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Comments 78851 to 78900:

78851. Norman at 12:28 PM on 22 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Tom Curtis, Here is some evidence for you to consider. Revisit a link I sent earlier if you choose. It is about cooling of air in Fairbanks Alaska. Look at figure 2 of article. If you care to look at figure 2 you can see the ground temp drops about 38 C but the air at 4500 meters only drops around 10 C. Air is a really good insulator so the cold air from polar fronts and winter will still remain aloft only slowly warming by non convective processes. Convective events will turn the air at a much faster rate bringing the cold air down to the surface and moving the warmer ground air aloft (spring stroms).
78852. Norman at 12:16 PM on 22 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Tom Curtis # 362 If you have a long record of temperature and precipitation (maybe 100 years) what would geographical or seasonal variables matter? A long series of averages smooths the infomation and takes into account the variables you have listed (like ENSO,AMO,PDO etc). In any given year maybe Kansas City had a May with 2" rainfall and a July with 12" rainfall. But over a hundred years the trend is that May has more rain than July and then you start to look for a reason for this. What is the why? I do not need to gain daily station data or global data...my question is not of a global nature. The question is, is there evidence in the empirical data (100 year or more monthly avearges) that warmer wetter surface air will lead to more severe storms? I am questioning this point. What is more valuable then determining a correlation to temperature, humidity and rainfall from subgroups of data would be to find the mechanism that results in severe weather. You are correct that relatively warm moist air is a necessary ingredient. You need this fuel to power your storms. But you also need unstable air. You can have very moist warm air but if the air above is stable you will not create any storms. Case of point. Omaha Nebraska for the last week. A high pressure dominated the area and not a cloud in the sky. The air was very stable above. The surface air was hot and moist and after cold air moved in Omaha had some nice showers. Now the next question is what makes air unstable. I have posted many links on this mechanism. Unstable air is a situation where you have cooler denser air above warm moist air and an inversion or cap that prevents the warm air from rising into the cold air. Some trigger has to move the warm moist air into the cooler air aloft. (it is like a container of oxygen and hydrogen gas, it is an unstable mixture but can remain in that state indefinately until a trigger occurs such as a spark). You need the cold air aloft or you do not have unstable air. You can get weakly unstable air because of the differential heating between the earth's surface and air above. The property of air as an insulator is why the whole thing works. As spring stroms occur they send latent heat aloft warming that layer and mixing the unstable air making it more stable. The tendency is to make unstable air more stable. So as July and August roll around, the surface air is loaded with energy (heat and moisture) but the air aloft is much more stable and this warmer air will not generate the level of intense storms.
78853. Tom Curtis at 12:10 PM on 22 July 2011
       What we know and what we don't know
       cefarrar @43, in long chain polymers such as petrol, diesel oil, and jet fuel, approximately one molecule of water is produced for every molecule of CO2 in combustion. For natural gas (Methane), two molecules of water are produced for every molecule of CO2. Coal produces effectively no water. Given that the water vapour content of the atmosphere is greater than that of CO2, and the CO2 content has increased by only 0.1% of total atmospheric content, the amount of water vapour added is much less than that. It would have precipitated out and become fairly literally, just a drop in the ocean.
78854. cefarrar at 11:55 AM on 22 July 2011
       What we know and what we don't know
       Does the amount of water produced by the burning of fossil fuels significantly add to the worlds water supply?
78855. muoncounter at 11:45 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's cosmic rays
       pixeldust#49: "it means scientists are being "censored" and "gagged"" Wow, things must be really slow in deniersville. Since when is the very reasonable request made by Heuer, asking a colleague to be 'clear,' rise to the level of 'censorship'? Why not focus on science questions that arise from these supposed 'results'? For example, the PhysicsWorld article dropped what I consider a rather shocking bit: ... the researchers found that this effect also took place when they used a radioactive sodium source, which produces gamma rays, and as such claim that similar measurements in the future will not require expensive accelerators. -- emphasis added Great news! No accelerator needed. But what does it really mean if the 580 MeV (see PhysicsWorld cited above) accelerated electrons that CLOUD used to simulate GCRs and gamma rays from radioactive sodium produce the same effect? It's supposed to require the higher energy of a GCR (100s of MeV to GeVs) to seed clouds. But Na22 produces 0.5 and 1.27 MeV gamma rays; Na24 (formed by neutron bombardment of stable Na23) produces 1.37 and 2.75 MeV gamma rays. What isotope did they use and what energy gammas resulted? If they used low energy gammas from these sodium isotopes, it means that all cosmic radiation, not just the higher energy GCR component should be making clouds! Solar cosmic rays (mostly protons in the solar wind), which give rise to the ubiquitous muon flux we see at the surface should also produce the same effect. Or it means that the whole concept is total bunk. Bet deniers wouldn't like to hear that. Once again, my apologies to Sondheim: But where are the clouds? Send in the clouds. Well, maybe next year.
78856. Christina McGraw at 09:52 AM on 22 July 2011
       OA not OK part 8: 170 to 1
       None of the equations by themselves tell us anything. Our point is that we need to consider all these equations together. In several of the later posts we show how we can use the K and Q values that we have introduced here to know the extent to which each equation occurs and how to work out what the overall outcome is. Read what we say again:

       K for [equation 12] is about 10^-3. That is, the ratio of left to right is about 1,000:1. This means that, to a first approximation, seawater (dominated by HCO₃^-), has only a little bit of CO₂ and CO₃^2-. More importantly, it also shows that if we add CO₂ to seawater, CO₂ will spontaneously react with CO₃^2- to form 2 HCO₃^- because K for the reverse reaction is 10³.

