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skywatcher at 19:56 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
#29... and on that plane there will be maybe 300 other people (so as mentioned before the per-person-mile emission is not excessive). Perhaps one of those people will bring with them a business link that leads to greater energy efficiency in one sector of the Chinese economy, or perhaps in the other direction, a business deal will be done to import renewable energy technology manufactured in China to the USA (!). Many business deals will be done, some good, some bad, as well as the holidaymakers and people visiting family, and using a mode of transport no worse for the climate than the car. The impact on the human quality of life will be far worse if we unilaterally cut off the air links as a knee-jerk reaction, before we try and take action to deal with the other 96% of the worlds carbon emissions. But then you don't actually seem interested in reasoned argument, and keep trying the same point over and over again. Thanks Rob for a really informative article about the situation in China. As others have said here, it's interesting to see what is happening from the perspective of somebody who is both climate-aware and who understands China much more than the average Westerner! I often wonder how fast China could change if its decision-makers decided that carbon emissions were a really bad idea? It could quickly become a world leader in renewable technology development and implementation, and strategically place itself very strongly for the later 21st Century... -
Dikran Marsupial at 19:52 PM on 19 July 2011It's the sun
Eric (skeptic) wrote: "Dikran, you are suggsting that the earth has a different thermal intertia to TSI changes than to CO2 changes. I don't see how that can be true." No, I am not suggesting any such thing. The thermal inertia of the earth has the same effect on warming due to TSI changes as it does on CO2 changes. The point is that you are comparing the equilibrium response to CO2 forcing with the transient response for TSI, so you are not comparing like with like. If TSI forcing was steadily rising just as CO2 radiative forcing is, then there would be a transient response (the Earth would start warming essentially immediately), but the full warming would not be realised for some decades (the equilibrium response). However, TSI is not steadily rising, it is oscillating, which is why the delay being discussed in relation to the 11-year solar cycle is not the delay before equilibrium is reached, it is a phase shift caused by the thermal inertia of the oceans. Until you understand the difference between a transient and an equilibrium response in a dynamical system, you are unlikely to resolve your confusion. -
SNRatio at 19:46 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
I tend to think that the airplane discussions belong on a sidetrack in the climate debate. This is a real simple example of "polluter pays" solutions: Already, jet fuel is so expensive that carbon-neutral alternatives are becoming economically interesting, so for relatively little more money, we could get build-up ofsecond- and third generation biofuels production capacity to allow for a rather smooth transition. Rob may have to pay quite a bit more for his China trips than he does now, but that's all that is to it. paulm: Driving your car and having the hot showers - it's the high investment costs, not the availability of the technology, that keeps you from doing that in a carbon-neutral way today. Make carbon-neutral living a political request, and you'll see things may change rather rapidly now. So many elements are already in place. Rob: Surely, China may soon become a huge net importer of food. So prepare for much larger costs for those food stamps 1/6 of US population is currently dependent on. -
SNRatio at 19:00 PM on 19 July 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Wallace Broecker
Follow-up to myself: Huge uncertainties are very relevant to the actual estimation problems, but focussing on them, which is a well-known defensive tactics nowadays, completely misses the important point: Having established a phenomenon, the important issue is no longer one of precise estimation (in which case I, among others, would not have been qualified to comment), but of science-based risk management. And in that context, the significance question turns the other way round: It's not about establishing the theory beyond doubt, but about refuting it. For example, when in vitro studies strongly indicate carcinogenicity of a substance, regulations are indicated, only to be lifted if strong in vivo/population studies show notihing of the expected effect. This is quite analogous to the climate issue: Ever since the first theoretical and practical radiation studies on CO2 ("in vitro studies"), there has been good reason to expect a CO2 climate effect, and regulations on the release of CO2 have been indicated. This concern could only be set aside by _repeated_ failures to detect the expected effects "in vivo" (e.g. observed effects on actual radiation spectra) or "population" - observations on climate changes. But "population" studies, generally, only establish associations, not causality. If CO2 was about carcinogenicity, the mass of evidence would leave no regulatory body in any state of doubt about it: This must be kept in check. Serious risk management is not about established facts (then it's too late), but about suspicions and probabilities. It should also be kept in mind that uncertainties, generally, is a two-sided business. So stressing the uncertainties in a risk-management situation could in fact imply stronger measures to be taken. "So, you say, the standard deviation of the estimated pdf for sensititity (expected=3) is 1.6? Gosh, then we must regulate even harder: It's a >5% chance it will be >6, and we can't live with a CO2 doubling or more in that case." -
Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr at 18:56 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Mr Honeycutt, in your article, you "highly recommend to anyone who has the opportunity" to "travel to China on holiday or for business". A trip between North America and China pollutes the climate with approximately 3 tons of CO2 in a few hours. If you seriously think that kind of activity should be encouraged, you do not have serious data about what can be considered safe in order to avoid destroying the climate of the earth. Insulting me by treating me of troll will not change these facts. -
Paul D at 18:46 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Bern said: "I think air travel is an essential part of the modern global economy." I'm sorry but that is brushing aside two of the most important factors that are causing the vast environmental problems we have. The 'global economy' is the primary villain as it were, producing massive environmental damage. You name a big environmental problem, and you'll probably find global trade behind it. Air travel is so convenient that aircraft are used like taxis in the US. One has to be incredibly naive to think that the worshipping of air travel has not done incredible damage. Make something convenient and cheap and you'll have a lot of abuse of the system. Is this 'commie' or 'leftist'? Hardly. They are the ones that want cheap public transport or in many cases free public transport. The left have an unrealistic desire to allow everyone to have a utopian life where everything is free. So in reality, the left are just as deluded as the right, and neglect the consequences of unrestrained access to resources. What needs to be done is a realistic appraisal of alternatives to 'global economies' and cheap transport. I'm all for developing new technology to reduce emissions, but it most definitely must come with personal responsibility for reducing personal GHG emissions. Technology will never take away the need to cut personal emissions or a reduction in personal resource use. -
quokka at 18:45 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
#26 paulm Surely the point is to convince enough people to apply enough pressure to enough governments and other policy makers to put into practice the economy wide engineering and technological transformation required to dramatically reduce GHG emissions. Nothing short of this has an iceberg's chance in hell of succeeding. If we hang about waiting for people to become more "moral", the battle is already lost before you start. Partly because with the current energy infrastructure, the opportunities to be more "moral" are strictly limited. -
DLB at 18:20 PM on 19 July 2011Great Barrier Reef Part 3: Acidification, Warming, and Past Coral Survival
Ok, here is some very recent evidence for fast migration in coral: "Rapid poleward range expansion of tropical reef corals in response to rising sea surface temperatures" Yamano H., Sugihara K., Nomura K. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS Vol38 Art. L04601 FEB 17 2011 Part of the abstract says this "Four major coral species categories, including two key species for reef formation in tropical areas, showed poleward range expansions since the 1930s, whereas no species demonstrated southward range shrinkage or local extinction." They don't give a mechanism but it is probably related to very fluid larval dispersion. -
David Lewis at 17:33 PM on 19 July 2011Why Wasn't The Hottest Decade Hotter?
