NASA: Global warming to increase severe storms, rainfall
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth’s tropics — the type associated with severe storms and rainfall — is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.In a presentation today to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft.
For every 1.8-degree (F) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.23 degrees per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade.
Everything was going fine until this last paragraph. Point two three, you sure big guy. Who says point two three, even GISS data only says 0.18/decade. The last decade showed little or no warming whatsoever. A flat line.
“Clouds and rain have been the weakest link in climate prediction,” said Aumann. “The interaction between the daytime warming of the sea surface under clear-sky conditions and increases in the formation of low clouds, high clouds and, ultimately, rain is very complicated.
There it is, what every skeptic/denialist already knew. Clouds and rain are the weakest link. Well they have some data now, watch out.
Aumann said the results of his study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, are consistent with another NASA-funded study by Frank Wentz and colleagues in 2005. That study found an increase in the global rain rate of 1.5% per decade over 18 years, a value that is about five times higher than the value estimated by climate models that were used in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Five times more increase than AR4! Wow, that will probably make the cut for the next IPCC bible.
the Air Vent 
Jeff,
Have you ever gone to William M. Briggs post?? Well, I wrote down some profound words he wrote the other week in his Blog. These words to me are sooo True!
Just because a Theory explains past data well it does not mean that it will explain future data well. This is because it is always possible to create a theory that explains past data perfectly or as close to perfect as we want to be.
A powerful statement! Keep this in mind or maybe thru your travels on these subjects you have seen this or concluded this.
Take care!
DJ
I am a big fan of his blog. I don’t go their often enough.
It reminds me of polynomial fitting. You can fit a function to any data just keep adding terms increasing the order.
You can get a near perfect fit for a 6th order polynomial and as soon as it leaves the last point it will plunge down or up off the graph. This is one of the reasons that high dimensional physics (string theory) gets criticized, they keep adding dimensions to fit the data then project results. I’m not critical of string theory but it ain’t settled neither.
IIRC, string theory has held steady on 11 dimensions for some time now. The problem is that individual universes only use 10. Needless to say there are lots of possible universes. Either you postulate that there are in fact an infinite, or at least a very large number, of universes that float in a higher dimensional space (branes I think they’re called by some) or you have to come up with a reason our particular universe is preferred. The first isn’t particularly elegant and they haven’t been able to prove the second so they’re pretty well stuck. It’s entirely possible that string theory has side tracked real progress in physics.
Frank Wentz has said that atmospheric water vapor tracks with atmospheric temperature increase very closely. That was actually one of the clues that led to discoveries of errors in prior atmospheric temperature analyses. Gotta love those mystery stories.
The last decade showed little or no warming whatsoever. A flat line.
– Cite, please.
There have been dozens of trend analyses done to that effect, even the head of the UN IPCC has made reference to it. How is it someone as knowledgeable as yourself doesn’t know this?
Check the digital diatribes link at the right. He provides links to all the data right from the government sites. If you don’t believe his graphs write him on his blog and he will address your concerns. You can also see it on an analysis here or at tamino open mind.