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Comments 93851 to 93900:

93851. invicta at 21:12 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       invicta It occurs to me that an area of the world that has a well documented dynastic cycle for at least two thousand years is China. I have never seen any references to any records from this area being used to support or deny claims for the MWP or similar globa v regional discussions. Are there people with knowledge of the cycles of dynastic rise and decline which do seem to have at least some links to natural disasters (famine Drought etc)? I have no specialist knowledge myself but would be fascinated to see some discussion of the subject in the appropriate place
93852. Gilles at 20:18 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       sorry for some misprints and disappearing signs. You should read : e : you're wrong, if you take a random gaussian distribution of the "f" amplication factor, with an average value f0, the average value of the "1/1-f" (and hence sensitivity) factor will be larger than the 1/(1-f0)) This is a high bias. and If tau is small (with respect to the characteristic timescale for S(t)), T(t) follows closely S. F(t).
93853. Tom Curtis at 20:10 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Philippe Chantreau @11 With regard to C14 and the ocean: yes, you are correct. The ocean contains much more CO2 than does the atmosphere, but in equilibrium, an equal number of CO2 molecules flow each way at the surface. That means residence times in the ocean are much larger than residence times in the atmosphere. So for a given molecule in the ocean, it is probably a long time since it was in the atmosphere, and hence had a chance to form with a C14 atom. In contrast, a molecule in the atmosphere has (obviously) been very recently in the atmosphere, and has therefore a higher chance of having formed with a C14 atom. (I'm not sure that this is clear either, but I'm not sure I can make it clearer in a short space.) Regarding the C13/C12, you are tecnically correct, but I'm not sure your phrasing avoids any likely misunderstanding.
93854. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:05 PM on 4 March 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
       @Shoyemore As quoted by you (perfectly known to me), Mike Lockwood's paper, is also an important sentence: "... the current [solar] grand maximum has already lasted for an unusually long time ..." Lockwood (in this paper) will not close a road to prove that the Sun has a more significant impact on the climate than we thought previously. However, imposes a condition: “Thus advocates of the huge solar amplification (positive feedback) factor [that is, for example, I] must also explain why the feedback to greenhouse forcing is at the same time negative. The issue is not ‘can the GMAST curve be fitted with combinations of solar variations’—with enough free variables the answer will be ‘yes’ (but such fits would have very low or no statistical significance): the challenge for attempts to show such a phenomenon could be real is to give credible explanations of feedback amplifications of more than 13 within the constraints set by observations and their uncertainties (and yet still give negative feedbacks to GHG forcings).” As cited above, this paper presents but too little potential direct and indirect influences of the Sun, which completes Lockwood (as a co-author) in a later work: Solar Influences on Climate, L.J. Gray, J. Beer, M. Geller, J.D. Haigh, M. Lockwood, K. Matthes ,U. Cubasch, D. Fleitmann, G. Harrison, L. Hood, J. Luterbacher, G. A. Meehl, D. Shindell, B. van Geel, W. White (Reviews in Geophysics, 2010). In this work - with many "types" of direct and indirect sun (especially the impact of changes in solar UV - for example, ozone, ozone in the stratosphere, water vapor, etc..) is a record that they require “urgent” research - because we know about them too enough - to assess (even initially) the actual impact on climate.
93855. scaddenp at 19:33 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       There is continued fractionation going on so that different sources having different degrees of C13 depletion.