I'm sorry for the antagonistic tone. I've been struggling with the ideas put forward by Hansen for some time. But I studied Trenberth some months ago and now when I read Kaufmann the same issue came to my mind. I am trying to write a piece about the point also expressed here by "barry" in comment #10, i.e. "the mainstream has consistently said that a decade is too short to establish a meaningful (statistically significant) trend, so when the article [your post] heads up with; "the rate of global warming has slowed" it looks like we've finally admitted what the skeptics have been saying.... So I forcefully express my agreement with comment 10 using my own argument, and I agree it sounds very antagonistic. I spent some more time with the Kaufmann piece - I tried to read the Supporting Appendix but it is too technical for me to get very far. They did use GISTEMP data and run their simulations - they say so in the appendix. I wonder why they restricted all mention of GISTEMP to the Supporting Appendix and stayed with the Hadcrut3 1998 2008 data which they referenced in their main article. Its like they wanted to use the dataset most in line with their opening sentence "data for global surface temperature indicate little warming between 1998 and 2008". Re: you say Hadcrut3 "shows less global warming" because it "excludes measuring the Polar regions". Two points: first, its a global average surface temperature chart. If people use words like "it shows less global warming" they know what they mean and I know what they mean but there is room for confusion. I.e. going back to that quote from Trenberth: "the anthropogenic global warming signature is not large enough to overwhelm natural variability and so the trend from increased GHGs is only clear on time scales of 25 or more years. We used 25 years in Chapter 3 of IPCC as the lowest trend we provided that was meaningful…" So if the global warming signal can't be seen in a ten year dataset, that HadCrut3 dataset can't show less global warming. Trenberth's stolen emails were distorted by deniers exploiting a similar imprecise use of words. Second, Hadcrut doesn't "measure" the polar regions, but neither does anyone else. Hadley Center explains: "There are very few observations in the Arctic and Antarctic. GISS attempts to estimate temperatures in these areas, HadCRUT3 does not. This is the major source of difference between the analyses, which can be seen if, instead of a global average, one takes the average temperature anomaly between 60S and 60N. Over this slightly smaller area, the GISS and HadCRUT3 analyses give very similar results." So GISS is making an educated guess, it seems to me to be a better way short of taking the measurements, but the fact is they aren't taking measurements. I went back to the Hansen Lecture around minute 44 as you suggested. He points to a chart
he calls it "the sum of the GHG and the aerosols, where the aerosols have been specified to be that which gives the agreement with the medium response function and what you see is that these two, the two principal forcings, greenhouse gases and aerosols cause this imbalance, [and] they cause the temperature change which is the major part of the observed temperature change, but they also cause this energy imbalance, which flattened out"
"because of that decrease in the greenhouse gas growth rate." By "decrease in the GHG growth rate", I'm thinking he means this chart from Perceptions of Climate Change:
which he used to show that the rate of increase in total GHG is actually less now than the peak rate of the mid 1980s. Back to Hansen: "But because it flattened out like that that allows small forcings to have a noticeable effect." So Kaufmann says Chinese aerosols masked the total global GHG forcing power for a while allowing smaller forcings to have a noticeable effect, and Hansen points to a lesser rate of increase in the total of GHG, if Hansen is talking about the same thing when he points to this flattening on this graph saying this allows the smaller forcings to have a noticeable effect. He finishes the talk with something I don't understand about Pinatubo: "And one of the interesting effects is the volcanoes. The Pinatubo aerosols gave us this big negative forcing and a cooling factor in 1991, and that only lasted for a couple of years. You wouldn't think it would be affecting things in the last ten years, but actually it does. Its because after the aerosols disappear, they're no longer influencing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the planet, but they're still influencing the heat radiation to space because they caused a cooling of the ocean, and therefore you continue to get this rebound effect after the volcanic aerosols are gone and that then causes a decline in the radiation imbalance in the last decade. And the other thing the solar irradiance…. ….So I think that the planetary imbalance is about 5 or 6 tenths of a watt. And if it's half a watt then in order to restore planetary balance and stabilize climate you'd have to reduce CO2 to 360 ppm other things being equal. And if its 3/4 of a watt, and I think averaged over a solar cycle it might be more like 3/4 of a watt, if that's the correct number then you'd have to reduce to 345 ppm. … In order to understand this we would like to have a model that really simulated this correctly. And I think that requires an ocean model that mixes ocean water and heat more realistically. That's what we're hoping this collaboration with …. Maybe we can get a more realistic ocean, if in fact I'm right that our ocean is mixing too much, but anyway, that's the story …." Kaufmann et.al. supporting appendix contained a reference to work at Princeton by Yuan Xu regarding the trend in Chinese SO2 emissions:
The Chinese SO2 may have peaked around 2006. Their total coal generation is slated to double by 2035 or so it seems, but they are replacing inefficient plants with more efficient ones even as they expand their overall fleet, while applying sulphur mitigation measures at fantastic rates to lower their emissions. Here's three equal sized areas, in the US midwest, Europe near Italy, and China around Beijing, data by Ozone Monitoring Instrument Group which is detecting SO2 concentration averaged 2005 - 2007 the peak of Chinese emissions, keep in mind that tiny dot in Sicily is the Mt Etna volcano, then look at China
