A truly exceptional research paper is in press for the Journal of Geophysical Research. It is
Steyaert, L. T., and R. G. Knox (2007), Reconstructed Historical Land Cover and Biophysical Parameters for Studies of Land-Atmosphere Interactions within the Eastern United States, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JD008277, in press. [those of you with AGU subscriptions can view the entire paper (see)].
The abstract reads,
“Over the past 350 years, the eastern half of the United States experienced extensive land cover changes. These began with land clearing in the 1600s, continued with wide-spread deforestation, wetland drainage, and intensive land use by 1920, and then evolved to the present-day landscape of forest regrowth, intensive agriculture, urban expansion, and landscape fragmentation. Such changes alter biophysical properties that are key determinants of land-atmosphere interactions (water, energy, and carbon exchanges). To understand the potential implications of these land use transformations, we developed and analyzed 20-km land cover and biophysical parameter datasets for the eastern United States at 1650, 1850, 1920, and 1992 time-slices. Our approach combined potential vegetation, county-level census data, soils data, resource statistics, a Landsat-derived land cover classification, and published historical information on land cover and land use. We reconstructed land use intensity maps for each time-slice and characterized the land cover condition. We combined these land use data with a mutually-consistent set of biophysical parameter classes, to characterize the historical diversity and distribution of land surface properties. Time-series maps of land surface albedo, leaf area index, a deciduousness index, canopy height, surface roughness, and potential saturated soils in 1650, 1850, 1920, and 1992 illustrate the profound effects of land use change on biophysical properties of the land surface. Although much of the eastern forest has returned, the average biophysical parameters for recent landscapes remain markedly different from those of earlier periods. Understanding the consequences of these historical changes will require land-atmosphere interactions modeling experiments.”
This study is the most in-depth analysis ever completed on the transformation of the landscape of the eastern half of the United States, and is a truly seminal paper on this subject. The study also presents the landscape variables in a form that can be directly used within climate models. We are in the process of completing a paper which uses this information;
Strack, J., R.A. Pielke Sr and L. T. Steyaert, 2007: Sensitivity of near-surface temperatures and precipitation in the eastern United States to historical land cover changes since European settlement. Water Resources Res., Special Issue on Impacts of Land-Use Change, In Final preparation
which will be posted soon.
off topic, but have you heard all the new fervor around one of the latest papers on the global warming=more hurricanes link?
this seems to be the only decent article on the subject
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12377-tropical-storms-stepping-up-with-climate-change.html
on topic, I’m going to see if I can get my hands on this paper at the library. My field in school was geography and i’m very interested in land use so I’m looking forward to reading it myself.
Comment by terry — July 30, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
Terry,
There is no new fervor around the IPCC fiction of GW causing tropical storms. But thanks for your sterling attempts to spread more propaganda about AGW. The hysteria around this has died down due the usual problem - data doesn’t live up to hype.
The present hurricane season is looking like being a quiet one. So articles in the tabloid press are all that’s left of this little fantasy.
But I do like your idea of getting this at the library, after all wouldn’t want to put money in the pockets of the people who publish trash like that.
Comment by GMF — July 31, 2007 @ 9:21 am
RE: #1 - there is a mass hysteric fervor about that, plus anything else related to the “it is now here” version of AGW perspective. Even articles in the home section ala “Now that Global Warming is here, how about Asti Spumante” etc. Even though, it’s a typical summer just like 30 others.
Comment by SteveSadlov — July 31, 2007 @ 11:25 am
RE: #2 - But beware of padding of the named TC count. They have just named another mid latitude cyclone. A nor’easter was named Chantal. And almost no one is challenging this fraud.
Comment by SteveSadlov — July 31, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
#2 I was merely referring to a paper that was published in the UK recently. I’m not adding to propaganda or otherwise. I haven’t read the paper in question yet and I’m curious to know how they overcame Chris Landsea’s objections (noted in the article I linked) and what Dr. Pielke thought of it, since he did write a book on hurricanes and has written posts about hurricanes that come to other conclusions (that I more or less agree with). Please relax.
As for the library, I was referring to the article talked about in the post. I am not a member of AGU. The hurricane paper is available for free. http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/philtrans_a/Holland%20and%20Webster%201.pdf (pdf)
#3 I agree, most of the press about the global warming=more hurricane has been borderline hysteria, and I was only able to find one on the subject that was tolerable.
Comment by terry — July 31, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
Terry - Thank you for your comments.
With respect to Chris Landsea’s EOS paper on hurricane trends, I find it quite convincing. I remain open to other views, but his presentation of the absence of tropical cyclones in 1933 in the eastern Atlantic Ocean (the year of the previous maximum numbers) is informative.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — July 31, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
Offtopic, but A. Watts seems to be claiming that he and Pielke have “worked” together to show that “bad” urban stations account for the upward temperature change and “good” rural stations show no change. Pielke should probably renounce any association with surface stations.
