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Myself, Bill Gray, and Marc Morano in Las Vegas, July, 2014.
Bill was a pioneering researcher and hurricane forecaster, as well as a skeptic of the seriousness of the manmade global warming threat.
Bill’s legacy goes well back before my time…and I’m getting to be an old guy (60). He was at most of the Heartland conferences, and he always made it a point to spend time with me. In fact, he was embarrassingly effusive with his praise. He was quite a character, and very sharp. We didn’t always agree on the science, but that’s ok.
My earliest memory of Bill was my very first scientific conference, an AMS Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology Conference in Oklahoma, maybe around 1982. The big thing then was the mesoscale modelers were all giving papers showing that their model would take a pre-existing tropical disturbance, say an African easterly wave, and turn it into a hurricane. This indeed was an achievement.
After sitting through all of these presentations, Bill Gray, who was sitting just in front of me, stood up and asked in his Jimmy Stewart-esque way, “All you modelers keep showing your models producing a hurricane out of a disturbance…but that usually doesn’t happen…where are the model results showing that a hurricane doesn’t develop?”
I will never forget the question…it was a good one.
Goodbye, Bill. You will be missed.
Comments are now open? I didn’t know Bill Gray, but there are probably some of his speeches or presentations on youtube. Do you know of any that are noteworthy you could link to?
Sorry to see this. I was just thinking about Bill today. Was thinking I’d like to see him talk or at least meet him sometime given that I live near him. Missed opportunity… I hope his family is doing well.
-Scott
Gray never said there has not been any warming, but in 2006 stated “I don’t question that. And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle ’40s to the middle ’70s.”
Well, we’ll see. I still tend to think no one really knows what will happen.
His work will live on. Thanks for sharing and it is always great to get a historical perspective in science.
Sad to hear. I was just commenting to my wife the other day about the Atlantic Hurricane forecast Dr Gray had put out and how I considered it much more reliable than the NASA version. I described him as one of the preeminent Hurricane forecasters in the field. He will be missed.
The April CSU Klotzbach/Gray forecast came out a few days ago, it calls for an average year. I like their forecasts because they go into much greater detail than any of the others. I like their post-mortems, especially when the forecast is a bust, because there’s so much to learn.
http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/ has the link to the .pdf.
We estimate that 2016 will have an additional 5 hurricanes (median is 6.5), 12 named storms (median is 12.0), 50 named storm days (median is 60.1), 20 hurricane days (median is 21.3), 2 major (Category 3-4-5) hurricane (median is 2.0) and 4 major hurricane days (median is 3.9). The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is estimated to be about 90 percent of the long-period average. We expect Atlantic basin Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) and Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity in 2016 to be approximately 95 percent of their long-term averages.
I sure wish Bill would have been around to forecast the 2017 season. With it becoming ever more evident that a significant La Nina is emerging I would suspect that there is a good chance we may see a spike in Atlantic Hurricane incidence and severity next year.
But for this year it seems based on looking at the various other forecasts (European and Weatherbell, we’re in for an average to slightly below average season.
Better than Vegas odds that the US will go another year without a major (CAT III or higher) storm coming ashore. It has now been about 125 months since the Continental US had a major storm come ashore. Come October 24th of this year if one has not hit it will have been 11 years.
Dr. Gray was a giant in my eyes, not only because of his outstanding scientific work but even more because of his courage, integrity, and graciousness in the face of scientific pygmy bullies who sought to discredit him. Every time I saw him, he had kind words of encouragement for me, and I’m tremendously grateful that he gave us an extensive interview for use in our documentary “Where the Grass is Greener: Biblical Stewardship vs. Climate Alarmism.” I shall miss him. The scientific world will miss him.
My condolences to his family and friends, and for all of us that appreciate ethical and unafraid scientists who stand by their ethics even at the cost of their position. Dr. Gray was one of those and his loss is a loss for all of us who value such competence and integrity.
Glad you opened up comments again Doc even if just for this one thread.