93856. Gilles at 19:17 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       e : your wrong, if you take a random gaussian distribution of the "f" amplication factor, with an average value , the average value of the "1/1-f" (and hence sensitivity) factor will be larger than the 1/(1-)) This is a high bias. I don't want to prove that climate models and measurements are wrong. I'm just saying that the kind of line you adopt (reasoning on a large sample of different valuers) is not very convincing from a scientific point of view., if the issue is whether the whole model is correct or not. It relies on the implicit assumption that the models have been proved to be true - which is precisely the point. This is kind of a circular justification. concerning the point of relaxation timescales : in the simplest approximation, there is a single timescale, and the relevant equation is dT/dt + T/tau = S.F(t)/tau where tau is the relaxation timescale and S the sensitivity. The exact solution of this equation is T =S. ∫ F(t')exp(t-t'/tau) dt'. Mathematically, T(t) tries to follow the variations of F(t), but with some delay of the order of tau, and smoothes all variations of the order of tau. Basically, it responds to the average of F(t) over a past period tau. If tau is small (with respect to the characteristic timescale for S(t)), T(t) follows closely S(t). If it is large , the T/tau term is negligible and one has rather dT/dt = S F(t)/tau , so T(t) = S ∫ F(t) dt'/tau. The "response" is the the integral of F(t) (the system "accumulates heat") but it is curtailed by a factor tau. Now there are interesting questions around tau. If tau is small, S should be just the ration of T(t) to F(t), so it should be precisely determined by current variations, which is obviously not the case. So we are rather in a "long" tau, longer than or comparable with 30 years. This allows some "flexibility " between S and tau, because constant ratio S/tau will give the same signal T(t) - I think this is the main reason for the scattering of S (and tau) , they are not well constrained by the data. However, if tau is large, the response of a linearly increasing forcing should be quadratic (this is obvious because the temperature has to increase faster in the future to exceed the 2°C thershold for instance), so an acceleration should be measurable. Is it the case? not really. Temperature are less or equally increasing than 30 years ago - you can discuss whether they're still increasing or not, but they're not accelerating.That's kind of puzzling in my sense (leading to the obvious observation that if they aren't accelrating, a warming rate of 0.15 °C will only produce 1.5 °C after 100 years). So there is a small window for which the sensitivity is high but not too much, and the timescale high but not too much, and the "curvature" will be significative in the near future , but not yet just now. Outside this window, the curve T(t) is essentially linear with a linearly increasing forcing (as the forcing is is logarithmic with the concentration and the production of GHG is supposed to increase more or less exponentially with a constant growth rate, the forcing should be close to linear). This is only possible for tau between 30 and 100 years, Say (which is essentially what is found in current models). But again this raises other interesting questions. 30 to 100 years is SHORT with respect to paleoclimatic times , and astronomical (Milankovitch) changes of forcings. So IF it were in this range, temperatures should follow rather closely teh forcings, and change only very slowly with them. But we hear here also on a lot of "variations " of climate at the centennal time scale (medieval "anomaly" whatever happened then, D-O events, and so on) which should NOT happen if the forcing is not changing at this time scale. But why is the forcing changing? aerosols, volcanoes, do they have a reason to statistically change when averaged over 100 years or so (remember that the temperature changes by averaging over this time scale?)
93857. Tom Curtis at 18:23 PM on 4 March 2011
       Crux of a Core, Part 1b
       Here is a detail of Rob Honeycutt's image @25 so that the extent to which temperature fluctuations in northern and southern polar regions are antiphased during the Holocence can be clearly seen: And for completeness, ice cores over the Holocene for a Greenland, a Northern Chinese (Northern Hemisphere), two Andian (Tropcical), and two Antarctic (Southern Hemisphere)to give some idea as to the extent of regional variability involved:
93858. e at 18:16 PM on 4 March 2011
       Hockey Stick Own Goal
       angusmac> Consequently, it is not unreasonable to conclude from Ljungqvist's reconstruction that the MWP was as warm as 1998. Considering that Ljungqvist used decadal averages (as Tom pointed out), it would indeed be unreasonable and quite inaccurate to draw this conclusion.
93859. Daniel Bailey at 17:09 PM on 4 March 2011
       Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
       muoncounter Yeah, not yet so blind as to have missed that. Nice segue from Arctic Amplification to Spinal Tap! Dunno if you follow Arctic ice developments much, but Patrick Lockerby over at Neven's Sea Ice blog just linked to his March Arctic Ice post here. Patrick is explaining his rationale as to "...why I expect the central Arctic to be essentially ice-free by the end of this Arctic summer 2011". Also says the 2011 melt season has already begun... (Gonna have to find amps that go to 12) The Yooper
93860. Marcus at 16:12 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       OK, so maybe I overstated the whole "destruction" thing in regards to the Maya, but it was used as an example of societal collapse in Jared Diamond's book of the same name-specifically where societies failed to adapt to changing environmental conditions & so hastened their own demise. Sorry if that's off-topic.
93861. Riduna at 15:54 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       CH4 emitted from coalmining and decaying organic matter has residence of ~10 years during which it oxidizes to produce CO2. Am I right to assume that CO2 so produced is predominantly carbon isotope 12?