[Source]
Moderator Response: [RH] Rescaled image to 450 and added link to source image. Try to limit your images to 450 because it breaks the page formatting when you use larger images. ...Thx. -
scaddenp at 17:18 PM on 19 July 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
Fair enough, good questions and I would like to know some answers as well. I found some other interesting puzzles with spatial distribution of sea level rise that dont have easy answers either. However, I would guess at short term variability, which is what Trenberth is also interested in. -
Paul Magnus at 17:13 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
mothincarnate, this is no trap. I really don't want to detract too much from Rob's great article. I just wanted to point out that as climate advocates it's hard to convince others to reduce their footprint or support mechanisms to do so unless we practice what we preach. For me, I look at it as a moral issue and every activity I do the first thing that comes to mind is what my emissions are. I still drive a car and have hot showers... and emit more ghg gasses than I want to. It saddens me to think of peoples already affected by CC and what the future holds for my three kids and for that matter all others and the rich diversity of life out there. -
Rob Honeycutt at 16:53 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Thanks Moth... One of China's other major challenges (actually a related challenge) is agriculture. They pretty much already farm every bit of arable land they have available, and have even given up a good bit of arable to factory use. If there are climate driven changes to the amount of land they can farm they will have to become a net importer of food. That could be difficult if the rest of the world is also experiencing similar challenges. Overall what impresses me is that the challenges China faces are many times greater than what we face in the west. But they are aggressively addressing them while we flail about with idealogical infighting. -
mothincarnate at 15:45 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Rob, What you’ve encountered here is a typical technique, whereby they’ve disguised an attack on you as what appears to be a reasonable argument. If you advocate modern technology at all, you’re a hypocrite. If you don’t, you’re a hairshirt hippy who doesn’t understand the fabric of economics. Indulging with such “debates” (if you can call them that) is simply a trap where you’re effectively been demonised and simply cannot win. It’s not reasonable nor should you waste your time on it. At best expose it for what it is and simply get on with the fundamentals. Of course you, like many of us also concerned about GHG emissions, want that to stop, but you do not want the greater achievements of the technological era to be dropped – nor is it even possible. We couldn’t feed the 7 billion of us without mass transport and changing that fact will take a few generations to come. Likewise we all should enjoy comfortable homes, convenient technology and great holidays. But we must get smart about how we achieve this; which is exactly why so many of us work in related fields and some even communicate that to the wider public. What these character here are doing is a mockery of informed debate – barely a sideshow – when the essence of the article above is about change in activity and how that relates to life in China – all intended for the reader outside of that country. It’s all part of questioning how we can improve our activities to enjoy a high standard of living – not just for us lucky few, but for all members of our species – without such a detrimental cost to the supporting spheres. How can we reduce our footprint, without losing a comfortable standard of life. What concerns me about China is their water. The lengths they are going to in order to bring water from the south to the north to compensate the lowing height of their ground water is immense. Water management is by far their biggest problem. -
Albatross at 15:05 PM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom, As you probably know, given that you referred to 700-500 mb lapse rates, there is very good reason why severe thunderstorm researchers are interested in low-level buoyancy: "Research has shown that low-level CAPE and or corresponding lowlevel CIN may have relevance to tornado production. More CAPE in the lowest levels (and thus lower LCF heights) above the ground suggests stronger potential for large low level vertical accelerations and enhanced low-level mesocyclone intensification, and thus increasing likelihood of tornadoes in supercells......Simulations of storms with small CAPE (~ 800) squashed into the lowest 5 km indicate that pressure gradient forcing from rotation in mid levels is the primary force for accelerations below 500 mb. Above 500 mb, buoyancy forcing becomes more important (Wicker and Cantrell, 1994). Low-level buoyancy is also related to LCL/LFC heights (RFD characteristics)." [Source] -
Bern at 15:01 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
paulm: I've seen some estimates of the external cost of carbon at around $170-$240, but $893 is pretty amazing! Then again, the total social cost depends strongly (and possibly exponentially) on exactly how much carbon is emitted. Small emissions = not much cost, large emissions = extremely high costs, possibly total collapse of ecosystems & the economies that depend on them. -
ianash at 14:25 PM on 19 July 2011Carter Confusion #3: Surface Temperature Record Cherries
Twice I have written to the Vice Chancellor of James Cook University stating that Carter has (a) misrepresented the science and (b) used the JCU logo to add credibility to his talks. Not so much as a single word reply. Are they so scared of Carter at JCU that they wont take any action? -