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2007/07/support-free-d-petition-is-up.html#links
Comment by bigcitylib — July 31, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
bigcitylib - I support Anthony Watt’s goal of obtaining photographs of all USHCN and (and eventually GHCN sites). I do not see how anyone can object to this metadata documentation.
As to using them to explain global warming (or cooling), if you have read Climate Science’s conclusions and supporting material on the site, you know that ocean heat content changes is the way this climate system heat change assessment should be accomplished.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — July 31, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
Mr. Pielke, what I am wondering about is the claim that you are “working” with Anthony Watts, and the implication that you were involved in his specific conclusions about rural vs. urban stations. Do you support these conclusions?
Now, it is difficult to say how much of this is the reporters interpretation of what he may have read here and elsewhere. Mr. Watts claimed that he had not been spoken to before the origonal article, but there has been some contact since then. And whenever Mr. Watts meets a reporter the story that comes out is, without exception, that his results challenge the whole notion that there had been a warming trend over the past X years. Are you okay with this?
Comment by bigcitylib — July 31, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
I posted a link to an open literature preprint (at bottom)
Comment by Eli Rabett — July 31, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
re #4
I wouldn’t be too quick to discount ‘Chantal’ as a mid latitude cyclone. I am an operational meteorologist and have been watching the evolution of this disturbance which began north of the Bahamas. It took on tropical characteristics yesterday when they named it and from ir/vis satellite observation it appeared tropical to me. But I do agree with you that they are naming ‘hybrid’ type cyclone/subtropical cyclone systems more frequently than they used to and that does seem a bit concerning to me in light of the whole AGW thing.
Comment by tom — July 31, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
bigcitylib - My views are clearly articulated on this website. This is where you should go for this information. If you want peer reviewed detail, please read
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res. in press.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — July 31, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
#4 and #11, yes Chantal was indeed tropical. Been watching that disturbance for awhile too.
Andrea and Barry never should have been named, however. They ought to come up with a new system for naming hybrid subtropical storms, since they’ve been around forever.
Comment by terry — August 1, 2007 @ 9:49 am
Not having a subscription to JGR (only GRL), I had to purchase this article (or go to a University to get it), doing so on RPSr’s raving review. It cost me $9, and I had 24 hours to access the paper. When I downloaded it, I find no figures are attached. Nice. Emails to the corresponding author and to AGU have so far gone unanswered. Meanwhile, my 24 hours have passed. I wonder if I’ll ever see the figures.
BigCityLib - If you had spent any time looking at the photos at surfacestations.org, you would have found submissions by members of RPSr’s group. That should tell you something. I’ve spent the last 10 years looking at coop/ushcn data. The rigorous QC is not as rigorous as many would think. You can be an idealogue if you wish, but in the end it will do no good, for the truth will out. It is a foolish position to take that anything challenging your current paradigm/belief system must be attacked.
Comment by goinggreen — August 1, 2007 @ 9:53 am
#5, #6,
The problem I have with this paper is that any hurricane or Tropical Storm counts before the 1960’s is not accurate. Do to the fact that there where no satellites then and monitoring was scarce at best. According to the AGW theory we will have more hurricanes but it also states that there will be more El Nino’s also. You cannot have it both ways since they are mutually exclusive.
Comment by Jim Arndt — August 1, 2007 @ 11:48 am
goinggreen - I am sorry to hear that you could not print out the figures. AGU certainly should responde to you on this. The figures really make the paper clear.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 1, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
I don’t have an AGU subscription. Are there any maps used in this study? Also are there any studies like this on a global scale or on Asia? The increase in food production in last few decades has been incredible. For example, global rice production has increased 3 times since the 1960s.
Comment by David Blair — August 2, 2007 @ 10:43 am
Here’s a free copy of the Landsea paper with figures. It’s important to note that it’s a response to the H+W paper despite having been published first. We shall see what H+W have to say about it (I would assume in Eos and rather soon). Roger didn’t want to mention this, but Chris Landsea is up against some serious climate heavyweights. One of those heavyweights is Kerry Emanuel, who based on this interview that aired yesterday on NPR doesn’t seem to have modified his views based on Landsea’s work.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 2, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
RE 18: Thanks for the links! But what part of Landsea’s analysis do YOU disagree with?
Comment by Darwin — August 3, 2007 @ 11:35 am
Re #19: I haven’t had a chance to more than skim the H+W paper and I need to re-read the Landsea paper more carefully, but offhand it appears to me that Landsea fails to account for the possibility that the mid-North Atlantic region he points to as critical for the undercount may have only recently gotten warm enough to support TCs. As well, some of the years he chose as examples look to be a little cherry-picked, e.g. I suspect ship observations would have gotten quite a bit denser by the 1920s/’30s as contrasted to his 1907 example. As well, the 1907 graphic makes ship coverage look sparser than it really was, recalling that ships move faster than TCs.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 3, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
RE:20
Either you have some misperception about how fast the vast majority of ships traveled in the early part of the century, or you aren’t aware of the average speed of a hurricane which is around 11 knots. WWII Liberty ships had a top speed of 11 knots.