93862. apsmith at 15:41 PM on 4 March 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
       A bit of further analysis on this from me here: http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/mathematical_analysis_of_roy_spencers_climate_model (using Barry's figures, thanks!) Spencer really should be ashamed of this. And turning it into a book!
93863. bbickmore at 15:38 PM on 4 March 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
       Hi Albatross @9, I sent him the links after I posted Part 3, but I haven't heard from him. Hopefully, he's combing goofing around with his model to see if I'm right.
93864. KR at 15:33 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       Sorry, the start date should be 1800, not 1850, in my last post, for the start of anthropogenic CO2 - typing too fast... Incidentally, although I suspect most of the usual suspects will have seen this already, the YouTube video from CarbonTracker is worth showing to everyone.
93865. Tom Curtis at 15:30 PM on 4 March 2011
       Hockey Stick Own Goal
       angusmac @135, the data may include 1998, but Lundquvist reports decadal averages. The early 1990's was quite cool compared to 1998, so there is still a sharp difference in temperature. The difference between the decadal average of GISStemp for 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 is 0.18 degrees, sufficient to lift recent tempertures well above the peak decadal average for the MWP (0.15 degrees greater than 1990's). Of course, that is the difference in global temperatures. The difference in NH extra tropical temperatures is likely to be far greater, and would show a correspondingly greater increase.
93866. KR at 15:22 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       Berényi - I'll admit to having some trouble following that last posting. The last I heard you were claiming that the relaxation time was essentially zero, so that there was no heating left in the pipeline. Now you are arguing that relaxation times are long enough to slow warming to a manageable level??? You're contradicting yourself. Second, 1934 is not the start of anthropogenic carbon forcing - that's somewhere around the beginning of the industrial revolution, circa 1850 or so. Third, relaxation times are relative to multiple time frames - from the several week H2O forcing to the multi-century ice response. Your simple formula is therefore inappropriate. And, since rate of change is dependent on scale of forcing, your 1.8C/century limit is, in my opinion, nonsense. I'll leave it at that for now - you have posted completely contradictory arguments in just the last few days, I'm certain there are issues others might raise.
93867. ribwoods at 15:13 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Rather than a new, 11th fingerprint, isn't this really just another example, as in Fingerprint 4, of measurement of the C-13/C-12 ratio incorporated into living things? It's independent of coral C-13/C-12 ratio measurements, but not so different an indicator of fossil-fuel origin as to deserve separate listing, I think. I'd just add it to Fingerprint 4.
93868. angusmac at 15:08 PM on 4 March 2011
       Hockey Stick Own Goal
       Moderator @132, new data is always welcome. However, the purpose of my post was to show that you could use the data presented in Dana's post and come to a completely different conclusion. Tom @133 and Anonymous @134, I agree that we need more up to date proxies. This should be a high priority in the paleo community. Nevertheless, Table 1 of Ljungqvist (2010) shows that 10 of the 24 proxies used by him extend to 1999 thus including the very hot year of 1998. Consequently, it is not unreasonable to conclude from Ljungqvist's reconstruction that the MWP was as warm as 1998.
93869. Riduna at 15:01 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       Tikal, Copan and other great Mayan city-states in the south did succumb to a combination of internecine warfare, over-population and drought induced crop failures in the 8-9th centuries, bringing the Classic Period to an end. That is a long way from destruction of Mayan civilization which survived in northern areas, notably Yucatan, where city-states such as Uxmal, Mayapan and Chechen Itza flourished into the 17th century. Their demise was at the hands of the Spanish, not climate change. Can prolonged droughts in Guatemala, Belize and Honduras in the 8-9th centuries be regarded as synonymous with the European MWP?
93870. Albatross at 14:33 PM on 4 March 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
       Dr. Bickmore, Has Roy responded to your critique? I'm a little surprised that he has not bothered to drop by and discuss this. I would not be surprised if he tried to frame this as an "attack" on skeptics over at his blog. We'll see.
93871. mspelto at 14:22 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       To get a better sense of the field sites and work by Koch and Clague take a look at Koch's research pages . Nice maps and photographs.
93872. muoncounter at 14:05 PM on 4 March 2011
       Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
       Yooper: Didja notice that appears to be 5 degrees in approx 20 years? One of them natural cycles we hear so much about, I guess. Or maybe the Arctic Amplifiers are turned up to 11?