Norman at 14:04 PM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 348 Thank you for explaining the Trapp et al (2009) insignificant lapse rate increase. I don't know why they chose that height as significant. Supercell storms reach up to 20,000 meter (20 km) and can even go as high as 23 km. The lapse rate at the 3-5 km is not significant for severe thunderstorm ultimate CAPE value. Look at what happens above the 3-5 km level in your graph. Now the air is getting much warmer in the future. Oklahoma City has a latitude of 35.5 North (Tornado alley) and if you look at your graph, Oklahoma city would be under air that is much warmer. The stratosphere starts at around 200 millibar level. The really warm spot goes up to the stratosphere. This would make a really postive lapse rate depending upon how much the warming actually is (can be 3 to 14.6 which is a large range). Wouldn't this warmer layer of air suppress the upward motion of an air parcel? -
Albatross at 13:54 PM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom, I admire your patience. I am still following this and pulling my hair out-- kudos to you. Given that you are sincerely trying to get to the bottom of this. I'll engage you. Perhaps you can explain to Norman how it is possible to obtain a near adiabatic lapse rate to almost 500 mb above the southern great plains without a wiff of modified Arctic air in sight. Two hints: The Mexican plateau and strong diabatic heating. From Grünwald and Brooks (2011, Atmospheric Research): "This is a result of the generally lower values of CAPE in Europe (Brooks et al., 2003b). This is because the generators for high CAPE, which are high lapse rates in the mid-troposphere and high values of boundary-layer moisture, usually do not occur in Europe as often as in the US. The reason for this is the presence of the Rocky Mountains which high terrain accounts for the creation of high lapse rates and the presence of the Gulf of Mexico which is big and warm enough to provide abundant moisture on many days of the year." From Brooks et al. (2003, Atmospheric Research): "From an ingredients-based approach (Doswell et al., 1996) to severe thunderstorms, abundant lower-tropospheric moisture, steep mid-tropospheric lapse rates, and strong tropospheric wind shear are important. The central United States is in an ideal location for the juxtaposition of those ingredients with the high terrain of the Rocky Mountains providing a source for high lapse rate air and the Gulf of Mexico providing the moisture. Winds from the surface from over the Gulf (southerly) and from over the Rockies in the mid-troposphere results in strong shear at the same time it brings the thermodynamic ingredients together. Other regions near high terrain with moisture sources on their equatorward side (east of the Andes and south and east of the Himalayas) show up as well." From Brook s et al. (2007, Atmospheric Research): "High values of midtropospheric lapse rates are associated with air that is heated and dried over the elevated terrain of the southwestern US (Doswell et al., 1996), approximately 800 km to the west. Starting with 1 January, the atmosphere is dry (3.7 g kg−1) and relatively stable (6.3 K km−1).....During the spring and early summer, the lapse rates stay relatively constant, while the mixing ratio increases to over 13 g kg−1 by 1 July." Now as you can clearly see, the word Arctic did not appear once in those quotes. Tom your opponent is arguing a strawman. Also, in the future, so long as the surface warms as fast as the mid-levels, the lapse rates should remain largely the same for a given time of the year. I am not aware of any reason as to why the mid-or upper levels will warm faster than the surface over continental areas outside the tropics during the warm season. To wit, from a meta analysis conducted by Church: "But all current radiosonde datasets agree that globally, over the longer term (1958 to 2000) the surface and 850-300 hPa layers have warmed at comparable rates, but since 1979 the surface has warmed relative to the 850-300 hPa layer with the estimates ranging from 0.04 to 0.14 deg. K/decade for the various datasets (Angell, 2003)." [Source] Also from Church, "Despite the differences, there is general agreement among radiosonde products that the long-term record (1958 to 2001) shows little difference between surface and tropospheric warming rates, but the shorter records are more complex. The troposphere warmed with respect to the surface between 1958 and 1978, and cooled with respect to it thereafter during the satellite era." Note that the planet has warmed about +0.5 C during the satellite era without a decrease in lapse rates. Trapp et al. find that their is no marked changed in the lapse rates in their model simulations for the USA, consistent with the findings by Angell (2003). "The datasets also agree that the global warming of the surface and the troposphere were basically the same during 1958–2000, but that during 1979–2000 the global surface warmed more than the troposphere. The latter is significant based on the 54- station network." So in fact, it is expected that over land outside the tropics the surface should warm slightly faster than the mid troposphere. As stated by Dr. Gavin Schmidt from NASA: "The land-only ‘amplification’ factor was actually close to 0.95 (+/-0.07, 95% uncertainty in an individual simulation arising from fitting a linear trend), implying that you should be expecting that land surface temperatures to rise (slightly) faster than the satellite values." [Source] -
Rob Honeycutt at 13:08 PM on 19 July 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
muoncounter... I was looking at that same image just about 5 mins ago. Pretty dramatic! I think 2011 is going to beat 2007 this coming Sept. -
muoncounter at 12:40 PM on 19 July 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
msweet#204: "there is a lot of snow in Fall and winter and then it melts quickly in the spring." That is well-illustrated by this melt onset anomaly graphic on the NSIDC page you reference.
The darkest red is an anomaly of 50 days early or more.
An earlier start to the melt season no doubt means a longer melt season. Let's see how we can spin that into some form of 'no its not' denial.