RIP Dr. Gray
Courtesy of Dr. Klotzboch
His eulogy, PDF file
https://t.co/lDkZKsoArQ
Gray, W. M. and P. J. Klotzbach, 2011: Have Increases in CO2 Contributed to the Recent Large
Upswing in Atlantic Basin Major Hurricanes since 1995? Evidence-Based Climate Science.
Regarding the 1995-onward (possibly now drawing to a close) surge of Atlantic hurricane activity:
According to
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/bill-gray-a-towering-figure-in-hurricane-science
Gray predicted this as far back as 1990 on a basis other than manmade climate change. Gray attributed the shift in the 1990s that he predicted to a shift in the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation. According to this Wunderground article, this explanation for the ~1995 uptick of Atlantic hurricane activity is controversial.
This Wunderground article was posted by Jeff Masters (the hurricane expert at Wunderground) and Bob Henson. Jeff Masters appears to me as expecting manmade global warming / climate change to be great. And Wunderground is or recently was a subsidiary of the Weather Company, which is the parent company of the Weather Channel, and I have heard things along the lines of the Weather Company effectively being the Weather Channel (please correct me if I am wrong – don at donklipstein period com). The Weather Channel and their weather.com appear to me as having great expectations of magnitude and bad effects of manmade global warming / climate change.
Meanwhile, I extend thanks and respect to Dr. Jeff Masters for his respect for a scientist that he does not always agree with.
http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2012.pdf
This is not the sort of account that fits with a day like today, but if Bill Gray had a list of documents he’d like people to read, this may be high on the list as the main issues are still current.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/On_The_Hijacking_of_the_American_Meteorological_Society.pdf
The CPC/IRI Official Probabilistic Enso Forecast is
27% for Neutral conditions and 70% for La Nina conditions by Autumn.
A little late to affect (i.e. tend to increase) Atlantic Hurricanes this Summer.
What about late-season Atlantic hurricanes? I have been slow on checking expectations of late-season tropical and subtropical north-Atlantic SSTs. However, I am aware what late-season and off-season Atlantic hurricanes do if & when they turn north.
Usually, they get destroyed by wind sheer. 2nd-place-most-usually, they get sucked into and eaten by extratropical Atlantic storms, which often intensifies those storms a little – usually in North Atlantic areas where such intensified storms are like ones that those areas are used to occasionally dealing with.
One note I want to add: When a hurricane transitions into or gets eaten by a Nor’Easter, the main factor for wind intensity is baroclinic force(s), which is highly dependent on horizontal temperature gradient. One thing that climate models for global warming got right is that the Arctic has been warming more than all other latitude zones, which means that Nor’Easters and tropical/Nor’Easter hybrids such as Sandy have lately been having their winds weakened by manmade climate change. For example of an older late-season hurricane being windier while and even after undergoing extratropical transition, look at Hazel of 1954. That storm maintained hurricane-qualifying-sustained wind to parts of Toronto and even about 70 miles north of Toronto, along with flooding on some Toronto river areas where flood records still stand. This was after Hurricane Hazel made landfall on South Carolina and became an extratropical cyclone as part of its collision course with a cold front while well inland and approaching the NC-VA border – with spotty wind reports shortly before having been reported as since qualifying as Cat-3 sustained (1-minute average) wind.
“…late season hurricanes…”
That is the point. A La Nina will almost certainly not be established in time to affect the main season. I understand that, in any case, the late Professor Gray’s “system” involved much more than one influence.
The N Pole (60-90 N) LTT anomaly, in the detailed report of UAH has been recently
January 2016 + 2.44 C
February + 1.53
March + 1.46.
However, for the year 2015, the average was only + 0.15 C. This region does not always shows up, in modern times, as warmer than heretofore.
The 2-meter anomaly of Maue for the Northern Hemisphere, peaked at + 1.6 C at the beginning of March. In the six weeks since, it has halved to + 0.8 C.
One of the main computer models of ENSO was found to have a flaw (surprise!) and has now been “corrected;” and this seems to be part of the reason for the official consensus tilting more to La Nina in our immediate future.
April 1998 and March 2016 El Nino spikes were rather close numerically. That is usually called a “double-top” in the chart of the Stock Market.
