Super-typhoon Soudelor and a need for new hurricane & typhoon metrics

Super typhoon Soudelor is hitting sustained wind speeds of up to 178 miles per hour! That totally blows the Beaufort scale out of the water, and also leaves the Saffir-Simpson scale well behind, too.

There are two reasons why these scales are not too useful:

1. They all have maximum values,
2. The maximum values are tied with technologically based assumptions and purposes.

The Beaufort scale maxes out at "Hurricane force" winds that are anything of 72.9 mph or greater, and this maximum was set based on the technological limitations of shipping, for which the scale was developed. The idea was that anything greater than a category 12 was effectively as dangerous to ships as the winds at 72.9 mph, and so there was no reason for ship captains to worry about categories larger than 12.

The Saffir-Simpson scale maxes out at "Category 5 hurricane" winds that are anything of 157 mph or greater, and this maximum was set based on the technological limitations of building construction in the 1950s US. The idea was that anything greater than a Category 5 was effectively going to blow apart any building, and so there was no reason for having higher categories (despite an increasing number of buildings with the capacity to withstand 157mph and higher winds).

It's that "or greater" part that really is troubling to me. Why? Because it means that a hurricane with sustained winds of 157 mph is classified as a "Category 5" hurricane... right along with a super typhoon like Soudelor, which is reaching wind speeds of almost 180 mph.

Back in 2011, I noted that the scale for the Saffir-Simpson scale was somewhat linear, up to Category 5; but if we took that linear scale and extended it, we would be able to include a Category 6 (and even Category 7) type of storm:

Category 1: <95mph
Category 2: 96-110mph
Category 3: 111-130mph
Category 4: 131-150mph
Category 5: 151-175mph
Category 6: 176-205mph
Category 7: 206-235mph

Under this extended classification, Super typhoon Soudelor is a Category 6; one of only a few in recorded history, but potentially one of a growing number in a future with global warming.

Similarly, the Beaufort scale can be extended beyond the category 12. The Beaufort Scale progresses along an x-squared rate (Excel comes up with the equation: y = 0.4952x^2 + 5.2857x + 0.0382), giving us:

Beaufort Number
0: <7mph
1: 0.8-3.4mph
2: 3.5-7.4mph
3: 7.5-12.2mph
4: 12.3-17.8mph
5: 17.9-24.1mph
6: 24.2-31.0mph
7: 31.1-38.4mph
8: 38.5-46.4mph
9: 46.5-54.7mph
10: 54.8-63.6mph

11: 63.7-72.9mph
12: 73.0-83.7mph
13: 83.8-94.7mph
14: 94.8-106.3mph
15: 106.4-118.5mph
16: 118.6-131.3mph
17: 131.4-144.8mph
18: 144.9-158.8mph
19: 158.9-173.5mph
20: 173.6-188.8mph

Under this classification, Super typhoon Soudelor has a Beaufort number of 20! This is very different from just classifying it as a 12, solely because 12 arbitrarily is the largest value on the Beaufort scale.


Why worry?
Back in 2011, I wrote up a short extension of a 2005 paper in Nature, that indicated that the total number of hurricanes has been remaining the same, but that the strength of the hurricanes has been growing stronger. This means that there are a lower number of Category 1, 2, and 3 hurricanes now than in the past, but the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased:

What is being measured here is storm intensity by proxy of hurricane Category. However, such a measure will not show the entire picture if Category 5 remains anything over 157mph, since this open-ended category definition would mask the rising intensity of hurricanes that is shown in the graph.

While this might seem an academic point, another way to think about this is to ask why the Richter scale doesn't have a maximum value? After all, if the Saffir-Simpson scale was built around the idea that structures wouldn't be able to sustain a force of a Category 5 hurricane, then why shouldn't the Richter scale max out at 7.0? And if the idea that the Richter scale should max out at an arbitrary number (like 7.0) sounds ludicrous, then why accept the idea that Category 5 in Saffir-Simpson (and Category 12 in Beaufort) are the maximum of the scale?

Especially in a future where the numbers of increasingly intensive hurricanes is only going to increase as the numbers of "lesser" hurricanes decrease?

Is Michigan to Become the "Buckeye State"?