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Paul Magnus at 12:35 PM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Rob, I totally agree with you on that point of what is necessary... its all relative to your perspective on the problem. Putting a realistic price on carbon that reflects its pollution right across the board would/will sort out whats necessary and whats not. Currently the asking price is around $10-$25 per ton. More accurate pricing would start around $50-$100 per ton and probably should be higher. And then we have reports just out which suggests prices right outside the ballpark.... Economists Urge Honest Accounting of Carbon's True Costs http://tinyurl.com/climateportal135 Little attention is being paid to another debt that is ballooning out of control and threatening to spur its own economic chaos: the carbon debt. ... each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere results in as much as $893 in economic damages... New Report Highlights Weaknesses in Government’s Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Cha http://tinyurl.com/climateportal136 A new report on the “social cost of carbon” identifies significant weaknesses in current cost-benefit analyses that do not adequately measure the real harm inflicted from climate change. The report, “More than Meets the Eye: The Social Cost of Carbon in U.S. Climate Policy, in Plain English,” -
Norman at 12:08 PM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 348 I am not sure how you are calculating lapse rates from the graphs you have posted. Regardless that is not my point. I feel I am not communicating my idea very well with you and I fault myself for that. I was attempting to demonstrate my postition with the H-bomb situation in Post 337. "your argument is that the cold, more northerly air coming south has a reduced lapse rate, which will result in weaker CAPE, the fact that models predict a reduction in tropical lapse rates, but an increase in Arctic lapse rates runs directly counter to your main premise. In fact, to the extent that your argument has any validity, and with that knowledge of lapse rates, you should be predicting much stronger CAPE, and hence stronger and more frequent storms." My argument is not about the lapse rate of arctic air. It is about the actual temperature of this air and how it determines bouyancy of an air parcel. Current time the North pole air mass is at a certain temp aloft. From an article I linked to above, Continental polar air can have a temp of -40 C at 4000 meters. This cold air moves in during the winter and dominates the Midwest plains of the United States. As spring comes air is warming rapidly in the south slower in the north (especially if there is snow on the ground in the north). The air aloft warms much slower than the surface so it may not be at -40 C during spring (I don't have numbers) but it will still warm much slower than the ground. Say it is -30 C at 4000 meters. Now a strong low pressure systme pulls up a lot of the warm moist gulf air into this still cool air aloft. It is reasonable to expect a warm moist air parcel of 25 C moving into the area. Until it reaches the condensation level (maybe 1000 meters for this air) it will cool at the dry adiabatic of about -10 C/1000 feet. After the first 1000 meters the air has cooled to 15 C and start to condense. Now it cools at the moist adiabatic rate of around -6 C/1000 meters. It will cool 18 more C or be at -3 C when it reaches 4000 meters. The air aloft is still at -30 C. The parcel is considerably lighter than the surrounding air and continues to rise to the top of the troposphere, a powerful storm. You see it is not the lapse rate of the artic air that is so critical. It is its actual temperature profile in relation to the temp profile of air that will rise into it. If I am wrong in my thinking then you can criticize sources such as this. Book chapter about atmospheric stability. In this book here is a quote: "In addition to the seasonal effects directly caused by changes in solar radiation, there is also an important effect that is caused by the lag in heating and cooling of the atmosphere as a whole. The result is a predominance of cool air over warming land in the spring, and warm air over cooling surfaces in the fall. Thus, the steepest lapse rates frequently occur during the spring, whereas the strongest inversions occur during fall and early winter." So if I am wrong I guess it is the source I am using. I would like you to demonstrate how this thinking is flawed. Thanks. I am grateful you are taking the time to respond to my posts. I do learn alot from this interaction.Response:[DB] Fixed link.
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Tom Curtis at 12:07 PM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
DB @348, you got it exactly right. Let me thank you for the sterling job you and the other moderators do here on SkS. I would thank you far more often, except then I would be cluttering up quite a few threads with thanks, and multiplying your work by the need to remove all those posts.Response:[DB] My pleasure, Tom. I think I speak for the other moderators in that we would much rather step in and help in that fashion than those many times when we're forced to intervene & be the bad cop. Your willingness to engage multiple parties in your usual patient manner is appreciated.
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Tom Curtis at 11:29 AM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Eric the Red @345:"As stated earlier, I believe that the winds shear will predominant, and will decrease due to the decreasing temperature gradient (among other things)."
