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Peter Hogarth at 03:24 AM on 3 October 20112011 Sea Ice Minimum
Hi Rob, eloquent post and interesting comments. As we now have fifty without a dissenting voice, is this a new record Arctic sea ice skeptic minimum? or do we expect a recovery anytime soon... -
Norman at 02:57 AM on 3 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @ 149, I did answer you question in 144. "I would not disagree that the drought in Texas or Lousiania is extreme (well outside the normal). Nor severe tornadoes in 2011. Nor even that 2010 and 2011 had extreme weather events occur. Yes they did have extreme weather events." The answer is yes. -
muoncounter at 02:25 AM on 3 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
RobP #10: The mid-century surface temperature 'hiatus' was explained quite fully here. There's no question of the statistical significance of that hiatus. But the 'hiatus' decade of 2000-2009 was addressed in your prior 'why wasn't hottest decade hotter' and the best conclusion there was sulphate aerosols muting the ongoing increase in CO2 radiative forcing. I am not questioning the Meehl model results, nor the idea that stored ocean heat will indeed come back to bite us - it may already be doing that in 2011. My concern is two-fold: a. Based on graphs like this, I don't see how 2000-2009 qualifies as a hiatus on the scale of 1950-1975. b. We've agreed that 10 years does not a significant trend make. As a result, I fear these decadal studies confuse the issue. Certainly, it takes some scrutiny to reconcile the model graphs in your figure 2 with its inset - they do not graph the same things and thus using an inset format is misleading. And statements like: the general pattern of warming and ocean circulation in the model, during these hiatus periods, is very similar to that which occurs over shorter timeframes in the La Niña phase of ENSO will touch another round of its el Nino!. -
Peter Hogarth at 02:17 AM on 3 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Rob, most explanations for the global downturns in SST and I guess upper layer OHC relate to the SO2 aerosols from major eruptions. Here I've averaged the optical thickness data over the tropics, which I have assumed is where most of the solar input to the Oceans happens. Interestingly this seemed to enhance the effect of Agung relative to Pinatubo, at least using this data set. The red line is a "last five year" average of OHC. I think it is possible that the recent short term surface layer hiatus may tie in with continuing deeper warming. A ten year average of upper level OHC shows no recent hiatus or significant trend change whatsoever, and this is the kind of long term integration pattern we might expect lower layers to follow if they warmed through vertical diffusion alone.
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:16 AM on 3 October 2011Understanding climate denial
I'm not sure on the causes of denialism but it seems that some scientists had enough of the stupid nonsense some try to pass as information. Good to see them speak up. -
Eric (skeptic) at 02:09 AM on 3 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
My kindle should arrive Monday and then I will order and read the book. This page seemed interesting: http://climate.met.psu.edu/www_prod/features/rainextreme.php It includes the recent extreme rain in early Sept. which clipped Harrisburg, PA. I have no idea how valid the analysis is. I would have also liked to know the period of record for each station and whether that would be a factor in the statistics. -
muoncounter at 01:35 AM on 3 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman#145: "states this without graphs or trend analysis so it is his opinion" Circular reasoning. There are graphs aplenty; the question I asked you relative to the 3 graphs in #126 still stands: "Can you see from these graphs that the current situation is unprecedented and a good example of 'extreme'? " Please answer this yes or no. "there are extreme weather events every year somewhere on the globe." I'm sorry, I find that statement to be utterly devoid of meaning. We're 100+ comments into this thread and going in circles; we went in circles for 400+ the last time this happened. I wonder: Do you understand what is meant by 'extreme' in the context of weather? -
Kevin C at 23:55 PM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Chris G@11: (Sorry, I'm a bit late to this discussion, hope this point is still of interest) The 0.9C figure is indeed an oversimplification because the 'transient response' is not linear over the 70 year period used to obtain the 2C/x2 figure, although it's almost an aside to Dana's argument, so I'm not very worried. Not sure how accurate it is - I suspect not far off. But I can produce a better estimate using my energy balance model trained against either 20thC climate or to reproduce GISS-modelE enesemble results. I'll try and do that this week, but it may take a few days (exams to set). -
Bob Lacatena at 23:36 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
146, Norman, Bastardi and Watts are first class, agenda driven masters of distortion. They are also absolutely, positively, not scientists, let alone unbiased observers. Using them as an appeal to authority completely invalidates your argument. It is in fact one of the real definitions of the fallacy of an appeal to authority, that is to appeal to someone who is not actually qualified as an authority on the subject. (-snip-)Response:[DB] Emotion-laden comment snipped.