Further to the dying of the El Nino, and its fading influence on brightness temperatures, the averages of the “2-meter global anomaly,” published by Maue show:
January + 0.512 C
February + 0.701
March + 0.630
April to date + 0.542.
Very sad reading that another old school scientist passed away.
My deep condolences to his family.
Massimo
http://synoptic.envsci.rutgers.edu/site/sat/sat.php?sat=namer&url=../imgs/wv_namer_anim.gif
Re: Hazel,
Which “stalled” over Toronto and gave up its moisture, when the ground was already saturated from a spell of wet weather.
When I went to Toronto for the first time, in 1967, I was struck by the fact that the banks of the waterways were parks, with no building allowed*. I was told that this was because of the deaths in 1954. This restriction on development turned out to be very good for “the feel” of Toronto. By contrast, the recent “condo boom” has made a concrete jungle of the waterfront.
*For many years, there was an unfinished, rotting, apartment complex, visible from the Don Valley Parkway. This was the result of the hubris of a developer who went ahead, thinking he could hustle his way to retrospective planning permission.
Sorry to hear that…
great presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL6ZCmmCU7c
One bit of ammo I’ve long used was his quote out of the Feb 2000 NY Times, 5th paragraph: ”I don’t think we’re arguing over whether there’s any global warming. The question is, ‘What is the cause of it?’” http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/science/global-warming-the-contrarian-view.html ) — a point useful against any AGW believer who says skeptic scientists offer inconsistent viewpoints or are global warming deniers.
One thing I’ll always cherish is his praise of my work in exposing how the ‘industry-corrupted skeptic scientists’ accusation implodes.
And then further in the article he trashes him as a denier. What a ideological jerk disrespecting Dr. Gray that way upon his death.
This comment was intended in reply to Donald L. Klipstein’s comment on the Masters article above. It did not fall under as a reply unfortunately.
Dr. Grays skeptic perceptions would have been reinforced by emergent structures analysis which has been recognized by Dr. Roy as a valid method to address global climate. As shown at http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com, this approach achieves a 97% match between calculated and measured average global temperatures since before 1900 even when the influence of CO2 change is excluded. Including the influence of CO2 change improves the match by only 0.1%.
Roy…sorry to hear about Bill Gray.
You’re still a young guy as is John Christy but you did wonder in an article what will come of the UAH program once you and John retire.
Any thoughts on successors? Can you do an article on up and comers?
Linus Pauling did not mind controversy but the crew who have inherited the Linus Pauling Institute tend toward the conservative. I hope UAH carries on its tradition into the future.
Yeah, gordon, i remember that. My dim recollection was that once drs. spencer and christy hit the golf courses that may be the end of the uah data set. I also wonder, if it does survive, will it be as accurate?
Testing…
I was saddened to see an obit for another one of the old-time meteorologists, Dr. Joanne Simpson, back in 2010.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030703230.html
She did not comment on the AGW theory till she retired from NASA, then claimed it is essentially nonsense.
She was the first female meteorologist in a day when women were not encouraged to do that sort of thing. She was also one of the first to fly into severe weather and hurricanes.
Gordon,
She will not be the last. Some years back we had a part time employee, female, studying meteorology at UNC Charlotte. She flew into hurricanes at least twice while our employee and loved the science.
I asked her about AGW etc and her response was the professor – whoever – thought it bunk. So AGW is not being bottle fed everywhere.
Graduated and moved along. I’m sure she is not the only one coming up who looks at the information to make decisions instead of reading the headlines in the paper.
Speaking of which, the Raleigh paper ‘News and Observer’ carried an article recently blaming “allergies, liver failure, premature birth, depression and heat stroke” on climate change.
Go figure.
Dr. Spencer – thank you for opening comments. My suggestion is to leave them open and when someone gets out of line, cut them off.
that’s what I was doing before…except that D.C. would simply keep posting, under different names, even from different IP addresses. People complained about him. It would take almost constant babysitting, and I refuse to let one person take up that much of my time.
What I meant was – cut off comments just as soon as he starts.