With all due respect, this is a fairly subtle issue and just guessing has about as much chance of being right as a coin toss. Even educated guessing is little better, and by educated in this context I mean that of experienced meteorologists immersed in the field. Until you actually run that Maths, you have no real idea of the sign of the change, let alone the magnitude. And in this context, "run the maths" means run the best models you have available. As it happens, the maths has been run and has come to the opposite conclusion of your relatively uninformed guess. Still, it is a subtle issue and the model may be wrong, so we look to the data. In this case the data is showing a clear trend to more tornadoes, but significant trend for the strongest categories of tornadoes. Other forms of storms also show a positive trend. In other words, both data and models agree. There are problems with the data, although no it is nowhere near as problematic as Norman attempts to suggest. And models are not super accurate at this style of prediction. So we may, and I hope we do, get lucky in this regard. But regardless of our hopes, the evidence points the other way. You would do well to acknowledge that and factor that into your premises in considering what is the best policy with regard to global warming. -
Norman at 11:29 AM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 344 Page 6-3 of this link has a comparisson of 4 different air types. One is Arctic Polar the other are moist air masses. The Arctic Polar has a similar lapse rate. Comparisson of different air mass lapse rates graph, very simplistic. Here is another paper for you to look at. On page 2279 of this article there is a graph of actual lapse rates of air turning into polar continetal. You can figure out the lapse rate yourself by looking at the height vs temp change. The overall temp drop is positive, the air at the top is warmer than the air at the bottom. If you look at day 13 of cooling. I estimate about an 11 C drop in 2250 meters of air. That would be a lapse rate of -4.8 C/1000 meters. Much less than the -9.8 dry air. Article with graph of Polar air lapse rates over 14 days of cooling. -
chris1204 at 11:29 AM on 19 July 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Wallace Broecker
Dikran Marsupial @ 5 Arkadiusz' graph comes from a German language site ultimately sourcing a NASA website circa 2000 - hence, no doubt the reference to "old" uncertainties. Wasn't hard to trace - took all of three minutes. It took me much longer to try to work out how best to post the link, which ended up a dismal failure so apologies for the resulting clutter. The site incidentally is basically pro-AGW. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast20oct_1/Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Link activated -
Camburn at 11:15 AM on 19 July 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
scaddenp: I would not bet on that being a long term trend at all. What I would like to know, being Envistat covers more of the globe and has demonstrated a slowing of MSL rise, why? Physically, it does not make sense. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:15 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Bern... I did know that about China's nuclear program. I should have included that information. Thanks for bringing it up and linking it. -
Tom Curtis at 11:12 AM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman @347, the following is the projected change in atmospheric temperatures for a doubling of CO2, and represents a reasonable stand in for projected changes by the end of the century:
Three to five kilometers above ground level is approximately 700 to 500 millbars pressure, and as you can see, the maximum difference in the change in temperature for those levels is 0.8 degrees, or a 0.4 degree reduction in the lapse rate. A 0.4 degree change in the lapse rate over 100 years is a trend of 0.004 degrees change per annum, or "essentially no longterm trend".
I note that this is the maximum possible trend, and that and that at more northerly latitudes the trend is weaker. At 30 degrees north, the trend has reduced to, at most, a change of - 0.0025 per km altitude per annum. At sixty degrees north it becomes essentially non existent, while further north it becomes positive, ie, the lapse rate increases.
As your argument is that the cold, more northerly air coming south has a reduced lapse rate, which will result in weaker CAPE, the fact that models predict a reduction in tropical lapse rates, but an increase in Arctic lapse rates runs directly counter to your main premise. In fact, to the extent that your argument has any validity, and with that knowledge of lapse rates, you should be predicting much stronger CAPE, and hence stronger and more frequent storms.
Response:[DB] Fixed image (let me know if this was the incorrect one). Graphic derived from http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm
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Rob Painting at 11:11 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Very interesting Rob, thanks for the insight. Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr - while your views seem to be at the extreme end of the spectrum, I understand where you're coming from. Many who accept the science of global warming, don't truly comprehend the urgency, and scale, of the situation. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:09 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
paulm... How do you determine what is necessary? I know a lot of people whose jobs require them to travel to Asian, some of them 8 or more times a year. Their livelihood depends on it. If they don't do it someone still has to do that work. For me, taking annual trips like this are, in my opinion, necessary. The only other option would be to divorce my wife (whom I am deeply in love with) and not allow our kids to see her or have me never see them. It's just not an option I'm willing to entertain. I believe I do have a strong understanding of what is needed to address climate issues. I do not believe shutting down economies or entire industries is a solution. On the contrary, it would worsen the crisis by crippling the economy! What is required is creating solutions. Look, Pierre is putting forth an argument that suggests that given available technologies we should all live like Cambodians. It's a non-starter way to address the issue. Yes, we need to get everyone's carbon footprint down to what Cambodians are but not by living like Cambodians. We need clean energy and transportation solutions that raises Cambodians lifestyle up to modern standards without raising their carbon output. This is very much what I'm trying to point out in the article. While in the short term it is assured that China's carbon output will rise, they are actually taking the steps which will allow them to reduce, if not eventually almost eliminate, their carbon output... while raising the standard of living of another billion people. -