93873. Berényi Péter at 13:55 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       #59 Sarah at 14:09 PM on 3 March, 2011 Hansen and Sato recently determined that climate sensitivity is about 3 °C for doubled CO2 based on paleoclimate records.[...]
       Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Thanks, Sarah. The preprint is here.
       I don't see it was a peer reviewed paper. Dr. Hansen says it's a "Draft paper for Milankovic volume", whatever that may be. However, it is still interesting, because it is based on empirical data and has definite numbers to work with. Its biases and omissions are also telling. The first thing to note they assume a 4 W/m² forcing for doubling of atmospheric CO₂ concentration, which is slightly above the IPCC AR4 WG1 2.3.1 (2007) estimate of 3.7 W/m², with no explanation whatsoever. The figure seems to come from IPCC FAR WG1 3.3.1 (1990). Anyway, if we accept their value, using CO₂ concentration measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory we get the annual rate of change in forcing due to CO₂ as α = 0.024 W/m²/year for the last 54 years. The paper calculates an equilibrium climate sensitivity of λ = 0.75°Cm²/W using paleoclimate data. As temperature variability is much smaller under current warm interglacial regime than for the bulk of the last 3 million years, climate sensitivity obviously decreases sharply with increasing temperatures, but let's go with their figure anyway, at least for the time being. Greenland temperatures during the last 100 kyears -- click for larger version If we assume a scenario under which atmospheric CO₂ concentration was constant for a long time (presumably at pre-industrial level, let's say at 280 ppmv) then started to increase exponentially at the rate observed, we get an excitation that is 0 for dates before 1934 and is α(t-1934) for t > 1934. The artificial sharp transition introduced in 1934 this way does not have much effect on temperature response at later dates. If global climate responds to an excitation as a first order linear system with relaxation time τ, rate of global average temperature change is αλ(1-e^-(t-1934)/τ) for a date t after 1934. As the expression in parentheses is smaller than 1, this rate can't possibly exceed αλ = 0.018°C/year. It means global average temperature can't increase at a rate more than 1.8°C/century even in 2100, which means less than 1.6°C increase relative to current global average temperature, no matter how small τ is supposed to be. However, a short relaxation time is unlikely, because it takes (much) time to heat up the oceans due to their huge thermal inertia. For example if τ = 500, current rate of change due to CO₂ forcing is 0.26°C/century while in 2100 it is 0.51°C/century (according to Hansen & Sato, of course). However, ocean turnover time being several millennia, we have probably overestimated the actual rates. It means that most of the warming observed during the last few decades is due to internal noise of the climate system, not CO₂. Anyway, the exponential increase of CO₂ itself can't go on forever simply because technology is changing all the time on its own, even with no government intervention whatsoever. Therefore it should follow a logistic curve. If the epoch of CO₂ increase is substantially shorter than the relaxation time of the climate system, the peak rate of change due to CO₂ becomes negligible.
93874. Marcus at 13:44 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Philippe-the point I was trying to make (badly I confess) is that because fossil fuels have *zero* 14C, then changes in the ratio of C14 to C12 could serve as a useful secondary signal for the anthropogenic nature of the rising CO2 in the atmosphere. However, as scaddenp has pointed out, that might not be as easy as I first thought ;-). Hope that makes more sense.
93875. Marcus at 13:11 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       I'm guessing, Daniel, that those warmer periods you mentioned were the same as those I mentioned-the ones which wiped out the 2 big Meso-American civilizations of the day? The warming/drought that caused the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom has been linked to a slowing of the Atlantic Conveyor (the one which causes the Gulf Stream)-which also caused Northern Europe to get cold. I wonder if something similar can explain the MWP?
       Moderator Response: [DB] Possibly/probably. With the teleconnections being uncovered, ENSO changes in the Pacific Ocean seem to be driving subsequent "downstream" reactions and changes throughout the world. Obviously an area being looked at further; given what we now see happening in our warming world & the potential impacts discussed in Dai et al 2010 (discussed here), it's an area of critical importance.
93876. scaddenp at 13:07 PM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Marcus, google scholar for Etiope G and Lassey K R. Both researchers active on this. Short answer - C14 is useful but its not as easy as it sounds... (I'm trying to get no. for pre-industrial fossil methane emissions from sedimentary basins in day-job so having been looking at issue).