Some added context for the lay reader: both Bastardi and Watts have a history of making conclusions not only unsupported by science, but also in violation of many laws of physics. Various debunkings of both are readily available throughout the blogosphere. The best are at Open Mind.
The difference between B&W and Dr. Masters is that Dr. Master's observations and conclusions are supported by physics and the literature in climate science while that of the former duo is not.
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Bob Lacatena at 23:32 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
146, Norman, You are creating strawmen. First, obviously there is going to be noise in the system. You know very well that your requirement of 2010 > 2009 > 2008 > ... is not valid. Second, you also recognize that you've been following an anecdotal argument to a statistical question. You admit that the question becomes one of average frequency and intensity, and yet you've been arguing it by cherry picking events from the past, as if finding a previous, intense drought or hurricane invalidates the intensity we see today. Third, you know that we've already been through a variety of measures of extreme event intensity (dollars in damages, loss of life), and you know that there are many obscuring factors (such as changes in population, early warning and engineering improvements, total property value exposed to danger, changes in reporting methods, etc.) that make comparisons over long time periods difficult. Lastly, you know that we are still early in the game, so gathering the statistics to demonstratively prove the point simply cannot happen at this point in time. So in the end what your comment tells me is that you know that everything that you have been saying is wrong. You know that anecdotal evidence of past extreme events is meaningless. You know that there is noise in the system, so an obvious, stepwise progression is not going to happen. You know that the statistics have not yet been there to definitively prove the case. And you know what the whole point of this post and thread was about. From the original post above:It is within this context that Dr James Powell, whose book 2084: An Oral History of the Great Warming is reviewed here, aims to find out whether there is now a 'preponderance of evidence' showing that climate change is truly under way, a situation which he argues warrants a response.
You said you were going to buy and read the book! Have you done so yet? Perhaps all of your questions would be answered if you did. Making what you know to be incomplete, invalid and confusing arguments in the meantime is unacceptable. -
Icarus at 23:31 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Thanks for the reply and references Rob. I thought I remembered reading from one of Hansen's papers that the TOA radiative balance can't be measured directly with sufficient accuracy, and therefore had to be inferred from other metrics, mainly OHC... which would make Meehl 2011 something of a circular argument, if you see what I mean. I'll read the Trenberth et al paper and see if things become clearer :-) -
Norman at 22:07 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @ 143, The data I have seen would indicate that there are extreme weather events every year somewhere on the globe. I have been called wrong or incorrect (although what I am doing is looking on the web for extreme weather events in the past...not sure how this proves I am wrong). When I make some declarations it is with a "maybe" or "possibly". I am not making a statement "it is". The question is are they increasing trend wise. Even if 2010 was an overall extreme doe that mean that the trend for extreme weather is increasing? Did 2009 have more extreme weather events (in number, duration, or intensity) than 2008 and 2008 more than 2007 etc...that would be a trend in increasing extreme weather. One or two years will not make a trend. If 2012 is calm then what of the thesis? -
JosHagelaars at 22:02 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
@Peter Hogarth "..problem is it's man-hour and computationally intensive to work through this.." Maybe you could use volunteer computing to help you with that. Ref: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/. -
Norman at 22:02 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @ 143 "To question the experts, without the intent of disproving them? And yet you don't seem to search for understanding the expert opinions; instead, as here, you imply that Jeff Masters is wrong because Bastardi and Watts don't say the same thing." I am not implying he is wrong, I was just making the distinction between an expert opinion and a scientific study. Here is what you posted by Jeff Masters "the wild roller-coaster ride of incredible weather events during 2010, in my mind, makes that year the planet's most extraordinary year for extreme weather since reliable global upper-air data began in the late 1940s. Never in my 30 years as a meteorologist have I witnessed a year like 2010--the astonishing number of weather disasters and unprecedented wild swings in Earth's atmospheric circulation were like nothing I've seen." He states this without graphs or trend analysis so it is his opinion (expert) and the two other Bastardi and Watts do see the same data (which I do not see on a daily basis and could not offer an opion at all on the matter) but do not form his opinon. I was not saying he is wrong I was just wondering why the others do not see this if it is this obvious. Also I am researching to understand Masters opinion on the matter by looking into historical extremes of the past to see if he is correct with his opinion. -