Bern at 11:03 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Pierre, paulm: I'd disagree with you. I think air travel is an essential part of the modern global economy. It is also a relatively minor part of the total problem. Changing other forms of transport to non-carbon-emitting modes will have a far greater impact on greenhouse emissions, and a far lesser impact on the global economy (it may even stimulate it). Banning or heavily restricting air travel will have a far lesser impact on greenhouse emissions, and a far greater (and probably negative) impact on the global economy. I'm not a big fan of biofuels for land transport use (far too much would be required, and viable alternatives such as electric cars or mass transit are far more efficient), but they can be used for applications, such as air travel, where liquid hydrocarbon fuels are essential. Rob: One other point - I note you didn't mention that China is also building about 27 new nuclear reactors. All new generation III types, with far greater safety than the old 60's vintage designs that failed at Three Mile Island and Fukushima Dai-ichi. According to this article, they're aiming for 80GW nuclear capacity by 2020, 200GW by 2030, and 400-500GW by 2050. They're also doing a lot of research & development work on completely passively-safe reactor designs, including pebble-bed reactors and thorium-fuelled designs (I understand China has a lot of thorium, but not huge reserves of uranium). That article also mentions that they've closed down 71GW of dirty coal-fired plants since 2006, which is certainly a different perspective from the usual "China builds a new coal-fired power station every week" meme... To put that into perspective - all the coal-fired power stations in Australia add up to about 30GW total capacity. So China has shut down more than twice as much coal-fired power generation in the last 5 years as Australia currently operates. -
Stevo at 10:59 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Thanks for an interesting post, Rob. The climate action debate here in Australia often mentions what is happenning in China but, of course, politicians just mention the facts which suit thier own arguments. The two enlightening things I found in your piece were that while opponents of climate action harp on about how many coal fired power stations China is building they neglect to mention that old, dirty plants are being closed down. The other was the cultural difference which has them less dependant (addicted?) to intensive electricity use domestically than we in the West. -
Paul Magnus at 10:35 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Your article was very enlightening. And makes good points. I have to side with Pierre though. I dont think you understand fully what is involved with tackling this problem. People who are trying to convince others that we need to reduce ghg emissions can not expect them to get onboard if they themselves are not living by their word. Not only do we need to reduce emission but we have to get back to at least 350ppm. Unless your flight is necessary in tackling ghg reduction it is usually unnecessary and should be avoided. As Pierre points out... it wont be long before flighing is too expensive due to peak and climate disruption anyway. It is a moral issue as well.... >Yes, our lives must be an expression of what we most deeply value. >Yes, we can and must make conscience-driven choices about how we spend our money and time. >Yes, we must provide a safe and thriving future for our children. https://www.facebook.com/pages/ClimateFlightAction/165484890164497 By signing up to reducing your non-essential flying you make a big impact on emissions reduction in multiple ways. >Your emissions are substantially reduce. >Your resolution highlights and focus the urgency of the issue and the sort of effort that will be required to address the problem with your peers. >You reenforce and provide suport to consolidate action in tackling global warming. -
michael sweet at 10:26 AM on 19 July 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
The NSIDC has posted a mid month update. The sea ice is at the lowest level ever recorded for this date. The ice has melted faster this year than in 2007. Most regions are melting fast. A large area north of Alaska is very thin and expected to melt out soon. Read the NSIDC post for all the data. Snow cover is also very low. A pattern in the last few years has emerged where there is a lot of snow in Fall and winter and then it melts quickly in the spring. -
Rob Honeycutt at 10:22 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Pierre... No, I don't believe my response is disingenuous at all. My response is realistic. The most climate polluting machine on the planet is, in fact, the automobile. That is indisputable. Aircraft are not even the most polluting form of transportation. My sense is that you're trolling and are not actually interested in a conversation. Your comments have absolutely nothing to do with any part of the article posted above. -
Tom Smerling at 10:06 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Thanks for posting this, Rob. Regardless of one's take on the details -- half-empty or half-full cup -- its always refreshing -- and rare -- to hear a first-hand account. So many of us are just "reading the tea leaves" from afar. -
Norman at 10:02 AM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 342 Your countepoint 2) "You repeatedly assert that the models do not allow for a changing environmental lapse rate. That is false. Rather, they do not program the change in lapse rate in to the model, but allow the physics to sort it out." That is not my question. My question is why do their models not show a change in the lapse rate. Quote from Trapp et al (2009) article you and Albatross have links to. "For the current experiments, these are listed in increasing order of importance, with essentially no longterm trend indicated in the temperature lapse rates over a 3–5 km AGL layer (not shown)," Other souces are claiming Global warming would change the lapse rates in a negative way (one reason is the the mid-lattitude troposphere would be the receiver of latent heat and tend to warm). I am not stating they should put in a changed lapse rate in their model. I am asking why doesn't the model develop a changed lapse rate. -
Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr at 09:51 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
Dear Rob, your answer according to which "all of aviation accounts for about 4% of total human carbon emissions" is slightly disingenuous. Using that kind of trick with numbers, travelling with private jets is very green, since it represents 0,0000001% of total human carbon emissions... The only sensible and honest approach is "how much CO2 per person per year"? By that token, polluting with more than two tons of CO2 in a few hours when your yearly quota is around 1,5 t cannot be acceptable, when one knows the dire consequences of climate destruction. And when you look at numbers for "rich" countries like the UK or France, aviation has a share that's far from negligible, approaching 10%. Furthermore, re. "One solution would be to basically shut down all economies around the world": no problemo, the extreme weather that's coming -thanks to the overuse of energy- will do just that for millions of people. Saying it another way, I think the question I raised re. the most climate-polluting machine a normal citizen can use -aka the "plane"- deserves a more serious discussion. -
SNRatio at 09:45 AM on 19 July 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Wallace Broecker
I think that, in the development of science, there comes a time where it is simply not legitimate any longer to neglect theories that are firmly based on standard physical understanding, and have stood the test of time quite well. While they may, ultimately, still be wrong in many (if not all) ways, we are simply not allowed to deny the possibility that they are right, and still stay within the realm of science. It's fully legitimate to believe something different than consensus, and to find and present the evidence supporting that alternative view. It is _not_ legitimate, however, to overlook all the evidence supporting the opposing views. One may propose alternative interpretations, but those interpretations may have a very hard time getting accepted. When we have a simple (in terms of physical understanding) model, we won't reject that for a more complicated one until that one is shown to be significantly better. It is _not_ a competition on even terms here. To throw established parameters out of a model, you have to substitute something that is demonstrably better, subject to model complexity. Here: Given the understanding and the evidence re greenhouse gases, it is a very big task to establish valid explanations that they don't matter in practice, after all. Akasofu's cyclical explanation model may be a case in point here. It would have to perform brilliantly on new data to be accepted, which it can hardly be said to do now. In the context of confirmation, there is no need to fully specify a hypothesis (here: the totality of forcings from gases), and it's therefore not quite fair to judge the merits of an only partially specified hypothesis on comparison with observations alone. Rather, we can look at the original formulation, and make some estimates about how a more complete specification, based on the present state of knowledge, would modify the original predictions. It seems that Broecker's work then looks even better. -
