World Weather Attribution are at it again! They’ve just published a super rapid analysis of the brief but extreme heatwave in Spain and Portugal which occurred near the end of April. So I’ve decided to do a super rapid exposé of what pseudoscientific nonsense it is.
It is interesting that you should post on this study immediately following your report of the Koutsoyiannis paper on the Greek hydro meteorological records. Koutsoyiannis has published a lot of work on deterministic versus stochastic modelling of the climate. In 2010 he published a paper - A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data in the Hydrological Science Journal. His conclusions on the ability of deterministic models such as GCM’s to capture the variability of climate at local and regional scales over time periods ranging from times between monthly to climatic scales (30 years) is very poor. They lack any information on the stochastic nature of weather and climate events. He concludes “Do we have something better than GCMs when it comes to establishing policies for the future? Our answer is yes: we have stochastic approaches, and what is needed is a paradigm shift. We need to recognize the fact that the uncertainty is intrinsic, and shift our attention from reducing the uncertainty towards quantifying the uncertainty....” Of course, in the case of the Spanish heatwave (a 3 day event) we have no empirical data that can relate the magnitude of the event to the naturally occurring frequency of such events and thus lack information on the uncertainty that can be attributed to stochastic processes. The WWA study is just yet another example of models masquerading as reality.
Thanks, yes, the recent high temperatures in Spain and Portugal were no doubt amplified by the recent drought. The press went crazy when a 2016 study found that the drought in the Levant was the worst in 900 years, immediately drawing the conclusion that it was climate change which caused it. However, the paper itself does not back up that certainty and actually shows that droughts in the western Mediterranean (in particular in Greece during the 1990s) are not out of the range of natural variability and that natural variability is greatly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation.
May 5, 2023·edited May 5, 2023Liked by Jaime Jessop
“ Almost impossible without climate crisis” really? Made 100 times worse a once in a 40,000 year event really.” Really you can trust these numbers because the scientist threw spaghetti on the wall and pulled numbers scientifically with pin point accuracy. The question is who funds this bull shit and I guess they just want to bamboozle us with their incredible accuracy.
I can’t see the graphs on my phone but the words are enough to tell me … when I was a kid we would exaggerate stories. It may not be lying but it’s bending the truth.
It is interesting that you should post on this study immediately following your report of the Koutsoyiannis paper on the Greek hydro meteorological records. Koutsoyiannis has published a lot of work on deterministic versus stochastic modelling of the climate. In 2010 he published a paper - A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data in the Hydrological Science Journal. His conclusions on the ability of deterministic models such as GCM’s to capture the variability of climate at local and regional scales over time periods ranging from times between monthly to climatic scales (30 years) is very poor. They lack any information on the stochastic nature of weather and climate events. He concludes “Do we have something better than GCMs when it comes to establishing policies for the future? Our answer is yes: we have stochastic approaches, and what is needed is a paradigm shift. We need to recognize the fact that the uncertainty is intrinsic, and shift our attention from reducing the uncertainty towards quantifying the uncertainty....” Of course, in the case of the Spanish heatwave (a 3 day event) we have no empirical data that can relate the magnitude of the event to the naturally occurring frequency of such events and thus lack information on the uncertainty that can be attributed to stochastic processes. The WWA study is just yet another example of models masquerading as reality.
Thanks, yes, the recent high temperatures in Spain and Portugal were no doubt amplified by the recent drought. The press went crazy when a 2016 study found that the drought in the Levant was the worst in 900 years, immediately drawing the conclusion that it was climate change which caused it. However, the paper itself does not back up that certainty and actually shows that droughts in the western Mediterranean (in particular in Greece during the 1990s) are not out of the range of natural variability and that natural variability is greatly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation.
“ Almost impossible without climate crisis” really? Made 100 times worse a once in a 40,000 year event really.” Really you can trust these numbers because the scientist threw spaghetti on the wall and pulled numbers scientifically with pin point accuracy. The question is who funds this bull shit and I guess they just want to bamboozle us with their incredible accuracy.
I can’t see the graphs on my phone but the words are enough to tell me … when I was a kid we would exaggerate stories. It may not be lying but it’s bending the truth.
Muchas gracias rapidas
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