93877. Eric (skeptic) at 12:59 PM on 4 March 2011
       Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
       Thanks for the link les, here's the full URL; http://journals.sfu.ca/int_assess/index.php/iaj/article/download/188/139 I looked at the section on climate sensitivity where they refer to this study http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es00010a003 titled "Subjective judgements by climate experts" to obtain a subjective probability distribution of climate sensitivity values centered aroudn 3C. In that 1995 paper they start out "When scientific uncertainty limits analytic modeling, but decision makers cannot wait for better science, expert judgment can be used in the interim to inform policy analysis and choice" I would rather wait for objective probability distribution measurements. For example, the continued rapid increases in computing power will make full weather simulation possible within global climate models (i.e the mesoscale models I referred to above). Then there will be no need for subjectivity.
93878. rocco at 12:53 PM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       Daniel Bailey: I think the article should mention that the Martín-Chivelet et al study is for Iberian Peninsula only. If you want to go beyond the usual 2000-year reconstructions globally you should reference the borehole studies, for example.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Thanks for the heads-up. I realized that after the fact, but forgot to update the text in the rush to publish. I'll fix it now.
93879. Philippe Chantreau at 11:35 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Marcus, fossil fuels are millions of years old, way over a hundred millions for coal. No C14 left in there but from exterior sources. I'm not sure I understand your point in #10.
93880. Chemware at 11:33 AM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       Was there a MWP in northwest North America ? Or was the MWP a local, European event ?
       Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] The preponderance of evidence we have strongly suggests regional warming at various periods of time over several centuries that also coincided with regional cooling. Some areas warmed and others cooled. The area with best data for a localized, regional, warm period is in Europe. This period was also punctuated with brief colder periods where glaciers in the Alps underwent significant advancement. It was a complex climatic period. For more info, go here (both the Basic and Intermediate Versions). North America had warmer periods as well, but those were punctuated with extreme droughts.
93881. Marcus at 11:33 AM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       Oh, correction, 2 Civilizations (The Anasazi & The Mayans) both died out during the Middle Ages-both due to extended drought which was believed to be caused by a regionally warming climate.
93882. Marcus at 11:32 AM on 4 March 2011
       Icing the Medieval Warm Period
       This is actually very interesting when you consider the fact that a civilization in South-Central America died out during the Medieval Period due to warming-as did the Khmer Empire-though several hundred years apart. I say that its interesting because the there was a similar dichotomy between Northern & Central temperatures as there was during the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. i.e. the equatorial regions of the world were gripped by an extended warm period, & attendant drought, whilst many of the northern latitudes were gripped by a relatively cold period. Of course this is yet another reason why we know that what caused these past two warming events is *not* what's causing warming now-because this time we're seeing a mostly globally homogeneous warming event.
93883. Philippe Chantreau at 11:31 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Nice summary Tom. However, this appears a little obscure to me: "Because of the production of C14 in the upper atmosphere, Carbon dissolved in the ocean has a much lower CO2 content than does the atmosphere." Did you actually mean "because C14 is produced in the upper atmoshere, CO2 dissolved in the ocean has a much lower concentration in C14 than does the atmosphere." I'm still not sure about the mechanism though. Am I understanding this totally wrong? And also on this one: "Therefore declining C13/C12 ratios show the atmosphere is receiving CO2 from organic or fossil fuel (fossilized organic) sources." That should probably go "receiving CO2 produced by combining C from organic material or fossil fuel with atmospheric O2."
93884. Marcus at 11:27 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       OK, according to Wikpedia, C-14 has a half-life of 5,730±40 years. So I'm still wondering if this wouldn't play at least some small part in our ability to detect CO2 from natural vs anthropogenic sources.
93885. Marcus at 11:24 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Thank you for that Tom Curtis. Seems my understanding of Carbon Isotopes is less than satisfactory. Lucky my job doesn't require knowledge of that ;-).