       That is if you reverse the reaction then it still favours, with a 1000:1 ratio the side with HCO₃^- over the side with CO₂. We are unclear how you draw your conclusion about figure 3.
78857. Tom Curtis at 09:50 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Eric the Red @97, Sphaerica's clarification of his claim should be clear enough, so this is probably redundant, but... You need to distinguish between the popular definition of climate provided by Mark Twain, ie, that climate is what you expect, and weather is what you get; and the formal definition as used by the IPCC:

       "Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. In various chapters in this report different averaging periods, such as a period of 20 years, are also used."

       Fairly clearly, individual ENSO oscillations do not result in statistically significant changes to the thirty year averages of temperature, precipitation, etc, and hence do not change climate in terms of the formal definition. That is what Sphaerica was claiming. Equally obviously, and for those with the relevant knowledge, an ENSO oscillation does change what we expect to get, and so does change climate for that first, popular definition. However, that change is only due to the advance of our knowledge, and it is dubious to what extent that knowledge has penetrated to the general public. That is why it is just a popular definition, it needs to be indexed to a particular time and population to deliver unambiguous results. Finally, something which changes the frequency of El Ninos to La Ninas, or changes the neutral state to more resemble an El Nino or La Nina state over a multidecadal period would result in a change in climate under the technical definition. On that basis I disagree with Sphaerica's comment about the PDO not effecting climate "without some dramatically magical mechanism", although that sentence is entirely accurate if you substitute "physical" for "magical".
78858. Bob Lacatena at 09:18 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       97, Eric the Red, You need to distinguish between a few very different things: 1) The measured mean global temperature of the ocean surface and the atmosphere (this is not the temperature of the system, but merely what is easy to measure and observe). 2) The amount of energy in the entire "earth" system (which, by proxy, can also represent the total temperature of the entire system) 3) Short term fluctuations in the first item (which represent weather, or, at a stretch, short lived and almost certainly regional climate changes) 4) Long term fluctuations in the actual climate of the earth (meaning changes that represent an actual new equilibrium state) Obviously the difference between 3 and 4 involves some degree of subjectivity, just like the difference between warm and hot is not a precise boundary. But with those four points in mind... ENSO changes number 1, but not number 2, and so is of little interest in anything other than year to year variations. As a result, ENSO also changes only number 3, but not number 4, and so is of no interest in climate changes. PDO is the same. You need to understand the differences here to understand where you are going wrong in focusing any energy at all on something like the PDO. The only things that are actually going to affect the amount of energy in the system are things that cause heat to leave the planet. There are only two ways to get heat off the planet. The first is to heat something up (say, a vat of molten lead) and shoot it into space on a rocket. Obviously, this doesn't happen very often. The second is through radiation. Some mechanism must use radiation to direct energy out of the system and into space. PDO doesn't do that. ENSO doesn't do that (except, as already explained, through slightly increased/decreased radiation, but in the opposite direction of the observed temperature increases). The only things that do affect radiation are albedo (clouds, ice, aerosols) which reflect radiation out before it even heats the planet, or greenhouse gases (which trap radiation in the system) or changes in solar insolation (which increase or decrease the input into the system). PDO can never, ever change climate, and nor can any other fantastical oscillation.
78859. Doug Mackie at 08:50 AM on 22 July 2011
       OA not OK part 6: Always take the weathering
       Supply of calcium is not an issue. [Ca²⁺] is well known and changes negligibly with depth and is roughly 0.010 mol kg^-1. K'_s varies with both temperature and salinity but for example at 35S and 0^oC K'_s for calcite is about 4.3 x10^-7 and for aragonite is about 6.8 x10^-7. Clearly carbonate dominates the solubility of CaCO₃ in the ocean.
78860. Philippe Chantreau at 08:37 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Spaerica's comment may not have been worded in the best fashion but it is correct. Whatever "cycles" are out there (ENSO, while being an oscillation, does not show clear cyclical bheavior) can only shuffle energy around, they can not create an energy imbalance. ENSO is part of the climate, not a driver of it. It drives weather patterns and affects temperatures on a year to year basis but it is not a forcing.
78861. Eric the Red at 08:04 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Actually Sphaerica, The El Nino / La Nina cycle does change temperatures by the exact process you describe. When the trade winds are strong, the ocean tropical ocean turnover is greater, exposing more water to evaporation. When the trade winds are weak, the ocean calms, allowing more heat to remain in the ocean. Hence the changing ocean temperature. It has nothing to do with appearance, it is real. ENSO does affect climate, everywhere on this planet. Witness the last few strong El Ninos and La Ninas. You can deny it if you wish, but that will not make it go away. I actually respected your scientific knowledge until your last line. Now it appears you are only interested in your own agenda, and are trying to shout done those who oppose you. So sad.
       Response:

       [DB] It has become transparently clear as to which parties use scientific, peer-reviewed sources based on physics to support their positions versus the hand-waving of those dissemblers who continue to publish their narrative of "It's not Happening/It's Beyond our Understanding/We Must Wait for more Information" without actual understandings or explanations given as to why what we know about the climate system don't actually work the way we observe them to. 

