the terror alert system promises specific information, how to act on it, and who and where need to be alerted. It sounds like they are issuing a weather service style advisory,watch, warning type of system.  I am eager to see what they bring to the table and how.

To wrap up, our society is dealing with uncertainty communication, and it is working its way down into all aspects of life. Clearly we have lots of work ahead and the lessons we learn now might help with regional climate change. A more educated society is required in these uncertain times to utilize this uncertainty information.

More storm discussion

The plot thickens. Not only are subsequent model forecasts increasing the snow for central OK, but the global model has backed way off. The SREF was going crazy with anywhere from 1inch to 22 inches of snow for Norman as of 2100 UTC. The operational NAM was going for 24 inches, and the  GFS was going for 1 inch. Talk about uncertainty. The funny thing is that the NAM gets its boundary conditions from the previous GFS model run.

I speculate that the width and depth of the cold air helped get the GFS a good initialization and as a result a good depiction for the NAM. But maybe that cold air depiction was projected onto too large scale such that the ingredients for this event were misaligned. Also, the NAM ingredients may be too well aligned such that convective feedback may have been playing a role in creating a lot of precipitation but was able to simulate the banded features well.

As of 9:25pm there is the lovely, heart pumping sound of thunder, big lightning streaking across the sky, and ice pellets! Some of which could count as hail. I had to take a break so I could enter some observations for the W-PING project at NSSL. On a related note station KPVJ in OK reported 0.25" of liquid equivalent in an hour (6.3 mm/hr). Impressive rate. If only we had data for the precipitation rates at all mesonet stations!

It looks like the main issues of the day were (in no particular order):
1. where would cold air be, its depth, and the depth and magnitude of the warm air layer aloft,
2. where would thunderstorms initiate and then travel over,
3. as a result of the position of the cold air, where would the surface low be,
4. and related to 3 where would the maximum divergence aloft be (horizontally coupled jets).

I looked at the SREF placement of the Upper Level Jet (ULJ) and looked at the diagnostics from SUNYA* (irrotational and non-divergent wind at 300 hPa; the 850 q vectors with the along and cross front components of the vertical motion). This event looks very similar to east coast snow storms with coupled jets. In this case the irrotational wind center was intense over OK nearly tripling in value over a 6 hour period (18 to 24 hr forecast) from this mornings NAM. The along front forcing for ascent was forecast to come through in 2 waves ... the leading one much weaker than the 2nd. Aloft the forcing for ascent is forecast to be more widespread and last longer into tomorrow late morning.

There were hints that a coupled jet structure was developing at 0000 UTC this evening. But closer inspection of the soundings suggested that a the true jet was near 200 hPa as evidenced by the 150 knot winds near 210 hPa at LZK and the 120 kts at SGF and 135 at LMN and OUN at about 145 kts. Only 0600 UTC balloons at TOP and LMN could help identify if a coupled jet feature did develop.


*Thanks to Kevin Tyle for trying to keep SUNYPAK alive!