Norman at 09:41 AM on 19 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 342 Tom, I can't agree with your statement: "1) If a spinning body extends its radius, it will slow down the spinning body. Consequently, the raising of the tropopause does indeed slow down the Earth by some imperceptibly small amount. (Or perhaps no imperceptible, they measure the length of the day very accurately these days.) But in extending the radius, the angular velocity of the outermost portion of the rotating body becomes greater." Quote from information on angular momentum: "This formula indicates one important physical consequence of angular momentum: because the above formula can be rearranged to give v = L/(mr) and L is a constant for an isolated system, the velocity v and the separation r are inversely correlated. Thus, conservation of angular momentum demands that a decrease in the separation r be accompanied by an increase in the velocity v, and vice versa." Source of above quote. -
Tom Curtis at 08:48 AM on 19 July 2011It's the sun
Eric (skeptic) @883, first, Sphaerica's 880 and 881 are I believe restatements of my first point in 886. So are Dikran's 877 and 879, though he states it with greater clarity and economy than I do. Second, I think the best way to state it is that the unrealized instantaneous forcing is very much larger for CO2 than for TSI changes associated with the solar cycle, and significantly larger than for TSI changes at any time in the twentieth century. By "unrealized instantaneous changes" I mean the change in total forcing due to a given factor at anytime minus the change in OLR due to changes in surface temperature at the same time. I take it that is what you mean by "ongoing long term forcing", and also what Sphaerica was describing in his 882. That being the case, we can all now agree furiously together on this point. -
Tom Curtis at 08:30 AM on 19 July 2011Monckton at odds with the very scientists he cites
adelady @27, an interesting and relatively insightful article. I guess that is what makes it depressing. -
Tom Curtis at 08:28 AM on 19 July 2011Monckton at odds with the very scientists he cites
Rob Honneycutt @26, I definitely exempt Wendy Carlisle, from whose program I drew my quotes, from my criticism. Although even she made one clear science error in her program. But Wendy Carlisle, or even the ABC in general, do not have that large a market share. Where is "A Current Affair"s expose of Monckton? Or any of the major commercial curren affair's programs? Or where is the expose in "The Australian" or any of the major Newspapers? At the moment the Australian media is mostly playing Dumb to Monckton's Dumber. -
scaddenp at 07:48 AM on 19 July 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
"Climate modelers can most likely make sure their models do whatever they want." Another baseless assertion. Please explain then why skeptics cant use the models to make anthropogenic warming go away? Camburn, so you would bet on that being a long term trend? -
Rob Painting at 07:45 AM on 19 July 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
Steve Case -"Analysis without any data is even more useless." So ARGO is now useless because the data do not match your preconceived notions? You're not making any sense whatsoever. "Climate modelers can most likely make sure their models do whatever they want" This comment is skirting dangerously close to a violation of the comments policy. No comments of scientific malfeasance please. As well as breaking this forum's rules, it just demonstrates you have no rational argument to make. " I assume they got the value for the observed 0.1°C over 42 years in that 700-meter layer of ocean from a legitimate source." Ditto, my comment above. "The only place I see that happening is in the models." Note that the actual sea level rise is at the upper end of IPCC projections:
"World temperatures have been on an upward trend for 120 years but the sea level trend during that time has remained relatively constant. It's on course for about 275 mm or less than a foot.'
So you didn't even bother to read the post you are commenting on? Did you not notice the graph in the post above?. Just to refresh:
That steadily rising curve, that's an acceleration in the long-term rate of sea level rise. It doesn't mean sea level won't slow-down or speed-up on short timescales however.
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Eric the Red at 07:20 AM on 19 July 2011Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
Perseus, Two explanations: First, figure 4 is only plotted through 2009; the websites is current (make sure you are using a 12-month running mean for comparison). Second, the graph is not using a linear fit, but some other mathematical fit (polymeric maybe), and appears to be part of a longer trend which is not displayed on the graph. Be careful when using fitting on short term data. That is my take, FWIW. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:43 AM on 19 July 2011It's the sun
Sphaerica, your first post didn't really address my concern because you turned the 11 years of increase into a shorter interval of high solar. Then your second post changed the topic to secular solar changes and I have no argument with it (they are small). In your third post you resumed the original topic but missed my point which is quite simple: there is an interval of 11 years in which the TSI forcing increases roughly the same amount as CO2 does during that same interval. It is then balanced by the next 11 years of decreasing TSI forcing. Dikran, you are suggsting that the earth has a different thermal intertia to TSI changes than to CO2 changes. I don't see how that can be true. Tom, regarding your statement "Second, the level of the forcing for changes in TSI and especially for the solar cycle are not large certainly not nearly the same size as the CO2 forcing" would make sense if it was simply appended with "in total" or "since preindustrial" or "ongoing long term". Then we would all be able to violently agree. -
Paul D at 06:41 AM on 19 July 2011China, From the Inside Out
UK DECC/DEFRA emissions factors for many types of transport can be downloaded for 2010: http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/101006-guidelines-ghg-conversion-factors-method-paper.pdf I'm not sure what will be produced for 2011 with the new coalition government. -
perseus at 06:41 AM on 19 July 2011Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
Perhaps someone could explain this anomaly Under Figure 4 it states "The observed changes (lower panel; Trenberth and Fasullo 2010) show the 12-month running means of global mean surface temperature anomalies relative to 1901-2000 from NOAA (red (thin) and decadal (thick)) in °C (scale lower left)" Figure 4 shows only 0.1C change between 1993-2010, yet a linear regression through the monthly figures from NOAA ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ano...1-2000mean.dat yields about 0.3C over this period. Are we using the same temperatures?
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