       That, as my child says, is a "tapestry".

78862. Bob Lacatena at 06:22 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       95, Eric the Red, No, you misunderstand. We don't entirely care what drives ENSO (we do, but it's not relevant here) as far as what causes it to happen and to change cycles. What we do care to understand is how the changes in circulation during an El Niño/La Niña event of the ocean expose more or less warm/cold water on the surface, thus raising/cooling global temperatures. We further know that this doesn't actually change the temperature of the planet (except in so far as the planet radiates less heat away during a La Niña and more heat away during an El Niño, so while the planet appears cooler it is losing less heat, and while it appears warmer is is losing more heat). But while ENSO does affect temperature observations, it does not actually affect climate. It can't, and neither can PDO with out some dramatically magical (and understandable and measurable) mechanism. What you are failing to do is to explain how PDO works in any way, let alone how it can possibly (over longer time scales) warm or cool the planet. The bottom line is that only factors which noticeably cause a radiation imbalance (albedo, GHGs, aerosols, clouds) can actually warm or cool the planet. Magical, ill-defined "but what if" oscillations are not science, they're voodoo-magic-superstition.
78863. Bob Lacatena at 06:11 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's cosmic rays
       49, pixelDust, The interview is awfully thin, and only touches on CLOUD for one very brief question. Refer to this post on RealClimate about some other recent, similar research. Basically, in order to build the GCR theory into something remotely respectable, they have to first create all of the building blocks that are similar to an understanding of greenhouse gas theory. In the case of GCR's, they need a precise mechanism, with all of the intermediate steps needed, to show how GCR's actually, mechanically affect cloud formation. Now, his one comment about not interpreting the results probably (I expect) speaks to the fact that the CERN research can only show some very small pieces of the puzzle. They need lots and lots of pieces to compile it into a workable, fully functioning GCR theory. So to over interpret any one step, in either direction, would be foolish. Some of the proposed experiments (to show their level and nature... I took this from some rather old documents on the CLOUD website):
       • We will investigate the clustering of trace gas molecules onto ions. The trace gas molecules will either be formed by the ionising particle beam in pure artificial air or be introduced directly into the chamber.
       • Aerosols of a well defined size and with typical atmospheric composition (NaCl, (NH4)2SO4, H2SO4) can be produced with standard aerosol generation techniques (Section 4.4.3). Experiments will be performed to examine the activation of these aerosols into cloud droplets.
       • These experiments will first quantify the poorly-known production rates of a) nitric oxide (NO) and b) hydroxyl radicals (OH) by cosmic radiation. The former will involve pure artificial air and the latter will involve argon and water vapour. Subsequently we will investigate the effects of these vapours on the nucleation and growth of aerosols.
       • These studies concern the formation of ice nuclei in supercooled vapours at low temperatures. The expansion chamber will be used to create a supercooled cloud by expansion and growth of drops at temperatures below 260 K. ... In addition to experiments with supercooled liquid droplets already present(freezing nucleation),we will also investigate ice nucleation without pre-existing droplets(deposition nucleation).
       • These experiments concern the deposition nucleation of nitric acid and water vapours onto ion clusters to form nitric acid hydrates. Particles composed of such hydrates are thought to be the principal component of the polar stratospheric clouds that initiate the destruction of ozone.
       So, in a nutshell, nothing earth shattering in any direction can come from current CLOUD experiments. They are necessary first baby steps to creating a plausibly complete GCR theory (which in and of itself shows how sicence-fictiony the theory is at its current stage). Which means, in a nutshell, that the deniers are getting their undies all in a bunch over nothing, just because they love to cry wolf conspiracy.
78864. newcrusader at 04:54 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       Precession can over thousands of years totally change the night sky. For instance in the year 5,000bce, alpha centauri(aka Rigel Kentaurus) was visible from NYC(40N) at that time Thuban was the Pole star in Draco. That star will be visible in NYC again around the year 10,000, at this time Deneb will be the 'pole star' in Cygnus. The March Equinox shifts through all the zodiacal constellations- now in Pisces- it will shift into Aquarius in about 600 years. In the year 3,000 Gamma Cephei will be the pole star.
78865. Karamanski at 03:51 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       I've been reading about Milankovitch cycles for over a year, and I understand that the Earth's eccentricity oscillates on a 100,000 year cycle, but I still cannot grasp what the 400,000 year eccentricity cycle is and how it affects climate. What is the difference between the 100,000 year eccentricity cycle and the 400,000 year eccentricity cycle?
78866. Paul Magnus at 03:31 AM on 22 July 2011
       Climate Change Denial book now available!
       " Climate change can be solved they say but only when we cease denying its existence." Of course its more than its existence, but also its immensity and dangers and also recognizing the resource, effort and uncomfortable changes to our way of life. Tackling climate change is a life style and mind set change. Its also a moral issue.