Living through this summer of far-hotter-than-normal days in Ann Arbor - home to the University of Michigan Wolverines - and working in environmental and natural resource management, I am thinking about the on-the-ground effects of climate change more than often. (Maybe more than is healthy.)

I hope for rain. I hope for cool winds. I hope for clouds even.

We get heavy sun that heats up asphalt, withers trees, and browns the grass. We get hot gusts of dry wind that buffet you into sweat-stained submission. We get few clouds, and those we get rarely carry rain for us.

It's the largest drought area ever declared, but some people are wondering if this is a forecast of things to come, or even the new normal. However, people from Mississippi River managers to Michigan cherry crop farmers to almost anyone paying attention in much of the country is recognizing that there is a massive drought happening and that weather has gone haywire (unless you happen to be Newton Leroy Gingrich).

And these are just the things that are happening right now. For University of Michigan fans, things could well get much worse.

According to research done in 2007 by Daniel McKenney and colleagues, the Ohio buckeye - which is the state tree of Ohio as well as the mascot to Ohio State University - will be shifting northward over the next 100 years. This means they will be shifting into Michigan, moving fromcurrent distributionand possibly into Michigan (according to the CSIROmk35 A1B prediction model)

This will turn Michigan into the new "Buckeye State" (and buckeyes have been growing quite happily in Saginaw Forest for a few years now), which might well get a lot of Michigan (and Michigan State) fans quite angry about the whole thing, and maybe start to think of climate change as something real. Yes, it's a strange way to introduce people to the effects of climate change, but many people have visceral attachments to sports, and for many people this includes university sports (even if they never attended that particular university).

What might make this an even greater blow for University of Michigan fans is that the last known wolverine living in the state died in 2011. With the death of the wolverine - the UofM mascot - and the encroachment of their largest rival's mascot onto home territory, could there be some sort of climate change education and action that come out of this?

While part of this is written as tongue-in-cheek, another part of me is trying to think of ways to get people latched onto simple fact that climate change is not just happening right now, but has been happening for decades already; that the time to act is not tomorrow, but yesterday; and that the fact we haven't done a lot is only going to require us to work all the harder down the line.

Rivers are apparently not warming due to increased atmospheric warming

... at least not in all Pacific Northwest rivers, according to available data.

In a recent paper ("The paradox of cooling streams in a warming world: Regional climate trends do not parallel variable local trends in stream temperature in the Pacific continental United States"), Arismendi et al provide a description of what's happening to stream temperature trends vis-à-vis air temperature trends. (That's pretty obvious, because it's in the title of the paper; yay to the descriptive quality of scientific papers.)

In the paper, Arismendi et al describe the importance of water temperature in stream ecology, and provide a brief review of the theory of stream warming and a critique of the quality of existing corroborative, data-driven research:

Observed warming in air temperature (between 0.8 to 2.1°C for the first half-decade of the 21st century relative to the period 1950-1980) [Hansen et al., 2006] and changes in streamflow timing and magnitude [Mote et al., 2005; Regonda et al., 2005; Luce and Holden, 2009] have been hypothesized to lead to increases in the magnitude and variability of stream temperature. Several studies have noted increasing temperature of streams. However, these have been based on data from streams that include those altered by human influences, including impoundments and water withdrawals [Kaushal et al., 2010; Mantua et al., 2010], or through inferences and correlations derived from air-water relationships [Mantua et al., 2010; Isaak et al., 2011]

The authors point to an interesting trend in the stream temperatures of 63 sites in northwestern Pacific coast of the US: some are cooling, even as the air temperatures are rising even while others are warming, but most showed no variability in water temperatures. In the end, few stream sites conformed to the initial hypotheses of both (A) increased temperatures and (B) increased variability in temperatures.

In their conclusions, the authors point to a variety of potential causes:

• Variability in stream shading over the record period
• Even though correlations between baseflow and riparian vegetation seemed to show counter-intuitive results
• Variability in results derived from long vs. short record periods
• Longer term records are more robust, but there are very few long-term records for minimally impacted streams.
• Local driving factors that overpower any theoretical relationship between warming air temperatures and increasing stream temperatures

The authors conclude that there need to be far more stream gaging stations, and - as someone who likes greater amounts of data - I have to agree. Still, I wonder if the study could have been improved by - instead of asking for greater amounts of stations in the Pacific Northwest - looking at a greater number of stations across the nation. (I mean, the USGS provides a lot of data for many hundreds of stations around the country.)

