S - Did global warming make the effects of Imelda worse?

1,294 Views | 10 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by Zobel
chimmy
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https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/rapid-attribution-of-the-extreme-rainfall-in-texas-from-tropical-storm-imelda/
Quote:

Key findings:
  • The precipitation recorded on 1920 September 2019 associated with Tropical Storm Imelda was extreme, expected only approx. every 1200 yr at the station with the highest total amount of rainfall. Return times at other stations between East Houston and Beaumont were almost as high. The chances of recording this much precipitation at any of 85 stations along the Gulf Coast is however much higher, at about 1 in 50 years.
  • Two standard statistical analyses of the observations show that the probability for such an amount of rain has increased by a factor 2.6 (1.6 to 5.0) since 1900, or equivalently the amount of rainfall in such an event has increased by 18% (11% to 28%) since 1900.
  • Taking high-resolution climate models into account, we conclude that two-day extreme precipitation events along the Gulf Coast as intense as observed on 1920 September 2019 or higher have become 1.6 to 2.6 times more likely due to anthropogenic climate change, or 9% to 17% more intense.
  • This study highlights that climate change has clearly led to increased precipitation during extreme events in southeast Texas. Coupled with sea level rise, climate change has resulted in more frequent and intense flooding, especially in coastal areas. This needs to be seen in the context of rapid urban expansion in the area and is characterized by a loss in impervious cover. In part this expansion is driven by population growth. It has resulted in an increase in the number of people and value of property at risk to flooding. An estimated 6.6 million people live in the counties impacted by Imelda.

Quote:

Authors
  • Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Karin van der Wiel, Sjoukje Philip & Sarah Kew, KNMI
  • Antonia Sebastian, Texas A&M University at Galveston
  • Friederike Otto & Karsten Haustein, University of Oxford
  • Roop Singh & Julie Arrighi, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
  • Gabriel Vecchi, Princeton University

This is way out of my discipline.
Frok
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AG
Just a layman, but I think the massive development creating tons of runoff the most likely a bigger factor than climate change. It's also an easier issue to resolve because we can actually do something locally about runoff.
Funky Winkerbean
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AG
Ignorant analysis. Nowhere did it mention the volume of water in the system, in comparison to other systems. It didn't mention the rate of movement within the comparative systems. He did get HIS lazy belief included as part of his lazy and biased assessment. Not science.
It is so easy to be wrong—and to persist in being wrong—when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.
Thomas Sowell
Zobel
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AG
This kind of publication is.. I don't know what to call it, because stupid isn't a sufficiently strong term.

It's idiotic to talk about probabilities in terms of years when the duration is larger than the sample size unless you do some leg work to show that your historical record results in some kind of wide credible interval (i.e., a Bayesian analysis). At this point it seems to me that all you can say is that this sort of rainfall is without precedent since we have been keeping records. In the case of this study, they used 13 stations with 80 years of data and 85 stations with 30 years of data. Basic scientific rigor, basic measurement, demands that your conclusions do not exceed the resolution of your measurement.

That's really not that big of a deal, though, until you dress it up with the climate change verbiage. At that point it becomes insulting. The statistical analysis is what it is; I assume their math is in order. But the bulleted key findings are borderline dishonest as presented. They don't address anthropogenicity of climate change whatsoever, taking it in passing from a citation. It certainly isn't a finding of theirs. That word should be struck and their conclusion should end with the second to last bullet.

Not a single time do they establish causality between anthropogenic climate change and extreme precipitation events in their study. The only link is self-induced, in that they fit the rainfall data set with climate change models. In other words, they presupposed a statistical correlation and then found one. This is what's known as confirmation bias to anyone with a pulse. The only way to really see if you're measuring anything other than your own bias with something like this is to have rigor... such as:

1. Use very large sample size relative to the phenomenon you're trying to measure
2. Replicate the study
3. Use systematic reviews and meta-analysis that show homogeneity between studies rather than rely on individual studies
4. Address publication bias in your meta-analysis to make sure you're not confounding with second-order confirmation bias
5. Use Bayesian analysis to test robustness (among other things)

Now, that's a bit heavy handed for something like this. The only reason I include that is because they included the last bullet point, which is where my blood pressure really gets up.

This is just moralizing. How do you go from "we found a statistical correlation between climate change models and our data set" to a post-facto "climate change has clearly led to increased precipitation during extreme events in southeast Texas. Coupled with sea level rise, climate change has resulted in more frequent and intense flooding, especially in coastal areas."

What the actual frick guys? Where is that finding? How did we magically jump from statistical correlation of model to data to clear causality? Why the hell are we even talking about sea level? It's not in your stupid paper. This is bad, and the authors should feel bad.

ramblin_ag02
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AG
I wouldn't be that hard on them. You know how funding and publication works in science. If you want to get any earth sciences done you have to mention crude oil, climate change, or pollution. Sort of like when all the bio labs started adding terrorism buzzwords to their grant proposals after 9/11
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Demosthenes81
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AG
Frok said:

Just a layman, but I think the massive development creating tons of runoff the most likely a bigger factor than climate change. It's also an easier issue to resolve because we can actually do something locally about runoff.
ding ding ding

We have a winner.
Zobel
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AG
ramblin_ag02 said:

I wouldn't be that hard on them. You know how funding and publication works in science. If you want to get any earth sciences done you have to mention crude oil, climate change, or pollution. Sort of like when all the bio labs started adding terrorism buzzwords to their grant proposals after 9/11
This isn't a publication. It's not like its peer reviewed or in some journal somewhere. This is a freaking blog entry.

And no, I'm sorry, I'm not being hard on them at all. I'm asking that they not lie. They can make the correlation all they want to between the climate model they used and their dataset. That's fine. But they 100% did not find any causation between anthropogenic climate change and rainfall events in SE Texas. That is an absurdity, and honestly they should be professionally shamed for it.
dermdoc
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AG
Agree. See this in medicine too. This needs to be stopped. Fake news.
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ramblin_ag02
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AG
Someone still has to pay for the research and publication, even in a blog post that looks like it took a week to make.
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Zobel
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AG
Is that an excuse?
ramblin_ag02
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AG
No, just saying that it's hard to fight a paradigm. In any field a very small amount of people control the money and another small group of reviewers control what gets published (thought that was not an issue here). Looking at that website, it's clear someone is paying a scientist to review outlier weather events (heat waves, hurricanes) in the context of available weather data and trying to fit the outliers into trends predicted by accepted models of manmade climate change.

The work is neither rigorous nor compelling, but I don't see anything particularly dishonest about it. If you want to count unfounded extrapolation as dishonesty then pretty much all of climatology and many other fields are guilty on a regular basis. They are using reported data and using accepted models. They could certainly be more rigorous, and that's probably why it was published on a random site and not a journal.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
Zobel
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AG
The work is fine. The last bullet of "key finding" is a complete fabrication.
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