78867. Eric the Red at 03:26 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       Very nice summary Chris. Adding to your answer to Dan's question, the changes in solar radiation occur between perihelion and aphelion, so that ~6.4% more solar insolation reaches Earth in January compared to July. When averaged over the course of the year, the change in solar insolation between high and low eccentricity is small. Currently, the highest solar insolation reaches the Earth during the NH winter. In about 11,500, that will occur during the SH winter. While the amount of radiation reaching the Earth will not change, the amount absorbed will, due to the different albedo of the NH and SH. Many have speculation that this is the cause for the changes in temperature that occur between interglacials.
78868. Eric the Red at 02:39 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Sky, We know that ENSO is driven by atmospheric pressure variations in the higher latitudes, which determine the strength of the trade winds. The atmospheric pressure changes occur over long time frames, for which an adequate explanation has not been found yet. It is entirely possible that the Pacific Ocean is driving the changes in atmospheric pressure. Therefore, we cannot say whether PDO is driving ENSO (via changes in atmospheric pressure) or is just an index of ENSO.
78869. Chris Colose at 02:26 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       Here is the Alley graph from the lecture.
78870. Chris Colose at 02:12 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       Dan, There's two things here: the change in the solar radiation at different points in the orbit (e.g., between aphelion and perihelion) and the mean annual change. With the former, the radiation changes as the inverse square of the distance. So, if you put Earth twice as far from the sun, it would receive four times less sunlight. For an eccentric orbit, the Earth will receive more sunlight when it is a bit closer to the sun than when it is a bit further, which is very intuitive. For the annual-mean solar radiation however, the change that occurs between a circular or a more eccentric orbit is fairly small.
78871. Dan Olner at 02:02 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       "The modern day eccentricity is 0.016, and as a result, the solar insolation that hits Earth varies by ~6.4% over the course of a year." The thing I'm having trouble with: from wikipedia: "But the mean solar irradiation for the planet changes only slightly for small eccentricity, due to Kepler's second law." So, that's the mean solar irradiation averaged over the whole year that's staying the same? (Because the Earth will be faster when closer to the sun?) Meaning, the irradiance *is* affected by distance at any given moment?
78872. skywatcher at 01:54 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Eric, you're still making suggestions of PDO driving ENSO without any physical mechanism, or other evidence. There is a proposed mechanism the other way round (ENSO driving PDO), which also makes sense in terms of energy flows and ocean currents. A general question for anyone who knows, what is the sum of all ocean temperature anomalies, both positive and negative, associated with the PDO region? Or how much energy is released/absorbed by the warm/cool segments of the PDO region. As there are large warm anomalies at the same time as cool anomalies, the net influence on global temperature from the PDO region is perhaps less than thought? It would be interesting to see those numbers in relation to the same data for the ENSO region too.
78873. pixelDust at 01:46 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's cosmic rays
       Denier sites are all over this recent interview with Rolf-Dieter Heuer, claiming it means scientists are being "censored" and "gagged". Here's the quote in question as rendered by Google Translate: "The results will be published shortly. I asked the colleague to make the results clear, however, not to interpret. This would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to be clear that it is the cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters." It's in reference to the CLOUD project's investigations on the influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation. Since his remarks have already become a denier talking point, you might consider addressing them in this article. At the end, you say: "Even if these difficulties can be resolved and the causality link between cosmic rays and cloud formation is proven, this would mean cosmic rays would have been imposing a cooling influence on climate over the last few decades." So for the sake of argument, let's say the latest CLOUD results find that "causality link." Why the "do not interpret" instruction from Heuer? What does it actually mean, in the context of scientific research and publication of results?
78874. Kevin C at 01:39 AM on 22 July 2011
       Milankovitch Cycles
       Richard Alley shows an amazing figure in his CO2 lecture at 34:03. I couldn't find the one he shows, but here's another from the Petit 1999 Nature paper: The frequency spectrum of the temperature proxies (particularly delta-18 O - bottom left) shows peaks at the periods of the Milankovitch cycles. That makes the connection between the Milankovitch cycles and the glacial cycle, despite the fact the insolation looks nothing like the glacial cycle. The lack of similarity is the clue that the connection is more subtle.
78875. jeff_from_ky at 01:27 AM on 22 July 2011
       Climate Solutions by Rob Painting
       Following the link that CB gave, the calculator is for determining carbon in a single tree. References in the calculator's help screens led me to several sources more useful for my estimates. First, the EPA has a page, Representative Carbon Sequestration Rates and Saturation Periods for Key Agricultural & Forestry Practices, that gives a range of 0.6-2.6 metric tons of carbon per acre per year (for afforestation, which is my particular situation). This in turn led to a paper, Birdsey 1992, Carbon storage and accumulation in United States forest ecosystems which gave good estimates of sequestration rates in my part of the US and my type of forest. The rates applicable to my situation were 1,400-2000 lbs of carbon per acre per year. In an afforestation situation, there is very little carbon capture in the early years, but the rates above are reached in approximately 10 years and will continue for 90-120 years. Using this data, my 10 acres has sequestered at least 70-100 tons of carbon since we started the reforestation and will continue to capture 7 to 10 tons of carbon per year, making a significant reduction in our carbon footprint (currently about 15 tons of carbon per year). Jeff Nelson Paducah, KY