What happens to winter sports if winter doesn't come?

By New Year of 2010, Vancouver had built its Olympic village. It had built its courses and tracks. However, there was one major missing ingredient for a good Winter Olympics: snow. This had been a problem in 1998, when Nagano - known in Japan for having snow - was running ever-closer to the start of the Olympics without enough powder to actually make it worthwhile. Both times, Olympic organizers were biting their nails (or perhaps had already gotten to gnawing on the skin) when - luckily - their major venture was saved by the timely arrival of the snow. In both cases, the countries were feeling the effects of El Nino (aka ENSO), when precipitation patterns shift and global temperatures rise. Indeed, the fact that it was an El Nino year was pointed out each time, not as an excuse for the weather, but as a frustrating explanation as to why snow-machines might have to be called in to do the heavy lifting (and I remember some punditry about whether this would help or hinder the various outdoor events).

This winter (2011/2012) is taking place during a La Nina (when global temperatures drop), although you wouldn't know it if you were experiencing winter in much of the United States in 2012, especially in the northeast. While the normal trend of La Nina is to have temperatures that are slightly cooler than the surrounding years (save for 1999 and 2000, which witnessed back-to-back La Nina years), this part of the world has seen record warm-spells. To look at the current condition of the US winter of 2012:

For the Lower 48, January was the third-least snowy on record, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records for the amount of ground covered by snow go back to 1967.

Forget snow, for much of the country there's not even a nip in the air. On Tuesday, the last day in January, all but a handful of states had temperatures in the 50s or higher. In Washington, DC, where temperatures flirted with the 70s, some cherry trees are already budding -weeks early.

However, this condition of no snow is only within the "Lower 48":

Valdez, Alaska, has had 328 inches of snow this season - 10 feet above average - and the state is frigid, with Yukon hitting a record 66 below zero over the weekend.

Nearly 80 people have died from a vicious cold snap in Europe, and much of Asia has been blanketed with snow. This January has been the ninth snowiest since 1966 for Europe and Asia, though for the entire northern hemisphere, it's been about average for snow this season.

The weather is so cold that some areas of the Black Sea have frozen near the Romanian coastline, and rare snowfalls have occurred on islands in the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. Ukraine alone has reported 43 fatalities, many of the victims homeless people found dead on streets.

Why is this the case? Because of the unexpected interaction between two north-latitude oscillations:

The reason is changes in Arctic winds that are redirecting snow and cold. Instead of dipping down low, the jet stream winds that normally bring cold and snow south got trapped up north. It's called the Arctic Oscillation. Think of it as a cousin to the famous El Nino.

When the Arctic Oscillation is in a positive phase, the winds spin fast in the Arctic keeping the cold north. But in the past few days, the Arctic Oscillation turned negative, though not in its normal way, Halpert said. The cold jet stream dipped in Europe and Asia, but is still bottled up over North America.

That's because another weather phenomena, called the North Atlantic Oscillation is playing oddball by staying positive and keeping the cold away from the rest of North America. About 90 percent of the time, the North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations are in synch, Halpert said. But not this time, so much of the United States is escaping the winter's worst.

In other words, this warm weather is only really being felt in the "lower 48" states of the US, whereas Europe and Asia are far colder than normal. Furthermore, although the explanation for these causes of a lack of winter in much of the populated areas of North America can be made, it cannot be predicted, especially not when the decision of hosting city is made years in advance.

What if - for example - this were a Winter Olympic year, and the Olympics were scheduled to be in Morristown, Vermont (a state where skiing is normally a major part of winter tourism)? What would that town be doing to take care of not just a lack of snow but also temperatures ~10F (~5C) above freezing? Snow-making machines won't cut it (at least it was below freezing in the snow-less weeks leading up to the Nagano and Vancouver games). Would the games be cancelled - save for the indoor events? Postponed? Who would pay for the incurred costs? What about refunding the ticket sales? It will be far more disappointing to a far greater audience if something like what happened to the Red Bull Linecatcher event in France that was supposed to happen on January 11-18, 2012:

Just four days before the Red Bull Linecatcher was scheduled to begin in France, the event has been canceled due to unfavorable weather in France's Vars region. The event, which had a strong lineup of international athletes scheduled to arrive, was due to be held from Jan. 11-18.