pauls at 22:02 PM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Chris G - The basis of the statement was uncovered in the comments of the 'Pielke Sr. Agrees' post. His calculation is unrelated to feedbacks. RealClimate put up an article about it at the time: 'Recently, Roger Pielke Sr. came up with a (rather improbably precise) value of 26.5% for the CO2 contribution. This was predicated on the enhanced methane forcing mentioned above (though he didn’t remove the ozone effect, which was inconsistent), an unjustified downgrading of the CO2 forcing (from 1.4 to 1.1 W/m2), the addition of an estimated albedo change from remote sensing (but there is no way to assess whether that was either already included (due to aerosol effects), or is a feedback rather than a forcing). A more appropriate re-calculation would give numbers more like those discussed above (i.e. around 30 to 40%).' -
damorbel at 21:54 PM on 2 October 2011The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
Re your Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] to #283 "I pointed out that the distinction was (i) irrelevant to the discussion of whether heat flow is bidirectional or not (which depends only on their temperature) " You appear to want me to accept that heat flow can be "bidirectional" in some way. As far as physics is concerned I think this is where we disagree. Heating (or cooling) results in an increase (decrease) in temperature difference between two locations, a given location can only have one temperature so it is quite impossible for one location to have, simultaneously, a rising and a falling temperature.If the energy entering this location is balanced by the energy leaving it, as for example in the atmosphere, the temperature of the atmosphere will not change due to changes in GHG concentration, since GHGs both absorb and emits radiation at a given temperature, nothing will be changed if the amount of CO2 is increased (or decreased). Put another way, if there was no CO2 at all the radiation from the surface would replace that from the atmospheric gases, there would no radiative temperature change. Of course the surface is warmer than the upper atmosphere but that is due to gravitation, not radiation. Further you wrote:- (ii) it is irrelevant to the greenhouse effect because as far as the atmosphere is concerned it is heated from below by IR radiated from the surface, not from the Sun above" Have we not already agreed that the Earth doesn't have a significant heat source inside it? I agree that, if the Earth had a heat source inside it, big enough for, let us say 240W/m^2, then its would be closely related to the concentration of GHGs (and the emissivity of the surface). Further, as things stand, the Earth's average temperature would be what it is now, except it would be uniform (no frozen poles!) In my physics this planet, with its internal 240W/m^2, has a temperature that is very dependent on it emissivity. To explain, if it was a metal planet its surface temperature would be very high, highest of all if it was gold plated (gold has the lowest emissivity of all common metals). However if this (gold plated?) planet would have a GHG atmosphere its temperature would be lowered, the amount it was lowered would depend very much on the mass of the GHGs. But do not be surprised that such a planet (with no star nearby) would have a uniform surface temperature.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Your misunderstanding is right at the most basic level, so it would be a good idea to reach an understanding of heat flow before trying to apply it to the Earth. Do you agree that any body at a temperature above zero degrees Kelvin will radiate photons of energy? Please confine yourself to a direct answer to the question, rather than digress (which will prevent the discussion from making any progress). Damorbel please demonstrate that you are not just trolling and are willing to address the science by giving a direct answer to the above question, without digression. Your disruptive behaviour on these threads has led to the point where you need to demonstrate that you are able to learn and are not here simply to disrupt the discussion. Please can everyone else refrain from responding to damorbel until I have gone through the basics with him step by step. -
