“Gagging climate change experts from speaking in the middle of a bushfire disaster is a new low from this government.”

So said Australian Member of Parliament David Shoebridge after bureaucrats attending a climate planning and adaptation conference had been advised not to discuss the relationship between climate change and Australia’s bushfire crisis, the Guardian reports.

Yes, there’s more news of wildfires on the rampage, bringing fear and destruction, made worse by many things including climate change. But the latest isn’t from California; it’s happening in Australia and especially hard hit is the territory of New South Wales. Yes, a lot of things are making wildfire/bushfire worse in California/Australia. Nobody denies that. One of those things is climate change. Those who deny that, are climate deniers.

Global Temperature Update

Update: This post has changed to correct a mistake I made with the ERA-5 data.

I keep hearing about such-and-such month being the “hottest such-and-such month on record.” October of this year, for example. For data sources like NASA and NOAA in the U.S. and HadCRU in the U.K., the time needed to do the computations (mainly waiting for all the observing stations to report) delayed such announcements until mid-month, but lately I’ve been hearing it early in such-and-such month, often based on announcements from the Copernicus Climate Change group in Europe. I think they base their announcments on the ERA-5 data, a re-analysis data set, which incorporates both observed data and computer simulation.

I looked at the ERA-5 data, which starts in 1979 (probably because that’s when the satellites really kick in). The interesting thing is that it doesn’t just show increase, it shows (statistically significant) acceleration.

Sea Level: Gridded Average

I’ve formed a gridded composite sea level estimate and I’d like to share it. It’s quite crude, but some compensation is necessary because a simple average of stations is dominated by Europe and North America, there are so many tide gauge stations there. My regional breakdown was a first step; this is the next.

I divided the world into 30° x 30° latitude-longitude grids, and within each, aligned all the tide gauge stations with at least 360 monthly values since the year 1900. Then I aligned all 47 grid series (which actually had data), area weighted, to get a global estimate:

Mary Ellis Stevens, American Hero

Mary Ellis Steven is excited about meeting Greta Thunberg this Friday, at her climate strike in Charlotte, North Carolina.

So excited to have the one and only @GretaThunberg join my strike this Friday!
See you there, Charlotte! https://t.co/lgsrFLeOs8
— Mary Ellis Stevens (@_Mary_Ellis) November 7, 2019

Mary, you are Greta Thunberg.

Sea Level: Align the Aligned

A new paper by Nauels et al. concludes that even if the U.S. stays in the Paris agreement and all nations make good on their pledges, our greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030 will be enough to guarantee at least three feet of sea level rise by the year 2300.

Unfortunately some journalists have difficulty with numbers, reporting that we’ll have three feet of sea level rise by the year 2030. Dum dum dum dum dum…

Sea Level PCA, from the Baltic Sea to el Niño

I’ve made a new estimate of global sea level based on a subset of all the tide gauge data in PSMSL (Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level). I’m just doing the 20th century, and I’ve used only those data sets with a decent amount of data, at least 360 monthly values since the year 1900. That leaves a “mere” 723 tide gauge stations to work with. Here’s where they are located:

And here’s the estimated global average sea level since the year 1900:

California Wildfire Denial

Roy Spencer has joined the chorus of those denying the link between climate change and California’s wildfire crisis. But rather than share scientific insight, Spencer inflicts on us his brand of superficial, crude thinking through his inevitable confirmation bias, which, when examined closely, is an object lesson in how Roy Spencer got the label “climate denier.” The old-fashioned way: he earned it.

I took a look at relationships between California wildfire burned area, and the weather variables featured in the research on California wildfire from Williams et al.. Mine is a crude analysis compared to theirs, but yielded some interesting things.

We’ll start with total acres burned by wildfire in California since 1972 (the time span studied in Williams et al.).

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

This wedding photo from California went “viral” in a visible sign of how there’s no escape from California wildfires.

Western Wildfire: Climate Change is Serious Business

Over the last few years we’ve heard story after story about massive wildfires in the western USA which threatened thousands of homes and lives and cost people billions of dollars. California seemed especially hard hit, especially last year. For me, the story of a great-grandmother dying in a fire with her two great-grandsons in her arms, is a sadness too great to bear.

So I’ve been glad that this year, I haven’t noticed such news stories about truly horrific gargantuan western wildfires. Until … now. In California.

A Message from Pamina

Hello all,

I wanted to let you all know that later today, Tamino is undergoing surgery. It’s something that’s been scheduled for months now and while it’s nothing life-threatening, he will be laid up for a while and may not be available to post or moderate for the next several days.

I want to take this chance to thank everyone who has donated, especially lately. You’ve been able to help cover my time away from work to stay home and help Tamino recover, and you’ve made a nice dent in the medical bills. It’s easy these days to see awfulness in the world, but I’m thankful to see there’s also kindness and goodness on the Internet as well. Thank you, from both of us.

Tamino will be back soon. Play nice til then.

-“Pamina”