How about hiring a “babysitter” for a couple dollars an hour to do the (deleting) work for you. She/He could walk the dog while they’re at it…
Dr. S., i think lewes has a point here. Why not proceed here in “the least worst way”. I mean, what have we got to lose? (except ing the best damn comment page in the blogosphere…)
Lewes should read Lewis…
Fonz,
exactly so.
After Dr. Spencer, the comments here are usually very worthwhile. I hate to see them go, hence my suggestion.
Best!
Yeah, Lewis, after spending some time over there at wuwt, i realize just how great dr spencer is AND his comment page are . Dr Spencer focuses more on science and less on the politics (as do his commentors). Slipstick “followed” me over there and has hence given up apparently. I suspect his sentiments are alot like mine even though he’s on the opposite side of the spectrum. You really can’t beat Dr Spencer’s site. The least we can do is let him know how much the “rank and file” appreciates him…
Hi Fonzie,
+1
🙂
Hi Fonzarelli,
Yes, even though I have concluded that blogsites are not the best way to communicate with each other about serious science, I have learned much from time to time on this site which I doubt I would not have discovered on my own. And Spencer, I tried to privately exchange ideas with the problem until he told me I was wasting his time. So I stopped wasting his time and he stopped communicating with me. Those who respond to the problem’s repeated comments are just as guilty as he is. If they would stop, he would not have any reason to respond. Just a thought.
Have a good day, Jerry
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E_A9l3Ght4Y
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E36JaBiYl0g
Massimo, i give up… google [rockpalast ’79 single handed sailor]
You won’t regret(!)
Hi Fonzie,
uh! Mark Knopfler was and still is one of my idols.
I don’t wonder looking to that movie, because I got other idols but probably he is my only guitar idol 😉
Have a great day.
Massimo
Anybody know why don’t emoticon macros work no more?
Ok,
it’s Chrome (I was at office), my home firefox works right for emoticons instead.
???
Why now can’t I see the emoticons on firefox too?
I just wrote the message above and immediately after posting it I lost all the emoticons on this page.
🙂
Roy…now that you have done an article titled, “Why Gavin Schmidts Temperature Plot Baseline Issue is Irrelevant”, could you do another one titled, “Why Gavin Schmidt is irrelevant”?
Hi Gordon,
Evidently you like looking people shooting to the Red Cross 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day.
Massimo
@Massimo…”Evidently you like looking people shooting to the Red Cross…”
Hey, Massimo, missed your point. 🙂
I just don’t like Gavin Schmidt and his ilk. Never cared much for arrogant people.
A couple of years ago he claimed Richard Lindzen was ‘old-school’ and that his climate modeling pseudo-science was state of the art. Yet when he had the chance to debate Lindzen one on one he ran for the hills.
I don’t know why Roy allows himself to be drawn into Schmidt’s nonsense. He’s only a mathematician who has ridden this wave of religious hysteria called AGW.
Hi Gordon,
sorry, maybe you are not aware about what “shooting to the Red Cross” means here in Italy, I apologize for that.
We use that saying to highlight that the target is so easy to get that it’s sometimes futile aiming it and shoot.
I’m absolutely by your side about him.
Sorry to have misled you.
Have a great day.
Massimo
@massimo “Sorry to have misled you”.
No need to apologize Massimo, I did not feel mislead. It’s good to know things about other countries so thanks for the explanation.
When I finally make it to Italy, I’ll feel ahead of the game.
“…shooting to the Red Cross…”
I lived in Italy for a while, but never heard that expression (or, if I did, it went over my head.*) In English we sometimes say,
“It is like shooting fish in a barrel” which means much the same (i.e. it is so easy that it is unsporting.)
*I had enough trouble with ordinary words. I was mortified once to be told by an extremely beautiful girl I was trying to impress that I was pronouncing “hanno” as “ano” which was “a rude word.”
@Dave…”I was pronouncing hanno as ano which was a rude word.”
What do you mean ‘was’ a rude word? You should have played dumb and drawn her into explaining the difference.
Non capisco…per favore mi mostri.