"I feel ashamed to have to give you this news, but we are having really unfavorable weather in Vars right now," said Red Bull organizer Jean-Robert Bellanger. Rushed meetings had been held with the Vars safety guides and tourism office and with a heavy heart, Bellanger was forced to cancel the competition at this late date. "In Vars right now there is just not enough snow that has settled on the Eyssina Face. With sunshine and high temperatures ready to set in this week the decision was made that it would be too dangerous for the skiers."

There was a rumor of a potential change of location, but that was quickly put to rest by Bellanger. "There's just too much that has gone into this location, it's just not possible to change the resort at such a late date," he said.

This news comes as an additional blow to the ski industry, at a time where many American resorts are struggling to get their seasons underway. Europe's winter is off to a slightly better start, with much of eastern Switzerland and Austria getting snow, and resorts like St. Anton currently on hold due to too much snow.

This sort of question made me wonder what the major winter sports organizations are doing to talk about the problems that variable climatic conditions and (by extension) climate change will have on the pursuit (and investment in) their sports. Does the IOC have a position about climate change? Well, there is this report, put out in the lead-up to Vancouver, which seems to focus mostly on the Vancouver games and not on strategies for the IOC in general. Most of the search results for "climate change" and "global warming" on the www.olympics.org page are written for or before the Vancouver Olympic games. Worrying.

What about the Winter X-Games? Luckily, Aspen, CO had enough snow to permit the go-ahead of the 2012 X-Games, but if they had been - like in the example above - held in the Appalachians, a greater spotlight would likely have been put on how a combination of a lack of snow and high temperatures will kill international winter sporting competitions.

Who knows, though? Perhaps winter sports will all follow the lead that was taken by skating sports (and curling) and move indoors. Perhaps, then Dubai - with its indoor ski facilities - will be able to host a Winter Olympics... Dubai 2100 anyone?

The winter hasn't (annoyingly) actually come.

I hold out hope that winter will actually come; a real winter that dips the thermometer down to the single digits (in Fahrenheit, of course; double negative digits in Centigrade). A winter with snow, dry air, and (if I can wish) clear, bright, and frigid days. You know what I'm talking about: winter in Michigan.

I'm not asking for huge amounts of snow. (In fact, I would prefer not to have too much of it, since it makes cycling to the campus difficult.) I am, though, hoping - as the well-above-average-temperature days tick past - for cold enough weather to actually call these months "winter". As it is, 30 of the past 40 days of winter (counting back to the Winter Solstice) have been above the average temperature range, while only two have been below the average temperature range. In other words, 75% of the days this winter season have been above average, while 5% have been below average, leaving 20% within the average range of temperature. Furthermore, 25 of the above-average-temperature days or have been above freezing, and 15 of these days were above 40F (~4.4C). In other words, 62.5% of the winter days have so far been above freezing and 37.5% of the winter days have so far been above 40F!

My point is that this year's weather can't really be called "winter" for Ann Arbor... at least not in the sense of how it feels. It can technically be classified as on the warm edge of what a winter for this area might feel like, but I would suggest that even this would be a difficult stretch to make.

At least it isn't raining right now... At least the sun is shining and melting the snow (hopefully clearing it all up before any ice forms on the roads).

Cultural calendars and global warming

From PhysOrg comes a news blurb about mapping climatic changes to the Chinese "cultural calendar" of the 24 solar terms. According to Wikipedia's entry (because the description on the PhysOrg blurb wasn't too enlightening) on solar terms:

A solar term is any of 24 points in traditional East Asian lunisolar calendars that matches a particular astronomical event or signifies some natural phenomenon. The points are spaced 15° apart along the ecliptic and are used by lunisolar calendars to stay synchronized with the seasons....

Because the Sun's speed along the ecliptic varies depending on the Earth-Sun distance, the number of days that it takes the Sun to travel between each pair of solar terms varies slightly throughout the year. Each solar term is divided into three pentads (候 hou). Each pentad consists of five days (rarely six), so there are 72 pentads in a year.