Do you really think the majority of ships in service earlier in the century were faster?
Comment by Bob K — August 3, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
Re #21: Sure, Bob, but Liberty ships were notably slow. Note that the big trans-Atlantic liners (which had frequent crossings, albeit perhaps mainly in the northerly part of the area of concern) were plenty faster even in the first decade of the century. There’s also the consideration that TCs don’t tend to travel in such straight lines. It remains that the 1907 snapshot Landsea provided isn’t really enough to prove his point.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 3, 2007 @ 6:55 pm
The initially recorded wind speeds for tropical storms as a function of time as plotted at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1…#comment- 107023
The plot shows that as time has gone by the initial detection velocities has decreased, or the ability to detect weak storms has gotten better as time has gone by. It tells us that the observations are not homogeneous over time. It tells us that it is nearly certain that weak storms were missed. For example, Andrea this year would not have been detected in times past because it was weak and short lived. It also tells us that the record of tropical storms in the Atlantic is highly inhomogeneous and the study by Holland and Webster is not valid.
Also look at comment 59 in the same thread and you will see that lots of storms in the eastern Atlantic were missed in earlier years. If no one is observing in the eastern Atlantic in earlier years, it does not mean that no storms were occurring there.
Comment by Douglas Hoyt — August 3, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
Speed-wise your talking about a few passenger ships with some speed. Which in all likelihood didn’t regularly cross the area in question. Whereas his graphic is from marine reports which likely came mainly from merchant shipping not noted for being speedy in the best of times.
Thanks for the link to Landsea’s paper. In my opinion he made a very cogent presentation.
I started to read the Holland & Webster paper. After finding gross numerical errors in the introduction, I felt I couldn’t trust the veracity of the the rest of their presentation without checking all their figures. I’m not interested enough to do that. You can find my opinion of what I bothered to read of their piece at this link if your interested. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1082#comment-123093
Since you brought up cherry-picking, what’s with the idea of them putting the data into 3 buckets of 26 years, 64 years and 11 years in order to analyze it?
Comment by Bob K — August 3, 2007 @ 8:22 pm
Re #24: If you won’t read the paper, you’re not worth talking to.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 4, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
Re #24: Just happened to spot this new paper. Landsea’s analysis isn’t the only one around, and others seem to disagree with him. Interestingly this paper supports my specific point about 1907 having been cherry-picked. Note in particular the last sentence. But please, Bob, don’t let this interfere with your preconceptions.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L14801, doi:10.1029/2007GL030169, 2007
Is the number of North Atlantic tropical cyclones significantly underestimated prior to the availability of satellite observations?
Edmund K. M. Chang and Yanjuan Guo
Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Marine Sciences Research Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
Abstract: The number of North Atlantic tropical cyclones that may have been undetected before satellite observations are available is estimated by passing the cyclone tracks taken from 1976 to 2005 through ship observations from 1900 to 1965. The probability of detection is equated to the probability that the ships would have made wind observations of 18 m/s or higher had the tropical cyclones been present during the earlier years, based on the probability computed from actual wind observations around tropical cyclones during the satellite era. It is estimated that the number of tropical cyclones not making landfall over any continent or the Caribbeans may have been underestimated by up to 2.1 per year during 1904–1913, with this number decreasing to 1.0 per year or less during the 1920s and later decades. Our results suggest that the characteristics of North Atlantic tropical cyclone track statistics might have changed during the 20th century.
Received 27 March 2007; accepted 15 June 2007; published 17 July 2007.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 5, 2007 @ 4:07 am
Re #26 ; Thanks Steve B.- There will be a weblog on this issue coming up. Just one comment here, if you look at track maps; eg. see those in
Pielke, R.A., 1990: The hurricane. Routledge Press, London, England, 228 pp,
one of the striking imaages is that in the earlier period of the 20th century, tropical storms appear out of the eastern Atlantic as already at least tropical storms. Look at 1933, for example. This means any tropical cyclones that weakened and dissipated east of there were completely missed. In such an active year as 1933, it is hard to see how several were not missed.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 5, 2007 @ 8:33 am
Steve,
RE:25
The introduction to a paper such as H&W’s should be written to interest the reader into spending time reading the paper more fully. When that introduction contains several numerical errors, and when a supposedly two color chart has data lines that are indistinguishable in color, why would a reader not suspect the rest of the paper is of equal quality and waste of time?
When presumably intelligent people aren’t willing to take the time to correct obvious errors, it suggests to me either they themselves have no respect for the paper or they lack respect for the reader.
As far as your not wishing to discuss it further, I really don’t think any more need be said.
Comment by BoB K — August 5, 2007 @ 10:25 am