78876. pbjamm at 01:25 AM on 22 July 2011
       Climate's changed before
       This is somewhat off topic but it seems that whenever the scientific consensus on AGW comes up the reaction of skeptics is to show that there are some outliers that disagree, thus there is no consensus. Consensus does not require 100% agreement. con·sen·sus    1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month. 2.general agreement or concord; harmony.
78877. Paul W at 01:03 AM on 22 July 2011
       OA not OK part 6: Always take the weathering
       Doug Mackie@16 thank for your thoughts. I agree with you. I would not think of it as a solution but of a nightmare that becomes real at some point. My Ph D topic thirty years ago was hydro treatment of heavy petroleum oils (the clean up step that allows heavy oils to be processed in current refineries). After 6 years I resigned and left that industry not wanting to be part of "baking the planet". I am heartened by the increased numbers opposing the use of fossil fuels particularly the most CO2 intensive alternatives. If I had it my way I'd want coal use to stop ASAP and other fossil fuels to only be used if carbon was put into the ground to match their extraction. Discussion of the needed geo-engineering required to return the planet to below 350 ppm CO2 in air is sobering as it is an extreme task as you rightly point out. I do expect that we will be forced to it (for a very long time) if politics don't change promptly. The discussion of what recovery processes will be needed for the ocean is also sobering. Since aragonite life forms are possibly the most vulnerable, the chemistry of ocean remediation is interesting. There is a slight reduction in the volume of calcium silicate over carbonate needed but it's still profoundly large. James Hansen made a quick reference to grinding igneous rocks in a talk. I've also been considering the work ability of it. You have been focusing on carbonate chemistry but the other part of the calcium carbonate solubility product calcium ions is worth a mention. In my readings so far I have not seen any discussion of Ca2+ concentrations. (I've not yet been looking for it) I wonder what the historical ocean Ca2+ concentrations have been over deep time. I've been curious about the [Ca2+] levels at paleo thermal maximums. I appreciate your work on this topic by the way. OA has been under discussed and is very concerning.
78878. Eric the Red at 00:54 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Dikran, I do not think that anyone is doubting physics here. The contention was whether the PDO drives, or is simply a measure of ENSO variations. Considering that ENSO has been shown to influence temperature, then if PDO is causing the ENSO variation, then it logically, influences temperature. If PDO is simply an index of ENSO, it will indirectly influence temperature through ENSO variation. However, in this case, it would be better to use ENSO as Tamino an others have done. Pointing out correlations is indeed science, as it leads to experiments resulting in greater understanding of the correlation (or rejection thereof). To dismiss such a correlation without investigation, is not science.
78879. Dikran Marsupial at 00:36 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       Eric the Red wrote: "As mentioned, whether PDO drives ENSO variations or is just an index of ENSO changes deos not matter to its temperature influence. " That is incorrect. If PDO is merely an index of ENSO, then the effects of PDO on temperature is precisely zero conditional on measurements of ENSO. Secondly if PDO is merely an index of ENSO then it is a bad idea to make projections of future climate based on PDO as it may not have any physical significance at all. There is also the point that PDO may measure the effect of changes in climate on ENSO rather than the other way round. The warming of the early 20th century is explainable by changes in solar forcing. The Pacific ocean has a large surface area and a low albedo, so it will have absorbed a fair bit of extra energy over that period. Is it inconceivable that might have had an effect on ENSO, causing the PDO? We all know that ENSO is a factor, and we have physics that can explain the magnitude of the effect, as ENSO is reproduced in modern AOGCMs. Continually pointing out correllations without a physical mechanism that can explain the strenght of the effect is not science, is fine, but it is not a good reason to doubt solid physics.
78880. Eric the Red at 00:26 AM on 22 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       You may be interested in this paper, if not for the specifics of the Australian measurements, for the international references. http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1
78881. Eric the Red at 00:14 AM on 22 July 2011
       Climate's changed before
       Tom, To what consensus are you referring? If you mean that temperature have risen globally or that atmospheric CO2 has increased, then yes. But, if you are referring to how much CO2 has contributed to the observed warming, and how much warming we can expect in the future, then I am afraid we have a long way to go to reach a consensus. Predictions have been all over the board, however as any fortune teller or stock broker will say, "make enough predictions, and some will come true."
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Actually the world climatologists are in pretty good agreement about the contribution of the CO2 to the observed warming etc. You may disagree with this, however it is for you to provide evidence to back up your opinion.