How’s my Google Italian, Massimo?
Hi Dave & Gordon,
@Dave
yes, shooting to the Red Cross it’s the way we say It is like shooting fish in a barrel, at least here in Piedmont (but very close to Milan indeed).
@Gordon & Dave
Maybe that beautiful girl over exaggerate the meaning of “ano”.
Yes it’s the ass but in the anatomic scientific context. So it’s the scientific definition of that part we have at the bottom of our back, not so much a rude word indeed (we use an another word to refer at the ass vulgarly), probably she was joking with you just to correct your little pronunciation defect.
@Gordon
Google is absolutely good enough to communicate your thought, anyway the correct Italian sentence should be:
“Non Capisco… per favore spiegami.”
“Spiegami” is “tell me how it is” or “how it works”, while “mi mostri” (or better “mostrami”) is “show me” or “let me see”.
Anyways, “mi mostri” it’s not wrong, indeed it can be used instead of “spiegami”.
Have both a great day.
Massimo
Uh! Google has it!
Dave try to put “It is like shooting fish in a barrel” into the Google translator here:
https://translate.google.it/?hl=it&tab=wT
Then click with the mouse over “pesci in un barile”.
The third translation is exactly “E’ come sparare sulla Croce Rossa”.
Here in Italy that’s what we usually say instead of “It is like shooting fish in a barrel”
Literally it is: “It’s like shooting on the Red Cross”
🙂
Again, have a great day.
Massimo
The ‘global 2-meter anomaly,’ published four times daily by Maue, has resumed its downward move. It has fallen from
+ 1.0 C at the beginning of March to + 0.4 C. How low will it go, when La Nina takes over?
How low will it go? It could get very low, indeed.
ENSO regions 1 & 2 have already cooled below La Nina threshold. This is critical. The Walker Circulation should now be picking up and a tongue of upwelling, cool water should begin to extend westward from Peru. I expect ENSO region 3 to cool precipitously over the summer. We will likely see the little girl before the elections. Danged ol’ Ma Nature, how she loves to torment the poor befuddled global warmers, Tsk, Tsk.
As I’ve mentioned before, there are a number of serious pollutants associated with fossil fuel production, and the energy production from the burning of fossil fuels.
Demonising CO2 is a political tactic used in order to motivate change in society, towards a cleaner and more sustainable process of energy production.
For example, it was never any secret that coal-fired power plants without adequate emission controls would produce smog, yet China has got itself into serious trouble regarding unhealthy smog, by ignoring this fact in the interests of economic development.
Do we want other poor and undeveloped countries to do the same? This process of exploiting the cheapest sources of energy to raise living standards has worked for China, because the Chinese people have a very long history of great innovation and economic nous. However, burning fossil fuels cheaply (without adequate emission controls) will not necessarily work as well for other less talented cultures, but it might have the same pollution effects as it has had in China, and with less affordable health consequences.
Creating a universal alarm about CO2 emissions which affect the whole planet and every living creature on the planet, is likely to be a better strategy than trying to deal with each of the countless instances of ‘real’ pollution from the production and burning of fossil fuels in the numerous countries around the world.
The regulation and monitoring of such pollution in so many different locations and countries, each country having its own problems of corruption and incompetence, would be a nightmare, and enormously expensive if done successfully.
A paradigm shift towards clean, sustainable and ultimately more efficient energy production will eventually benefit everyone.
In fact, ENSO region 3 SST anomaly has already dropped precipitously. It is down to .6 C, from its peak of 3C a few months ago. It seems that this La Nina is built for speed. Also, the AMO shows signs of turning but even more importantly, so does the PDO. Was the late El Nino spike the last hurrah of the miscreant warmmunists? There are predictions of a 30 year cooling trend. Adios global warmers.
” [I] should have played dumb…”
That was something I was fitted by Nature to do.
It is incredibly hard to flirt in a foreign language, even if one speaks it quite well. The only time I got it right with that girl was when I said that a new hair-cut made her look “piu sofisticata.” That elicited a dazzling smile and a kiss on the cheek. Which reduced me to a speechless jelly.
