[Leps-l] Models Under Predicting Current Temperatures

[MexicoDoug]

Hi Chuck,

This generalization about the relationship of global warming to the 
Monarch wintering site seem a little like trusting the weatherman's 10 
day rain forecast during the transition from rainy to dry seasons ;-)

http://www.diogenite.com/monarch.htm

Without meandering too far or unfortunately distracting with the myriad 
of side arguments (seriously Monarchs and global warming sounds 
humorously to me like tails wagging their dogs), I've tried my hand at 
the sort of picture I personally find helpful to make my own 
impressions for the Monarch winter site.  I think I am representing a 
relatively current picture in objective terms and specifically just 
trying to add an unbiased picture for everyone's perusal.

Here's the link, and I'm also submitting it to "Psychology Today" to 
see if they will put it in the "Rorschach Ink Blot Test" updated for 
early 21st Century since the test seems in need for modernization ;-).

I had no time to make a respectable web page, so it is all image with 
the twist that you can mouse over it and get the somewhat outdated 
satellite picture of the trees.  What you see is a map of Mexico, with 
a USDA assessment (and the USDA tends not to try to diffuse alarmism to 
the chagrin to many environmentalists, from what I've seen) of 
desertification overlayed Google Maps as the base picture.

The USDA green pastel covers the microclimate which is cold and for 
that reason likely not subject to desertification.  However, it is 
interesting to see the small size (about 4 miles thick) like green 
islands in the middle of gray, which represents already desertified 
land.

If you mouse over the image (actually, you need to keep the mouse out 
of the the margin of your window since I made the picture so big or you 
will be always moused over seeing the trees.)  In any case, from yellow 
to red are vulnerable areas being encroached upon by desertification.  
As long as the Oyamel Woods are maintained in their little islands, the 
humidity will continue and protect the area from desertification.  So 
the debate would be in how much maintaining is needed.  The Monarch 
overwintering sites are mainly in the two small islands in the middle 
of the mouseover inset, which you can see upon mousing is a darker 
green woods.  In any case, we are not talking about huge expanses of 
"forest", though to characterize them as tiny would be equally biased.

Ref:
1. Google Earth today
2. Google Maps today
3. http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/mapindex/desert-map.zip

Best wishes
Doug



-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Vaughn <aa6g at aa6g.org>
To: Leps List <leps-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: Sun, Mar 3, 2013 12:17 pm
Subject: [Leps-l] Models Under Predicting Current Temperatures

In recent discussions here I made a comment that none of the climate 
models have been able to predict the present from the past. I don't 
archive all these messages but I think it was Chip Taylor that 
mentioned that it was recently shown that the models are actually under 
predicting current temperatures. I responded that I had not heard that 
anywhere but would try to do some research on it.

It's come to my attention that this came out of a talk given by Michael 
Mann at the American Geophysical Union conference in December 2012. 
Steve McIntyre has posted an analysis of how Mann was able to make it 
look like the models have under predicted current temperatures. He's 
calling it "Mike's AGU Trick."

http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/02/mikes-agu-trick/#more-17336

Turns out that if you compare GISS global land only temperature data to 
a model that used land and sea data (land runs hotter) to predict 
temperatures and truncate the data in 2005 instead of using the most 
recent data, you can make it look like the models have under predicted 
current temperatures when that is not the case. They are still over 
predicting temperatures.

Chuck
_______________________________________________
Leps-l mailing list
Leps-l at mailman.yale.edu
http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/leps-l