93886. Tom Curtis at 11:05 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Marcus, C14 has a fairly short half life, but is generated by the interaction of cosmic rays with nitrogen. C12 and C13 are stable isotopes which means that they do not have a half life (or perhaps that their half life is several times the age of the universe). Because of the production of C14 in the upper atmosphere, Carbon dissolved in the ocean has a much lower CO2 content than does the atmosphere. Because of its low half life, fossil fuels contain almost no C14 (some trace amounts can be found due to ground water seepage in coal). Consequently a declining C14/C12 ratio in the atmosphere shows that CO2 is being introduced to the atmosphere from either the ocean or fossil fuels. C12 preferentially absorbed by plants in photosynthesis, so plants and anything that eats them or is produced from them (ie coal and oil) have lower C13/C12 ratios. Therefore declining C13/C12 ratios show the atmosphere is receiving CO2 from organic or fossil fuel (fossilized organic) sources. Finally, O2 is consumed in combustion. Consequently declining O2 levels in the atmosphere show the source of CO2 to be combustion. By comparing the decline of O2 to the declining C13/C12 ratio, it is also possible to determine what proportion of the CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels, and what portion comes from land use changes.
93887. johnd at 10:41 AM on 4 March 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       johnd at 10:26 AM, it should be clear to most readers, but in case it is not, the observations about the El-Nino/La-Nina data from NR&M are mine and not part of the JAMSTEC forecast.
93888. johnd at 10:31 AM on 4 March 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       thepoodlebites at 07:40 AM, just to add, whilst most people seem to focus on the magnitude of El-Nino/La-Nina events, the frequency of their occurrences is more relevant when it comes to discussing ocean based cycles.
93889. johnd at 10:26 AM on 4 March 2011
       It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
       thepoodlebites at 07:40 AM, FYI, the latest JAMSTEC, SINTEX-F1 CGCM forecast(27-member ensemble) (updated February 15, 2011) ENSO forecast: The current strong La Nina condition would decay in following boreal spring and summer seasons but would rebound in fall and persist up to early 2012. The revived one would show a La Nina of Modoki nature. IO forecast: Associated with the La Nina impact, the surface temperature in the equatorial Indian Ocean has become colder than normal in January 2011. The tropical Indian Ocean surface temperature would decrease further in following seasons but with strong warming along the west coast of Australia. In the second half of 2011, a weak negative IOD might tend to occur. Regional forecast: Associated with the La Nina influence, below-normal surface air temperature and above-normal precipitation would continue in Australia, northern Brazil, and southern Africa during the austral fall-winter. Southeastern China,southwestern Japan, US and Europe would have warmer-than-normal and dry climate during spring-summer seasons. According to data from the Queensland Natural Resources and Mines, La-Nina conditions that extended over multiple year occurred in 1892-93, 1916-17, 1955-56, 1970-72 and 1973-74-75. El-Ninos that extended over multiple years occurred in 1913-1914, 1918-1919, 1940-41,and 1991-92-93-94. Note, to avoid confusion, given the NR&M classify the years as from April to March, the beginning years are as indicated, but the ending years are at the end of March in the year following that indicated above.
93890. Marcus at 10:19 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       Ah thanks for that Jeff T. Though I was of the understanding that radioactive decay is also the reason for the increasingly "light" CO2 in the atmosphere-& how we can tell CO2 produced from burning coal over that produced by burning wood. Perhaps I'm thinking of C14, which has a longer half-life than C13 IIRC. I'm pretty sure that atmospheric testing of nukes screwed up the 14C levels, not the 13C levels-again, could be wrong though.
93891. WheelsOC at 10:04 AM on 4 March 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 3
       Read all three installments back at your blog. Thanks for this illuminating exercise. I wonder if we can convince Steve McIntyre to perform an "audit" of Dr. Spencer's model.
93892. e at 09:27 AM on 4 March 2011
       Hockey Stick Own Goal
       angusmac @132, To further Tom's point, consider also this statement from the Ljungqvist paper: The proxy reconstruction itself does not show such an unprecedented warming but we must consider that only a few records used in the reconstruction extend into the 1990s. (emphasis mine) Furthermore it is quite clear that no reconstructed data in this case was available for the 2000s. Given that it is now 2011, the assertion that "if you compare proxies with proxies ... the MWP was as hot as today" is not and more importantly cannot be supported by the proxy data alone.
93893. Rob Honeycutt at 09:05 AM on 4 March 2011
       Crux of a Core, Part 1b
       Yup. Here it is... Bond event 5:
       Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed image.