These solar terms have been given names of what is expected to occur during that period (e.g.,"awakening of insects", usually beginning around March 5 or "major heat", usually beginning around July 23). As such, these names serve a social use as well - mainly to provide agricultural cues. Provided that the climate remains stable, these cues - barring annual variations - provide a useful "farmer's almanac." Indeed, given the assumptions of the use over 2000 years in China, the 24 solar terms likely became divorced from the actual position of the sun and became more of a description of the expected climatic conditions at certain periods throughout the year.

However, the climate has not remained stable, and in an interesting combination of combining a cultural calendar with climatic measurements, a new paper has been published that shows how - in China - the 24 solar terms have changed in character. First, though, the researchers had to convert solar periods into correlative temperature ranges (in order to make the climate change comparisons). That done, this is what they found:

According to these results, the timings of the climatic Solar Terms during the warming phase (around spring) of the seasonal cycle have significantly advanced (by 6-15 days) from the 1960s to the present.

Across China, timings during the cooling phase (around autumn) have delayed by 5-6 days on average. This is mainly because of a warming shift of the entire seasonal temperature cycle, as illustrated in the figure. Four particular phenology-related climatic Solar Terms, namely the Waking of Insects, Pure Brightness, Grain Full, and Grain in Ear, have advanced almost everywhere in the country (as much as 20 days in North China). This has important implications for agricultural planning. The numbers of extremely cold (Great Cold) days decreased by 56.8% over the last 10 years as compared with the 1960s, whereas those of extremely hot (Great Heat) days increased by 81.4%.

Graph from Qian et al (2012). Caption from the paper reads: "Climatological mean ALCs (seasonal cycles) of the China mean temperature for the earliest 10 years (blue line) and for the latest 10 years (red line). Dashed lines indicate the temperature thresholds for the 24 Solar Terms"

One reason why I find this so interesting is that this is the sort of thing that represents an important step in disseminating information about climate change to the public, using cultural vehicles that they know, understand, and are familiar with. Too often, a lot of the cutting-edge science and its critical findings are written in a way that requires a mess of cultural decoding. Often, too, it takes the implicit assumption of the Western world: marking (in this case) the calendar into the 12 months (which - themselves - were rather arbitrarily set way back when) that are commonly used in the West, but may rarely be used so intuitively outside of cities in the rest of the world. Although this article refers to China, the 24 solar terms are used throughout East Asia, and they still mark major celebration points in the Japanese calendar. In other words, this paper's findings speaks in the calendar language that is understood by upwards of 1.6 billion people (i.e., the combined population of China, Taiwan, North and South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam).

The paper, "Climatic changes in the Twenty-four Solar Terms during 1960–2008", can be found here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/g0264r7102x18844/

Cold snap in Florida helps with invasive species management

Who woulda thought that cold temperatures would actually be a good thing for Florida's ecosystems? Well, with temperatures reaching freezing, invasive iguanas are falling off of trees, their blood slowed in their veins, and pythons are moving out from their hiding places in the Everglades to sun themselves in an effort to keep warm -- only to be easy pickings for game wardens. (Via PhysOrg:)

Iguanas and other tropical wildlife are bearing the brunt of the severe Arctic weather in Florida, where Miami's subtropical beaches have been left all but deserted this week with temperatures plummeting to around 32 F (zero degrees Celsius).

"Cold weather impacts iguanas severely and many are killed," said Gabriella Ferraro, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

"That is not a bad thing. It's a good thing, because iguanas are an exotic animal, they don't belong to Florida. This seasonal kill helps us to manage the population."
Travelers from Mexico, Central and South America originally introduced the creatures to Florida in the 1960s.

Although suffering from the cold, python snakes, which abound in particularly large numbers in Florida's Everglades swamp reserve, can survive in cooler temperatures.

"The good thing is that the cold weather brings the pythons out of the vegetation. They need warmer bodies and they come out to get some sun and so it is easier for hunters to find them," Ferraro explained to AFP.

Of course, this weather doesn't help the manatees and sea turtles which are also negatively affected by these temperatures, too.

Snow on campus

It's beginning to look a lot like winter... But altough it's snowing, I'm still riding my bike (!?!), and it's not that bad right now. Of course, accumulations could make it "fun" to ride home...

The Planet -- Documentary (all 9 parts from YouTube)

DieterVog has - on YouTube - the nine-part Swedish documentary The Planet. I've provided them all below (don't know how long they'll be up on YouTube, though).