       Secondly the projections have not been "all over the board"; the uncertainties of the projections are high; that is not the same thing.

       Now this part of the thread seems to be heading to a point where no progress is likely to be made, and posts become indistiguishable from trolling. So unless you want to provide an evidence based argument with references to sources backing up your position, I suggest we all move onto a more substantive issue.
78882. Eric the Red at 00:08 AM on 22 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       As mentioned, whether PDO drives ENSO variations or is just an index of ENSO changes deos not matter to its temperature influence. Yes, it would be nice to understand what causes these fluctuation, but as long as we can measure the response, we can attribute the effects on the temperature record. The PDO was positive from 1977 - 1998, and could have contributed to the obserbed warming during that period. For the next decade, it oscillated around 0 until around 2008, when it turned negative. Compare the following graph to temperature graphs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PDO.svg The fact that Tamino can correlate temperatures to ENSO (or PDO) should indicate that it is a factor. How great a factor is still under investigation.
78883. Stephen Baines at 23:55 PM on 21 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       The poodlebites...A recent paper on global SO2 emissions 1850-2005. The US and european emissions have declined since the early 80s due to cap and trade, but China and other developing areas have been increasing exponentially, making up the difference. SO2 emissions have varied between 110 and 130 Gg/year since about 1960.
78884. skywatcher at 23:51 PM on 21 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       #88: Surely if, given that the most likely causal relationship is that ENSO drives PDO and not vice versa, we are likely to see more 'negative' PDO state if we have more frequent La Ninas? So your last sentence is in effect backwards. As ENSO is already factored into climate attribution (most recently and most neatly by Tamino), there is no great mystery, at least in relation to PDO. I prefer PDV, with V for variation, as there is no demonstrated cyclic pattern; additionally the 'cool' part of the variation has large positive heat anomalies in the central North and south Pacific.
78885. thepoodlebites at 22:30 PM on 21 July 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       #87 Tom Curtis Do you have a cite for variations in anthropogenic SO4? The EPA shows that U.S. trends in SO2 have been decreasing since 1981. And SO4 concentrations are linearly correlated to SO2. Here's a good website for PDO. The PDO has been more negative than positive since 1998 and could account for some of the pause in surface temperature increase in the last decade. Since global temps are tracking scenario C the best, the pause can not be related to CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions have not stopped since 2000. If the negative PDO trend continues, we should see a shift from more El Ninos (80's, 90's) to more La Ninas (00's, 10's?).
78886. Jeff T at 21:24 PM on 21 July 2011
       OA not OK part 8: 170 to 1
       I appreciate all the effort Doug Mackie has made to produce this series, but I find this posting confusing. Eq. 12 by itself doesn't really imply that adding CO2 decreases CO3--, since the total concentration of carbon would be larger. Consider the opposite: removing all CO2. The result would not be more CO3--, since there wouldn't be any carbon left. Figure 3 is misleading because it seems to imply some agent other than CO2 is changing the pH.
78887. CBDunkerson at 21:01 PM on 21 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       Scientists conduct proper research Deceivers misrepresent that research 'Sceptics' rejoice that global warming is false Actual sceptics point out that they've been hoodwinked 'Sceptics' complain about the scientists. Not the people who tricked them Par for the course. It always makes me think that at some level 'skeptics' must KNOW their position is nonsense. Otherwise they'd feel some sense of outrage at being lied to. The only conceivable reason that 'skeptics' haven't run off frauds like Goddard, Monckton, and so forth after their numerous blatant falsities have been revealed is that they WANT to be deceived. Why else keep going back to people you know are lying to you?
78888. CBDunkerson at 20:47 PM on 21 July 2011
       Visions of the Arctic
       Speaking of polar bear mothers and cubs, there is a new study coming out which attempts to quantify how MUCH ice loss has increased cub mortality. The researchers used tracking collars to identify bears who had engaged in long swims and then compared survival of their cubs vs that of bears which hadn't been forced to swim long distances. It has long been obvious (deniers notwithstanding) that retreating ice edges would increase cub mortality, but this is the first study to show that empirically.
78889. michael sweet at 19:17 PM on 21 July 2011
       Visions of the Arctic
       A Pirate: The original post does not mention mothers and cubs in hibernation so it cannot be wrong as you described. It discusses bears at a whale carcass in the summer. You are trying to change the subject to cover your catastrophic error. Mothers and cubs are discussed in the articles linked in the comments above. You clearly did not read the background and have little understanding of polar bear ecology. Please limit your strong comments to subjects where you have read the background material.
78890. Tom Curtis at 16:57 PM on 21 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Norman @361, this is ridiculous. You take monthly figures from three different cities which means your observations are not controlled for geographical or seasonal variables. You then draw conclusions about the relation of three other variables as though the uncontrolled variables are completely inconsequential. If you are serious about this sort of analysis, you should gain daily data from a large number of stations, preferably with global coverage. You should then sort each stations data into separate categories based on the state of the ENSO index (or equivalent). You should then do a second sort based on month of the year. You should then test the correlation to temperature, humidity and rainfall for each of these subgroups to test the hypothesis. If the subgroups have too few samples for statistical significance, you should determine an anomaly for each subgroup, scale anomalies for a common standard deviation and then combine the scaled anomaly data to perform the test. Albatross may have suggestions on other variables you should control for (NAO?, AMO?, PDO?, IOD?, direction of wind for each station?) or how to improve the method.
78891. Philip Shehan at 15:58 PM on 21 July 2011
       Examples of Monckton contradicting his scientific sources
       His Lordship's accolytes are out in force on Mr Bolt's website again today. This page and many other links have been provided in an attempt to enlighten these people as to this fraudster's record regarding his own cv and his misrepresentation of the science. As usual a number of these skeptics think it sufficient to say that the link comes from Skeptical Science (and other sites that tell them what they do not want to hear, so it must be rubbish. Skeptical science regularly gets this response on Mr Bolt's blog. I frequently point out that Skeptical Science acts as a ready reference collating service and summary for scintific arguments citing peer reviewed literature, authoritative bodies and comments from scientists and the critics should attempt to point out where these sources are wrong, rather than shoot the messenger (Skeptical Scince) they so hate. Neeedless to say, no such attempt is EVER made.
78892. Paul Magnus at 15:18 PM on 21 July 2011
       China, From the Inside Out
       China is probably one of the most affected countries by climate change..... Algae Bloom Spreads Across Qingdao, China Beach (PHOTOS) http://tinyurl.com/Climateportal200
78893. Norman at 14:07 PM on 21 July 2011
       2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