She lived in Gelasco – that is in the Piedmont isn’t it?
The spelling seems to have changed to Garlasco. I lived in Varese and she in Gelasco. I didn’t have a car. We was DOOMED. It was fifty years ago.
Hi Dave,
so you lived in Varese.
I’m about 60km SW from there, but just 40km NW from Garlasco.
I’ve been in Garlasco to “Le Rotonde” disco club, do you met that girl there?
The club had been established in 1964, so it could be you were there.
Anyways, I never heard about any city called Gelasco here in Piedmont.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Met in a disco club? No. Upper-middle-class 19-year-old Italian girls did not “go clubbing” in those days. Much too protected. She worked for an American brokerage house near La Scala, and I happened to have an account with them. I invented reasons to drop in.
I do remember the very civilized habit whereby one phoned down to the bar on street level and a waiter would soon be up to the office with fresh coffee and delicious “tosti”. Do they still do it that way in Milan? A niece worked in graphic design there a few years ago, and she enjoyed the city. In 1966, the cost of living was quite low; the post-war recovery boom had popped. However, the air pollution was terrible because of atmospheric inversions. It stank of heating oil, in the winter.
Some time after leaving Italy I read there was a huge scandal in as much as Varese was the place people went from Milan to do drugs and have orgies. I did not get in on any of it!
At the time I was living in Toronto. And I read in the Toronto Star that some Chinese people had been arrested for running a brothel in my apartment building directly above me! Once again I missed out.
Hi Dave,
“I do remember the very civilized habit whereby one phoned down to the bar on street level and a waiter would soon be up to the office with fresh coffee and delicious tosti. Do they still do it that way in Milan?”
The attorneys at law who handle my international patents have an office in Milan via Borgonuovo which is three or four blocks from La Scala, still have that privilege.
But that area is the most fashionable place of Milan, just to say their offices have gold-plated door handles and stairs handrails!!!
So don’t believe it’s so common having that service, it’s exactly a privilege of fews.
“However, the air pollution was terrible because of atmospheric inversions. It stank of heating oil, in the winter.”
Yes those times we had most of homes heated using diesel oil, now most of homes use methane, but because of the current craziness
of diesel cars, it’s much better you stay away from places such Corso Buenos Aires… All but “aria buona” there.
Just the same stinky air you experienced those days (I guess, in 1966 I was just 1 year old indeed), especially during winters with dry and windless days.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“…there are predictions of a 30 year cooling trend…”
The crucual evidence may appear soon.
However, even if there is a knockout blow for the warmunistas I would still be reminded of the cricketing anecdote of a match between Cambridge University and a team of professionals.
One of the professionals’ fast bowlers knocked the Cambridge Captain’s stumps flying and the young man left the field, saying courteously to the bowler
“I say, Willets! That was a marvellous ball!”
to which the reply was,
“Aye. And it were bloody wasted on you!”
Roy,
First of all, RIP Bill Gray. This is a huge loss to the climate community.
I don’t comment much here, mostly because often someone else covers it long before I get to reading these threads. But I do miss the comments here. You are a thoughtful person & stimulate a great deal of thoughtful commentary.
I wonder if it is possible for you to find some trusted volunteer moderators from amongst the peanut gallery. Just a thought.
Brent.
I corresponded with Dr. Hurricane, as Bill was known, some years ago on the global warming issue as I am a denier, physical science trained and much published. I edited a paper for him and he was fun to work with. Sorry to hear of his passing.
Adrian Vance
Massimo says
“…lawyers…gold-plated handles…”
Somebody is making money out of your patents!
Something else about Italy then – which I did NOT like – was that the Mens toilets were supervised by women! Mind you, I suppose they had already seen and heard everything.
Hi Dave,
“Somebody is making money out of your patents!”
That’s the first thing I thought the very first time I had been there.
And often the first thing one thinks turns to be true! 🙁
“Mens toilets were supervised by women! Mind you, I suppose they had already seen and heard everything.”
Honestly I never realized that issue, but I must admit that your supposition is true. 🙂