Part I:


Part II:


Part III:


Part IV:


Part V:


Part VI:


Part VII:


Part VIII:


Part IX:

Dan Gilbert: Global Warming is happening too slowly

Dan Gilbert feels that a major problem with global warming inaction is that global warming is not happening fast enough. (Much of the following are paraphrased or quoted from his talk.)

Four features global warming lacks:

• A face: understanding what other people are doing is so crucial that our brain has developed an obsession about human agency. This is why we see faces in the clouds, but not clouds in peoples' faces. Global warming is not trying to kill us, and that's a shame.
• A violation of moral suasion: Visceral emotions are aroused by things our brains have been concerned: food and sex. NOT atmospheric chemistry. Societies are built around who you can sleep with and what you can eat, and not about how much you can consume.
  
• A threat to the present: The brain is an exquitely designed "get-out-of-the-way" machine. Only recently has our brain been able to think about the future and take actions againt a future event, which is why we use dental floss and invest in 401k plans. However, global warming is still in the "R&D" version.
  
• Ability to see absolute changes: Because we are so bad at percieving changes gradually, we are more likely to tolerate it since it was a day-to-day gradual change, not an abrupt one.
  

Ann Arbor Climate Change

A little while ago, I posted a link to the UK meteorological office which had a report with a nifty little graphic showing how average annual temperature ranges have shifted warmer over the past 100+ years. I thought I could replicate it for Ann Arbor. Luckily, the University has been keeping records of daily temperatures since 1882, meaning that I can look at temperature changes over the past 125 years!

So, what have I found? Well, to be brief, the temperature of the city has increased over the past 125 years, and five of the ten hottest years were in the period of 1997-2007. What does this all mean? Well, some of the temperature increase could be attributed to the urban heat island effect, and not to local impacts of global warming, but I don't think that all of the observed temperature increase could be. However, I don't have any good data to support this assertion. Of course, I could try and find temperature data for locations near Ann Arbor (say, within 25 miles of the University) and do a comparative analysis of the overlapping years. Of course, that is a different sort of analysis, taking more time and effort. I can do it, but right now, I'll just leave you with the pretty graph that took me about a week to complete. Enjoy!

IMPORTANT NOTICE (Feb 11, 2008): The values shown below are not for Ann Arbor. I accidentally used the wrong label for these charts. I will repost the correct charts for Ann Arbor once I fix them (don't worry, they still show positive slopes).

Ann Arbor annual mean and median temperatures have increased from roughly 45 F to roughly 54 F in the past 125 years.

The yearly mean temperature in Ann Arbor increased from roughly 46F to roughly 55F over the past 125 years. One can see an oscillating "sine-wave" function with a periodicity of roughly thirty years. This may be due to the ~30 year Great Lakes water level oscillations.

The yearly median temperature in Ann Arbor increased from roughly 46.5F to roughly 56F over the past 125 years.

The ranked mean annual temperatures for Ann Arbor from 1881 to 2006. The lowest rank (1) is given to the year with the coldest mean annual temperature (1882). The highest rank (125) was given to the year with the warmest mean annual temperature (1998). In the 10-year period of 1997-2006, five years were in the top ten warmest years (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006). There is a strong positive correlation (R2=0.72) between year and annual temperature rank. With such a high correlation, one shouldn't be surprised to see more high-rank temperatures in the years to come.

Another story about a warm autumn.

I was walking on to campus today and saw this in Kerrytown. Yes, it is a Prunus blooming in autumn. (For those of you who don't know, Prunus species bloom in the SPRING.)

This isn't PROOF of global warming, but it is proof of a really warm October.

If you really want to have a scare about global warming, all you need to do is check out the forecast report from UNEP and a report of the actual measured numbers of global climate change.

Check out photos from the UNEP report.

Weather back to normal.

It might not be a lot of news to many people out there, but finally the weather has come back to normal. With such warm temperatures continuing through the first week in October (leading to two consecutive days of record high temperatures, and almost a week of near-record temperatures), I can only say that I really wished that I had taken photos of all the undergrads walking around in shorts and t-shirts with the leaves changing. Now, however, there are people in various layers of clothing - from shorts and t-shirt to heavy jackets and scarves. Perhaps this is more amusing (perhaps I will even get a photo before acclimation starts to set in).