Norman at 21:51 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @ 143 With keeping with the OP: "'Why are scientists predicting that global warming will cause intensifying and/or increasing extreme weather events?'" That is the question posed in the article above. I would not disagree that the drought in Texas or Lousiania is extreme (well outside the normal). Nor severe tornadoes in 2011. Nor even that 2010 and 2011 had extreme weather events occur. Yes they did have extreme weather events. But I still stand by the fact that your graph of Texas and the tornado graph above both show that the trend in extreme weather is decreasing and that is the topic. The topic was not if 2011 had extreme weather events or not but if the trend for extreme weather events is increasing. -
barry1487 at 21:36 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
The link to SKS post 'Ocean Heat Content And The Importance Of The Deep Ocean' in the article brings up a 404 error when I click it. I have been curious about our lack of knowledge re vertical mixing. Would this not have a bearing on the response time of the oceans to atmospheric warming? Why are we so confident that the oceanic lag to equilibrium sensitivity is 30 - 40 years? Do we somehow have a grasp on mixing rates despite knowing little about the actual mechanics? Having learned that the global average temperature at the surface of the oceans is warmer than the average temperature of the near-surface atmosphere, and knowing about the thermocline, it is a puzzle as to how the atmosphere warms the oceans and not the other way around, or what it means that a warming atmosphere is till cooler than the surface of the oceans. My guess is that the averaged temperature difference is sort of a constant, and that if one strata warms or cools, then so does the other, with waves, wind and currents, and response to diurnal and seasonal changes mixing things up at the boundary. But I've found no explanation for this line of enquiry on my travels. Scant knowledge on the actual mechanisms drawing heat energy into the deeps makes it a tough nut to crack for this layman. I've found plenty of material on horizontal heat transport across the oceans, but little on the physical details of vertical mixing. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. -
Peter Hogarth at 20:10 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Rob, really interesting article, the vertical mixing is the factor we don't understand well, at the moment NOAA has years worth of full water column sonar data, which can help allow us to visualise the deep sea currents and layers, problem is it's man-hour and computationally intensive to work through this, effectively 3-D high resolution data. Daniel Bailey at 13:12 PM on 2 October, 2011 Beautiful. Thanks for pointing us to this. -
Dave123 at 20:07 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Rob@11- I understand that the OHC hiatus isn't a model. It's the cause I'm interested in. Look, "we" assert that modeling is useful because it is based on physics (and chemistry) and not statistics. Models I built never had to detail fluid mechanics as part of the mass transfer- we had uniform turbulent flow at all scaleings. Ocean flows are largely laminar- low Reynolds number except at coast-lines where waves are turbulent. From a naive point of view a layered ocean might stay that way, the surface becoming hotter, increasingly less dense and therefor more stable on top of a denser colder base. No mixing invited. You can see that I think in certain really saline ponds with fresh water overlays. But less dense doesn't quite work that way- as the surface becomes less dense, that relieves pressure on lower layers and they can well up. Thus a top bottom current loop can be established. Do I undertand correctly that the millenial exchange between deep ocean and surface water is based on that mechanism? Now are we talking about accelerating the global currents? Regional acceleration? New currents developing? Or is there another mechanism that I'm unaware of? Do Hurricanes cause turnover? Dan@7- thanks for sharing that! Some of the circulation patterns reminded me of Jupiter. Rob@11- Re TOA- when this question came up I thought that TOA energy balance was a direct satellite measurement. So I went looking for verification and couldn't validate that notion. It seems that the TOA number is an argument between satellite data and other measurements. I probably missed something. There are some annoying consequences to this... but I'll hope you'll show me the error of my background studies before I bring them up. -
Rob Painting at 18:46 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Dave123 @ 5 - see the hiatus decades in the observational record of OHC highlighted in figure 1 - that's not a model output. I have another post on Meehl (2011), detailing the mechanisms at work in the model runs. Looking at the ocean in horizontal layers, misses the important changes taking place in the vertical plane. It'll be clearer in the post - there's a few graphics from the study detailing this. Utahn @ 8 - there are a number of references throughout the post pointing out it is a model-based study. Good point about linking to related SkS posts - forgot to do that. -