93894. Rob Honeycutt at 09:01 AM on 4 March 2011
       Crux of a Core, Part 1b
       Just to add a little perspective... here would be a more appropriate combining of the GSIP2 and Vostok data: You can see how there is a very broad correlation between the two but for the most part only in terms of timing for when we come out of the last glacial. The temperature swings in the GSIP2 record are extreme compared with the Vostok record. By stretching the Vostok record to fit the GISP2 scale Dr Hall is hiding a tremendous amount of information about how these two records relate to each other. If you look closely at the early holocene you can see that one huge jump in the GISP2 data is clearly antiphased with an equally profound response in the Vostok record. So, the one event in the GISP2 record that shows a greater temperature trend that the current warming has a counter response in Antarctica. I'm still looking into Bond events, but I believe that is specifically called Bond event 5 at 8200 years BP.
93895. Jeff T at 08:56 AM on 4 March 2011
       Putting a new finger on climate change
       @actually thoughtful and Marcus, DB explains the carbon isotope ratio in the post, but some further clarification might help. C12 and C13 are the stable isotopes of carbon. The ratio C13/C12 is about 1% on earth (C14 is much less abundant. It is radioactive and is used for dating biological materials, but it is not the subject of the post.) Since plants have a preference for C12, biological materials are enriched in C12. Consequently, the ratio C13/C12 is smaller in fossil fuels than it is in the atmosphere and burning of fossil fuels ought to dilute C13 in the atmosphere. The figure confirms that expectation. (The red scale in the figure is inverted. Although the red curve goes up to the right, the ratio C13/C12 is decreasing with time.)
93896. Tom Curtis at 08:36 AM on 4 March 2011
       Hockey Stick Own Goal
       angusmac @132, your contention that it is inappropriate to compare the recent instrumental record with past proxy records is incorrect. The simple fact is that we do not have a broad range of proxy records with global coverage extending to the very recent past, with most proxy records extending to the 1990's at best. Therefore, a comparison of proxy records alone must be restricted to a comparison of 1980's temperatures to past temperatures, which as you point out, show near equality. But, we know from the instrumental record that the 2000's are substantially warmer than the 1980's. To insist that we should then ignore that additional knowledge is specious, and if we do not the conclusion that current temperatures are probably warmer any in the MWP or Roman WP follows. Of course, ideally we would extend the proxy record to the most recent times with high quality proxies that continue to track local temperatures over the whole calibration period. Can I expect you to by lobbying your local politician's to pay for just such an effort? Having said that, I disagree with the moderator's (DB's) responce. Northern Iberian temperatures are regional temperatures, and by themselves cannot be used as a proxy for global temperatures - a point being well established in the "Core of the Ice" threads.
       Moderator Response: [DB] I'm sorry, Tom, if that is how that is being interpreted. My intent was to compare the Iberian data only to "the MWP is warmer" claim. Your entire statement here is 100% correct. I have added a clarification to my response to angusmac accordingly.
93897. Daniel Bailey at 08:30 AM on 4 March 2011
       Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
       Tamino has a new post up: Spring training's going to be rough on dos' playing da outdoor hockey up der, eh? The Yooper
93898. invicta at 08:22 AM on 4 March 2011
       No Illusions podcast interview (and elocution lessons from an 11 year old)
       invicta Maybe the question is what 'matters most, style or substance?' I have to agree with Johns daughter regarding his front of microphone technique but the replies he gave directly addressed the question and were scientifically defendable. If you compare this with for example the performance of Monckton (see Monckton Myths) whose utterances litter the web, he (Monckton) is able to answer any question with breathtaking disregard for the science and ,if this doesn't break the posting policy of sks, the universally accepted truth without so much as an er um or hint of a blush. 97% of climate scientist agree the basic argument of AGW is won but the struggle to convince the wider public and therefore electorate has a long way to go. Communication is a key part of this. BTW if you think things are bad with a eleven year old knowing everything just wait until she's sixteen.
93899. scaddenp at 08:03 AM on 4 March 2011
       Ice age predicted in the 70s
       thepoodlebites - I prefer my opinions to based on reliable data dont you?
93900. Daniel Bailey at 08:02 AM on 4 March 2011
       Prudent Path Week: Polar Regions
       Hey, I'm going back-to-back! Does that make me a double-threat? ;) Patrick Lockerby has just posted his first Arctic Ice update of 2011 in which he also suggests the melt has probably begun (see his post here). A teaser quote:

       "...why I expect the central Arctic to be essentially ice-free by the end of this Arctic summer 2011"

       I luv melt season! The Yooper

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