One other sign that temperatures are getting to where they should be is that temperatures in the building have been roasting today. So much so that I had to practice what my parents called "Russian air conditioning" (basically opening a window during winter to let the uncontrollable heat escape). I know that this is not environmentally-friendly of me, but one of the things that has been done to the rooms is disabling the thermostats (thus providing the occupants with a sense of control, but with about as much control as an armadillo in a Dime commercial.

Record summer temperatures.

The title of the NOAA report says it all to me: Sixth warmest summer on record ends with record heat in South. Some highlights from the report:

• August 2007 was 1.2F (1.0C) warmer than the 20th century mean August temperature, and 6th warmest summer since recording such things as summer temperatures began in 1895.
• Within the 48 contiguous states, August 2007 was 2.7F (1.5C) warmer than average.
• Globally, the combined land and ocean temperatures for August 2007 was the 8th warmest on record, 0.85F (0.47C) above average.
• Global land temperatures for August 2007 were the 3rd warmest on record.
  
• Of the 50 states, only Texas and Oklahoma were slightly cooler than average.
• The warmest August in 113 years occurred in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Utah.
  
• Increased temperatures had concomitant increased energy requirements in the SW and SE.
• Rainfall was below average in the Southest, mid-Atlantic, Ohio River Valley, northern Plains, and northern Rocky Mountains.
• Forest fires in Georgia, Florida, and the Rocky Mountain states were attributed to lowered rainfalls.
• Rainfall was above average in Texas (the wettest on record) and Oklahoma (the 4th wettest on record).
• Heavy monsoons affected regions of South Asia, affecting millions of people.
• Hurricane Dean - the first major hurricane of the Atlantic Hurricane Season - was the first storm to make landfall as a Category 5 storm since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

All of that is (to me) news that doesn't do me good. However, I am wondering how long it will take for people in general come to realize that their concerns shouldn't be limited to record temperatures (i.e., the hottest summer on record, the hottest day on record, etc). Rather, people need to think about how a season's temperature relates to longer-term temperature trends. One method by which to do this is to look at temperature trends in a similar fashion as how hydrologists and fluvial ecologists investigate river water discharge patterns.

A hydrologist (or fluvial ecologist) will use what he/she might consider a representative sample of discharge data for the purposes of the problem. In this case, I used roughly 80 years of discharge data measured by the USGS for the Huron River as it flows through Ann Arbor, MI.


Unless you are a much better person than average at seeing underlying trends, all you will see in such a case will be spikes of high discharge, with most discharge occurring between ~100cfs and 1000cfs. However, there are a lot of times when discharge is higher than 1000cfs and lower than 100cfs. If I was to say that something was an event that was extremely rare (i.e., occurred only one time out of twenty), I would be at a loss to tell someone what that event would be.

For the reason of being able to assess a measured discharge against long-term trends, a ranked discharge curve is created. In this curve, the data are ranked in increasing (if one is a hydrologist) or decreasing (if one is an aquatic ecologist) order.


Looking at this ranked discharge curve (note that I used a logarithmic scale on the y-axis), you can see that events less than 90cfs and events greater than 1200cfs are extremely rare (based on the above definition). This would mean (among other things) that any event of greater than 1200cfs is a very significant discharge event; even a flow over 930cfs could be judged to be a 90th percentile discharge. If I was to check the most recent discharge value (318cfs, measured at Sep-18-2007 @ 8:45am), I would see that the river was experiencing a 47.5 percentile flow - pretty close to the annual median discharge.

Comparisons can also be made between rivers. If you compare the Huron River with New Mexico's Delaware River (both about the same watershed area), you can tell that there are some fundamental differences between how the hydrologies of each area works.


Now, if temperatures were to be measured like this, I would argue that it would be much better than the current method of comparing against the greatest value on record. You wouldn't be saying things like, "The 12th warmest summer in recorded history." A statement like this (imho) would make people think that the 12th warmest summer in recorded history is not that significant; similar to the logic that no one really cares about the 12th-place finisher of a marathon. However, if the 12th warmest summer was very close in temperature to the 4th warmest summer, a graph of ranked temperature - like the ranked discharge graph above - would more easily show how different ranked summers relate to each other. Something as simple as this is (I believe) important in having people understand the relationship between rather abstract concepts as global temperature trends.