Rob Painting at 18:32 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Muoncounter @ 3 - the issue is: why is there short-term natural variability? Take it as given the authors of this study understand there is a long-term warming trend. Choose different start/end points for the decades (in your graph), and see what happens. The late 1950's to late 1960's appears to be a hiatus decade for instance. Is that clearer? Icarus @ 4 - Meehl (2011) refers to Hansen (2005) and Trenberth, Fasullo & Kiehl (2009). As for the top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance, there are upcoming posts on this issue - it's not cut and dried. I think it boils down to this: was the slowdown due to natural variability alone?, or did other factors (aerosols) play a role too? "Is it reasonable to take the increasing global sea level over the last decade as confirmation that there has been no slowdown in increasing total energy content? That's a very good question, but again, it's not so simple. If, for example, ice melt from ice caps and glaciers accelerate (it has), then that can become the dominant contributor to sea level rise, and mask the slowdown in OHC. And yes, I have an upcoming post on closing the sea level budget too. You might want to take a look at Ari Jokimaki's SkS post: Deep ocean warming solves the sea level puzzle -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:08 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Craig Allen @6 I suspect that the ocean circulation component of the climate models is one of the hard aspects. Modelling fluid flows in the short term to determine energy transports while also getting longer term fluctuations in the flows - volumes but far more importantly, 3D distribution is always going to be hard. You might get the short term stuff right but not pick up the longer term oscillations as well. Or vice versa. So modelling climate variabilty which is the oceans dog wagging the surface temp tail is always going to be hard. Thats why reading too much into surface trends without looking at the total system changes is a bit pointless. -
Utahn at 14:20 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Great summary, some of the text is a bit confusing (as is the title), in that it makes it look like they did measurements, rather than model runs. I do believe this is very likely occurring, but it could be more clear that this is a modeled result. It might also be nice to have a post or addendum on other pieces of evidence of deep ocean heating (actual measurements, sea level, etc...)...or link to another sksci article... -
Chris G at 13:34 PM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Old Mole, That is the rub, you can claim that the increase in CO2 is only a quarter of the forcing, and you might be technically correct (or at least in the right ballpark for driving forcing), but your estimate would suffer an error of omission by not acknowledging the feedback forcings that come with any increase in energy content (temperature). It is almost like an accounting game where you show that CO2 has less effect by comparing it to the total effect which includes water vapor, but you don't give CO2 credit for causing the increase in water vapor. I suspect Pielke is avoiding the feedbacks that CO2 is responsible for because he cites work that he published in 2008 that did not find an increase over North America and makes no mention, nor sites the work that Trenberth did earlier, in 2005, which did. Both authors acknowledge that the data is (was?) problematic, but if you post a quote that says, "‘there are no sufficient data sets on hand with a long enough period of record from any source to make a conclusive scientific statement about global water vapor trends’." (attributed to Vonder Haar), why turn around and cite anything at all, unless you really want to believe that there is little water vapor feedback. Meanwhile, there is no reason to believe that warmer air and water does not lead to more water vapor in the air. Kind of speculating here on Pielke's rationale; anyone have more solid information? -
Daniel Bailey at 13:12 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Some nice visuals on ocean currents from JPL: [Source] -
muoncounter at 12:33 PM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman#141/142: "My efforts on SkS are not to disprove ... maybe too many just accept an expert opinion without doing active research on their own to question it." To question the experts, without the intent of disproving them? And yet you don't seem to search for understanding the expert opinions; instead, as here, you imply that Jeff Masters is wrong because Bastardi and Watts don't say the same thing. "Texas precipitation graph in post 126 does show some improvement." The entire point of the 3 graphs in that comment was to show that this year is extreme - something you have disputed repeatedly in spite of the obvious evidence. Even Louisiana, with all the flooding due to spring runoff from the midwest, is 30% below its long term mean. That point alone is the very definition of the extreme conditions described in this post. Oh, your tornado graph misses the 80 EF3-5 tornadoes through just mid September of this year. That will make 2011 the 2nd highest (after 1974). Pretty extreme year, no? -
