By Joe Bastardi
By now all of you know my belief ( bias) that it’s the oceans, and more so the tropical oceans, that are the biggest control knob of the weather and climate. If you really wanted to make this a controlled classroom experiment (nature is not a classroom with easy controls) then I venture to say that the real way to know man’s influence is to have SST’s return to where they were in the 1970s, give it a couple of years for the water vapor adjustment, ( and if I am right. co2 will adjust as warmer oceans outsource it, so the outsourcing to the air will decrease) and see the difference there. And there you may be able to make an irrefutable argument for man’s contribution, Unfortunately for those who will not look at anything else, that is likely to be quite small, but on the other hand, unlike the warming we have had which is really in the coldest driest places and more so at their coldest driest time of the year, you would likely find the lions share of what warming would be where life thrives.. As small as that has been, less than .25C of the numbers we see all the time that tell us that at. a bit over 59 degrees the planet is overheating, it is liable to be even less detectable and certainly as or more adaptable than what we seemed to have adapted to nicely here.
But the fear of course is runaway warming which is interesting since it counters Le Chateliers, which I never hear anyone bring up, most likely because it’s a simple explanation. And a simple explanation would impact a lot of things relying on a done deal, complex explanation that the public must accept because they could never understand.
Again to review my belief, because of where the greatest warming and when it is occurring, water vapor which impacts temperatures much more the colder and drier it is and has a direct correlation that meteorologists use, has much more impact than a gas that we have no known temperature correlation for. The problem is they are both rising in tandem which would make sense given where the greatest stores of co2 are and the greatest source of water vapor, but which is the chicken and which is the egg?. Which is the tail and which is the dog? Add your own ( cmon smile look at how much fun this is. I don’t know what I would do without the weather. I spend so much time on it it takes away from what is most important to a lot of people, social media. Of course, I use that to get some points out too)
But here is what is hard for me to get my hands around, I freely acknowledge that as long as co2 keeps going up and temperatures continue to rise, people that are on the other side of the issue certainly have the right to point out and argue for what they think. Whether you or me or anyone thinks they are right or wrong. They have so so effectively that its settled science or they want to make you think that. Water freezes, Gravity exists, Co2 is going to destroy us all. There settled science. So they are zealots that are going to save the environment and destroy the tool that got us in the mess they portray the planet is in, capitalism. However what I can’t understand is when you see something that shows directly that your argument should at least be questioned, that has to be shut down. Actually I do understand it. I wrote 2 books on it. Now, am I a crackpot for showing you this, especially given the implications that the Feb CDAS temp was already as low as it was in 2014 which was AFTER A 3 YEAR LA NINA. What if this La Nina runs for 3 years? We may essentially erase the effects of the Super Nino and be back at the pause levels before this last one. Of course, another super Nino response, and off we go, This last one had some little brothers that followed, but no corresponding major counter La Nina like we saw after the 97-98 event. So if we double up on this La Nina then this is going to get really interesting. And there is modeling that says that is going to happen. Of course, basing an answer on modeling is a fool’s errand, the question is are the physical drivers there for it to be right?
Okay so a long-winded opening to a short point
Look at SST last year.
You can eyeball that and see the cooling in the source region ( tropical) for a lot of the water vapor and forcing that the atmosphere must respond too.
Now look at the temperature difference.
Last year:
This year:
Two things.
1). This is the scond greatest Feb Drop on record for this product ( CDAS). I am currently checking.
2) In both cases from the arctic circle south, the rest of the planet is much colder to average and one could argue this year, may have actually had a below-average Feb. Just eyeballing, the major continents look like a wash, although the southern hemisphere land areas ( Antarctica included) look below average)
It’s food for thought. But it seems like if someone is branded a denier when all he does is question based on accumulated evidence of factual past events, then when confronted with a direct correlation like this, how do they react? They claim it’s Cherry-picking. Well on my side of the issue, the reason I can “Cherry pick” so much is that the orchard is so full of cherries. They ought to come over some time and try some.
Author
- Joe Bastardi
Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others” which you can purchase at the CFACT bookstore. His new book The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate war can be found here. phonyclimatewar.com