       Eric the Red From an earlier post by Tom Curtis at 258 "As Norman correctly points out, humidity alone is not enough for a thunderstorm; but heat and humidity are both definite factors in the strength of thunderstorms. If you increase both, ceterus paribus you will increase the frequency and intensity of thunderstorms. As it happens, increased warming is also expected to increase Convective Available Potential Energy, another key factor (see maps in my 246." There is a lot of assumption that increasing heat and humidity will lead to more rain or more severe storms. Or this on from Albatross at 269 "So the short of it is that increasing the low-level moisture is likely to increase the chances for more intense/severe thunderstorms, and perhaps larger hail too. Work by Botzen et al. (2010) predicts that:" I did a little study of 3 cities in the United States. Kansas City, Miami and Birmingham to test what effect heat and humidity have on preciptiation. I used these resources for this study. Monthly temperature and precipitation data. Humidity levels of cities in study, using afternoon humidity when temp is highest. This nice little calculator. I made it easy and just used one atmosphere in all cases. Pressure does alter the calculation a bit but not enough to overcome some major observations. Convert relative humidity into specific humidity and enthalpy. Kansas City: S.H. specific humidity. Month High temp S.H.(g/m^3) enthalpy (j/gram) rain (mm) April 19 C 0.00790 39.3 83.1 May 24 0.0115 53.7 115.6 June 30 0.0164 72.8 120.1 July 32 0.0184 80.22 91.7 August 32 0.0187 80.97 91.9 Miami: S.H. specific humidity. Month High temp S.H.(g/m^3) enthalpy (j/gram) rain (mm) April 29 0.013 64.01 85.3 May 31 0.016 73.41 140.2 June 32 0.0193 82.57 216.9 July 33 0.0197 84.94 147.1 August 33 0.0204 86.64 219.2 September 32 0.0196 83.37 212.9 It seems Miami is the only city of the three that roughly follows the moisture/temperature equation in relation to moisture. But in July the preciptiation drops even though it has a higher energy and moiture content than June. Look at Birmingham Alabama. The month with very little moisture in the air and low energy has the most rainfall. Maybe cold air aloft has a lot more to do with precipitation than moisture and heat content of ground level air. Small study but it does show that heat content and moisture do not correlate well with preciptiation levels, but the combination of cold air aloft and moisture and heat below seem to be a good combination. My hypothesis would be that cold winters and springs with a warm gulf are the cause of severe weather and floods in the US. Miami may get much more rain than Kansas City, but the storms generally are not as intense and less likely to cause flooding.
78894. Tom Curtis at 14:00 PM on 21 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       Camburn @167, the proper thing to do when you have flawed data is to report both the data and the flaws. So called "skeptics" have been very critical when climate scientists have supposedly done otherwise, as, for example, with "hide the decline". Of course, they did not do otherwise in that case; and it would be wrong for AVISO to not publish their envisat data, so long as they also publish their reasons for thinking it may be flawed. The problem here is not with AVISO but with people such as Steve Goddard, who purport to have a scientific education, and hence should be aware of the pitfalls and qualifications that exist in the data, but who publish a cherry picked selection of the data to a popular audience without any mention of the problems that may be involved. That is, IMO, dishonest. It deliberately cultivates misunderstanding in order to persuade people to a view point that is almost certainly false.
78895. Bob Lacatena at 13:49 PM on 21 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       167, Camburn, First, if they did hold back the data until they were certain it was well calibrated, there would be a great hue and cry that they were hiding something, so they can't win. Secondly, scientists, the ones who actually use this stuff, know very well all of the details involved, what to trust, when to be skeptical, and so on. That you are naive about it is meaningless. Thirdly, the information that you failed to find is all available on the Internet. You only had to take the time to look yourself, instead of excepting it to be spoon fed, and then complaining that you felt cheated. This last point is, time and again, the problem at the heart of so called "skeptics." For all of their skeptical attitude, they stop the very moment they find something that supports their desired belief, and anything after that is just plain annoying, or part of a vast conspiracy, or incompetence, or whatever the denial flavor of the month is. So your rather arrogant sounding "aha" attitude is nothing but bluster and implied recriminations. The only thing wrong here is your apparent feeling (shared by too many "skeptics") that science exists to satisfy and/or entertain you personally. It does not.
78896. Camburn at 13:06 PM on 21 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       To all: I have no problem that Envisat has errors. IF you note, on my original post, I pointed out that the rise in Envisat exceeded the rise of the other metrics. Anyways, I had asked repeatedly if the data was good data. I had a hard time believing that a major organization would present data publically with known errors, (at least to me now). Envisat should not be avaialbe to the public until these issues are addressed and corrected in my opinion. One would expect AVISO to be a credible source....it now appears that I have to view everything with a skeptic eye. Thank you all for pointing this out.
78897. Rob Honeycutt at 13:01 PM on 21 July 2011
       China, From the Inside Out
       Dcrickett... I had to laugh out loud at the "Chinese manners" comment, just because I know exactly what he was likely talking about. It's a little shocking if you're not used to it. Particularly restaurant manners. I always say you can tell how fancy a restaurant is by how much stuff the patrons toss on the floor. From their side they always say that Americans (while very nice people) treat their friends worse than they (the Chinese) treat their enemies. I have to say, I totally, totally love exactly those types of exchange of culture. Being married to a Chinese person is a very enriching experience indeed. Never a dull moment.
78898. Dcrickett at 12:49 PM on 21 July 2011
       China, From the Inside Out
       Rob Honeycutt: Thank you for being a gentleman with trolls and surly churls. Being a True Believer and Champion of Truth, Justice and the American (or whichever) Way does not excuse rudeness. My son married a fantastic woman who happens to be Chinese, a native of a (very) small city in Hebei Province. The two of them, with their two daughters, live in Silicon Valley. They still keep a promise of visiting her family back there every two years. (Some visits are for business, but most are for family.) But after some struggles with La Migra, her parents now come for extended stays. And there is a nephew of my daughter-in-law who is in grad school in Boston… The travels of the extended family are beneficial all around, and for more than the usual. Cross-cultural enrichment is for real, beneficial for more than just the family(ies) involved. And the most passionate environmentalist in the family, my ten-year-old granddaughter, has defended the travels most eloquently, but her defense is too lengthy for a comment. However, I beg to disagree with you over your advising people in general to visit China (or anywhere else) for the sake of the broadening experience. A (former) friend visited China as a tourist some years back, and all he came back with was supercilious snobbish snide remarks about how bad Chinese manners are, how disagreeable the people are. (He did like traditional opera, though.) At a dinner party my wife and I hosted, he carried on at length, knowing full well of the origins of our daughter-in-law. He explained that he was merely telling the truth as he saw it, seeing no need for pretending that things are other than what they are. Such people should stay home; the atmosphere is not all that they foul. Separately, I very strongly suspect that there could well be means of transoceanic travel that are spectacularly less carbon intensive, but would have other drawbacks — like travel time. The Carbon Tax would/could be a great incentive as well as leveler. If a low-carbon low-speed trip to China were to have a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of a high-carbon high-speed trip, let the business traveler whose time is so precious, or the wealthy flighty socialite, pay for the speed. Letting the rich and the foolish pay taxes for the poor and the prudent would eliminate a lot of any possible justification for so much of the twaddly blathering on a lot of blogs.
78899. Tom Curtis at 12:05 PM on 21 July 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       Camburn, when the data for Jason and Envisat are compared over the same latitudes and over areas deeper than 1000 meters, Envisat still shows a negative trend relative to Jason for Mean Sea Level, along with much larger semi-annual fluctuations in sea level (see the first graph for "Cross comparison of performances".) At the same time, Envisat is known to have major instrument problems (from the same link):