Craig Allen at 12:07 PM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
This raises a question I've long wondered about - how well do climate models simulate ocean circulation? -
Dave123 at 10:22 AM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Did I post this- or did it get deleted? - I would find this more compelling if there was data, not just model output - Do the models invoke some mechanism for the heat transfer into the deep ocean? Do you know which one(s) is activated and does it provide any guidance toward a quick study to validate mechanism and predicted temperatures? -
Daniel Bailey at 10:21 AM on 2 October 2011Back from the Dead: Lost Open Mind Posts
Added the following 9 posts from January 2007: Jan 9, 2007 Ice Ages Jan 11, 2007 The Latest from GISS Jan 12, 2007 Red White & Blue (noise, that is) Jan 15, 2007 Calling All Science Teachers Jan 16, 2007 On the Edge Jan 17, 2007 This Blog is Different Jan 18, 2007 Ocean Heat Content Jan 18, 2007 Time to get interesting … or boring, depending on your perspective Jan 20, 2007 Leafy CO2 -
Old Mole at 10:14 AM on 2 October 2011Understanding climate denial
John Hartz @127 As our Commonwealth colleagues will be happy to remind you, we in the US tend to be a little slow on the uptake in terms of genuine threats to Western civilization: two instances last century come immediately to mind. AGW denial is only our old bad habit of isolationism wearing another mask. -
logicman at 10:14 AM on 2 October 2011Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
Jonathon@15 "...Discussing only the negatives, without acknowledging the positives is akin to a corporation reporting revenues only, and omitting costs." Which they do when the costs are completely external. When gas was made from coal, the gasworks polluted the ground beneath to a significant depth. The cost of cleaning up the toxins does not appear in the historic financial records. There are many ways of damaging the environment which are not illegal, which means that many external environmental costs are not accounted for in company ledgers. -
Norman at 10:01 AM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @ 138 "Has anyone seen a credible paper saying that conditions are getting milder?" Maybe not a paper but you Texas precipitation graph in post 126 does show some improvement. Before 2011 there is a clear signal of less drought conditions after 1960. You can see many more severe dry years before 1960 than after so that would be one example to attach to a paper on the subject is someone where to write one. Extreme tornado count is down which would be good news for homeowner's.
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Norman at 09:50 AM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
DB @ 134 "By all means, acquire those methodologies, do the work and disprove what the current experts in the field are saying. You will be welcome to submit the work here as a guest post if it meets publication standards." I think regardless of work I would do on the topic it will not be accepted in journals. Here is why. My credentials. I have a BA in Chemistry. Long ago I did take one year in Meterology (I did receive an A). There are many people with degrees in Meterology or Climatology that want to get their research published. I cannot forsee any publication opening up their limited space to anyone with a science degree while they have so many applications from those with credentials in the field of study. Therefore I would conclude I would never be able to post such an research project. But I do thank you for the offer. The nature of my posts may seem to lack a consistent overall methodology. Mostly because I am responding to specific points brought up in someone's post. At times it does lead to divergence from the OP. My efforts on SkS are not to disprove the expert opinions or findings. (some may feel that is my goal). I am of the opinion that maybe too many just accept an expert opinion without doing active research on their own to question it. I am just working to keep the thought process active, think for yourself, question everything. Maybe it does not come across in that fashion. -
Norman at 09:41 AM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Eric (skeptic) @ 136 Thanks for the link to heat related deaths. That was counter intuitive. -
Icarus at 08:51 AM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Thanks Rob, very interesting article.Despite being the warmest decade on record, the last decade has seen a slowdown in the rate of global warming in some temperature datasets.
Meehl et al 2011 provides references to support the statement that "the observed energy imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere for this recent decade indicates... a net energy flux into the climate system of about 1 W /m²" - unfortunately I can't see what those references are, on the Nature site. Does anyone know? Obviously we don't have a way of reliably measuring the energy content of the entire climate system but if we can reliably measure a TOA energy imbalance then we know for sure that the energy content is increasing. Is it reasonable to take the increasing global sea level over the last decade as confirmation that there has been no slowdown in increasing total energy content? -
Can regional sea level, gravity or any other satellite data tell us anything about temperature changes in the deep ocean, if we haven't got adequate ways of measuring it in situ?
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Old Mole at 08:31 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
My problem with Dr.Pielke's analysis is that it undercuts the "moral hazard" arguments discussed on other threads. If CO2 is only responsible for about a quarter of climate change, and land use is the determining factor for regional effects, the industrialized world has far less responsibility for catastrophes in tropical regions, since by his logic, they will be their own fault. Tropical rain forests are the lungs of the planet, and essential for everyone on it ... but they have no economic value unless logged or cleared for agricultural use. This is probably the most extreme market failure in the history of capitalism. -
Chris G at 07:26 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
I am coming around to the conclusion that the disagreement is mostly related to Dr. Pielke's not acknowledging the positive forcing feedbacks, dominated by water vapor, but I suspect methane should be included (thawing permafrost and clathrates), that are a direct result of the initial driving force of the increase in CO2. Looking around for statements made by him on the subject of water vapor, his seems to be an argument of uncertainty. -
Chris G at 07:01 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
So, if someone disagrees with the definition with the definition of "forcing" as I am using it, I'd be happier if you would just say so. We are all capable of rational disagreements here. I don't think it matters a great deal though, just different words applied to the same physical processes. In any event, I was thinking about the math some more. If you use the definition, "Climate forcing An energy imbalance imposed on the climate system either externally or by human activities." you would therefore include an increase in water vapor as contributing to the radiative imbalance. Then, if you use a 1.2 K estimate of no-feedback warming that could be attributed to a doubling of CO2, and you combine that with Dr. Pielke's estimate that the positive radiative forcing of CO2 is only 26% of the total forcing, then you end up with something like a warming sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 in the 4.5 K ballpark (1.2/0.26 ~= 4.5), minus negative forcings. Obviously a back-of-the-napkin estimate, and I have slightly abused the 26% number because it was provided in the context of forcing so far rather than forcing for 2x, but that is pretty close to a mainstream estimate. It may be that Dr. Pielke, Sr. has not arrived at estimates that differ by much from the mainstream, but the way he frames his statements makes it seem that way. -
muoncounter at 06:21 AM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
These decadal studies leave me unimpressed. Bill Chameides at Duke has a very similar posting, in which he shows this graph:Looking from the change between decadal averages since the 70s, it sure looks like the same 0.16C per decade. That is consistent with tamino's how fast is earth warming? trend. Where's the stall?