       "USO anomaly: In February 2006, the RA-2 Ultra Stable Oscillator (USO) clock frequency underwent, for an unknown reason, a strong change of behavior. The anomaly consists in a bias, superposed with an oscillating signal with an orbital period. Auxiliary files are distributed since mid 2006 allowing the users to correct the range from this anomaly. The anomaly periods are detailed beside Loss of the S-Band: On the 17 January 2008, a drop of the RA2 S-band transmission power occurred. There is thus no more dual frequency altimeter both in Side A and Side B"

       Further, Jason is known to agree with buoy data, while Envisat disagrees. This is true not only for sea level, but also for wave height:

       "Collocation criteria of 50 km and 30 min yield 3452 and 2157 collocations for Jason-1 and Envisat, respectively. Jason-1 is found to be in no need of correction, performing well throughout the range of wave heights, although it is notably noisier than Envisat. An overall RMS difference between Jason-1 and buoy data of 0.227 m is found. Envisat has a tendency to overestimate low Hs and underestimate high Hs. A linear correction reduces the RMS difference by 7%, from 0.219 to 0.203 m."

       The logical conclusion is that the difference between Envisat and Jason is due to instrumental error in Envisat.
78900. Killian at 10:58 AM on 21 July 2011
       China, From the Inside Out
       Rob, absolutely no antagonism. I failed at PC-speak, is all. I fully embrace all open source, all the time. We can't dance around these issues. As long as it is considered impolite to speak directly and urgently, we're not going to fix this. Systems analysis, risk analysis and reports such as the Hirsch Report illustrate we are responding far too slowly to this emergency. "I don't, though, have as pessimistic view as you apparently have." I did not say I was pessimistic, I stated some criteria for success. "I think there are lots of solutions out there that can help humanity avert a complete collapse of civilization." I agree. I suspect we will disagree on some of them. ;) E.g., most people start with efficiency, which cannot possibly get us close to solutions (diminishing returns, resource limits), but can only be a smallish plank. Innovation also cannot solve this problem I allude to, specifically, Tainter's observations on solving problems of complexity, i.e., they can't be solved with greater complexity. People tend to fail to note innovation in the past occurred within contexts of plentiful resources. Complexity and non-linear systems theory lead us to conclude rationing of resources will have unintended and unanticipated consequences. I do believe and understand the solutions to be embarrassingly simple. Unfortunately, humans are not. Getting back to your first comment, the conversation has got to become clear, direct, and unflinching. We didn't deal with WWII by dancing around the issues. This is far bigger than that. My 2c.

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