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Rob Painting at 06:12 AM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
Yes John, but the Antarctic Oscillation Index is strongly negative - so down here in New Zealand, we're copping a lot of cold & unsettled weather. It sucks! -
caerbannog at 05:47 AM on 2 October 2011Understanding climate denial
Michael Mann certainly understands climate denial, and he has learned how to give deniers all the respect that they deserve. Here's an example of how Dr. Mann is now dealing with deniers. Mann just responded to a denier hit-piece that was published on-line, and boy did he take the gloves off! You can read his piece here. I'd like to encourage folks here to follow the link to Mann's piece and click on the "recommend" button at the top of the page. Also, tweet it, facebook it, do whatever you can to spread Mann's words far and wide. -
John Russell at 04:50 AM on 2 October 2011The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
"...the last decade has seen a slowdown in the rate of global warming..." Of course it has very little significance in scientific terms but, fwiw, today was the hottest October day ever recorded in the UK -- 29.9C. Very pleasant it was too. -
muoncounter at 04:33 AM on 2 October 2011Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
It's a double whammy, per Kurz et al 2008, as: the resulting widespread tree mortality reduces forest carbon uptake and increases future emissions from the decay of killed trees. This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source both during and immediately after the outbreak. In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to ~75% of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959–1999. ... Climate change has contributed to the unprecedented extent and severity of this outbreak. For a 2006 MODIS image, see earthobservatory. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 03:44 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
How might RP Sr have arrived at 26% radiative forcing for CO2? see # 15. It has gone into "common knowledge". Thus the linked paper by Schmidt et al. is needed. -
Eric (skeptic) at 03:39 AM on 2 October 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Muoncounter, my best guess is intensity will be up, but frequency is still an open question. In any case, named storms far from land barely reaching a 35kt threshold are not a very relevant example of extreme weather. Your explanation (a) could be valid when there is a low frequency of incidence making it difficult to pick out a trend (as is the case with intense TCs). With some forms of extreme weather your explanation (b) might be valid (e.g. floods which are localized and recurrent versus intense TCs which affect a much larger and newer area). Explanation (c) seems invalid to me since a more intense TC is almost always bad at landfall. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 03:38 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
What we all understand is that the increase in water vapor in response to the temperature increase caused by CO2 is a climate feedback. Trust Gavin: radiative forcing is a separate and important concept. Abstract of Schimdt et al. linked above:The relative contributions of atmospheric long-wave absorbers to the present-day global greenhouse effect are among the most misquoted statistics in public discussions of climate change. Much of the interest in these values is however due to an implicit assumption that these contributions are directly relevant for the question of climate sensitivity. Motivated by the need for a clear reference for this issue, we review the existing literature and use the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE radiation module to provide an overview of the role of each absorber at the present-day and under doubled CO2. With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapor is the dominant contributor (~50% of the effect), followed by clouds (~25%) and then CO2 with ~20%. All other absorbers play only minor roles. In a doubled CO2 scenario, this allocation is essentially unchanged, even though the magnitude of the total greenhouse effect is significantly larger than the initial radiative forcing, underscoring the importance of feedbacks from water vapor and clouds to climate sensitivity.
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Albatross at 03:29 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Pete @19, Dr. Pielke was asked a very specific question "what fraction of the observed global warming is due to CO2 and other anthropogenic effects". In that context his answer makes no sense at all. Perhaps he misunderstood the question, but us arguing in circles is not going to shed much light on this. Dr. Pielke really now has two things to answer/explain 1) The original question and 2) explain how he arrived at 26% for radiative forcing for CO2. His numbers do not gel with the body of science on this issue. I hope that people do not get too focussed on this radiative forcing issue (at least not until we have more information from his side), because some of the other issues where Dr. Pielke is at odds with the body of knowledge are equally as critical. -
John Hartz at 03:29 AM on 2 October 2011Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
“As the climate has warmed, various beetle species have marauded across the landscape, from Arizona to Alaska. The situation is worst in British Columbia, which has lost millions of trees across an area the size of Wisconsin. “The species Dr. Six was pointing out, the mountain pine beetle, has pushed farther north into Canada than ever recorded. The beetles have jumped the Rocky Mountains into Alberta, and fears are rising that they could spread across the continent as temperatures rise in coming decades. Standing on a mountain plateau south of Missoula, Dr. Six and Dr. Running pointed to the devastation the beetles had wrought in the forest around them, consisting of a high-elevation species called whitebark pine.” Source: “With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Key Climate Protectors,” New York Times, Oct 1, 2011 To access this in-depth article, click here -
Pete Dunkelberg at 03:17 AM on 2 October 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Dana,I know water vapor is not a climate forcing. So does Gavin Schmidt. That said, is not the disagreement between you and Dr Pielke Sr. based on talking about different things?
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