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JMurphy at 21:50 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
The Inconvenient Sceptic wrote : "We all know that next year will see a drop in global temperatures, but that is meaningless by itself. Many Skeptics will rejoice and the AGW crowd will talk about 2010 being the warmest year ever." Before we "all" can agree on next year, what do you mean by "drop in global temperature" ? Compared to this year ? Last year ? The average, of some form ? Please explain. As for the "Skeptics", they rejoice at any poorly-understood figure, whether it be temperature, ice extent, ocean heat, etc., so no change there. As usual, it will be best to ignore them. Who can tell whether 2010 will be the warmest year ? If it is, at least it will stop the so-called skeptics from using one of their zombie arguments - "global warming stopped in 1998" - although, I suppose, they will then move on to "global warming stopped in 2010"... -
adelady at 21:17 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
John. ENSO and AMO are not _causes_ of heating and cooling, just as seasonal cycles and nightfall / sunrise aren't. They are cycles, they are just longer as well as less regular than seasonal or overnight or tidal cycles. It's what happens within those cycles that matters. -
JMurphy at 21:11 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
You got there before I did, bratisla, but it is also worth noting that the St. Roch's previous attempt took over 2 years to complete. Conditions were obviously not as ice-free as they have been in at least the last 10 years, as can be seen from the number of successful attempts by all sort of sailing vessels, usually without any form of ice-breaking facilities. Wikipedia has lots of details and further information. -
adelady at 21:10 PM on 8 November 2010Skeptical Science moving into solutions
Funny you should raise this now. I've been thinking that we should have a lot more input from the biological science side. And when you're talking about "It's too hard" there must be some biological science backing up the argument I once heard from a gardening magazine about gardening saving the world by carbon sequestration. It's be nice to get away from power generation and public transport solutions every now and again. No till, mulching, and other techniques accumulating rather than releasing carbon from growing food (or forests for that matter) must have had some serious research. Clearly retaining soil and deepening it is a good thing in its own right. There must be some reasonalby good quality stuff on this from agriculture and horticulture, maybe even permaculture - do they have a respectable scientific journal? -
CBDunkerson at 21:07 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Norman #52: "Mars currently has more CO2 in its atmopshere than Earth does" Yes, but as you note, Mars is further from the Sun. Ergo, it would need alot more CO2 in its atmosphere to have liquid water. Citations of 'fun facts for kids' sites aside, there is more to the temperature on Mars (and any other planet) than distance from the Sun. That is a major factor, but not the only determinant. Again, every examination of the theory that Mars once had liquid water I have seen includes the pre-requisite that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere. You cite Wikipedia for the next bit... take a look at what they have to say about "Atmosphere of Mars". "Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars at the various points in their life, and by simulating stellar structure with computer models." You seem to have ignored everything before the word "and". The part about "observing numerous stars at various points in their life"? That's exactly what I was referring to. We have observed that stars later in their life cycle are hotter. No model required. Yes, there are ALSO models of the nuclear fusion processes in stars which indicate that they should get hotter over time... but that's just our understanding of nuclear physics confirming what we have observed directly. Your cavalier dismissal of all things modeled doesn't make the observed reality of stellar warming suddenly go away. Rather, it suggests that our understanding of the physics involved in stars may be wrong... but we somehow got the right answer (warming as they age) anyway. -
Esop at 21:05 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
John (#26): (As you probably know), more precipitation is not quite a disproof of AGW, rather the opposite as a warming atmosphere can hold more moisture. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 21:00 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
The ENSO and the AMO both cause warming or cooling depending on the phase that is active. That is part of why there is natural variation in temperature. Things are never exactly the same twice. We all know that next year will see a drop in global temperatures, but that is meaningless by itself. Many Skeptics will rejoice and the AGW crowd will talk about 2010 being the warmest year ever. The real effect of the ocean cycles is to confuse the data and allow either side to take advantage of the current phase. That is not helpful to anyone. The real focus of both sides should be to ignore the understood variations and determine what the climate is doing. Triumphing understood anomalies because the results are what is desired ends up discrediting the significant results. Already my location in the US is far ahead of normal precipitation for this time of year. 25% of the monthly rainfall happened yesterday. That is a La Nina effect for my location. I do not triumph the cooler, wetter weather as proof that no global warming is happening, but accept that it as part of a natural cycle. John Kehr The Inconvenient Skeptic -
Esop at 20:46 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
It is interesting to note that the UAH channel 4 and 5 temperatures are now back at all time record levels, despite the strong La Nina. UAH SST's are also going straight up at the moment. As mentioned above, when the next big El Nino hits, and the solar cycle has gained some momentum, it will get warm. Quickly. -
bratisla at 20:41 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
(first post here, so first and foremost many thanks for this very interesting and insightful site). I was a bit intrigued by the claim that a ship managed to get through the NW passage in 1944, since it means that it could have been a far safer way for the US and Canada to bring equipment to URSS. So I dug a bit, and I found an (interesting) article from the Calgary university about this exploit : http://www.ucalgary.ca/arcticexpedition/larsenexpeditions It states that the St Roch was an Arctic ship with extra-hard and heavy hull, and in 1944 it was fitted with larger engines to break more easily ice. An icebreaker, to be short. We cannot therefore deduce from this trip that NW passage was ice free in 1944. -
RSVP at 20:37 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Phila #56 "...modern climatology will be overthrown, and its adherents revealed as frauds and fools," This kind of thing doesnt happen. At worst they will say something like, "around the turn of the century, the prevalent theory was..., but since then it has been clearly demonstrated that...". So you have nothing to fear in that sense, but what one does see is a lot of resistance to inquiry, or what might be considered offensive questioning. -
CBDunkerson at 20:28 PM on 8 November 2010CO2 has a short residence time
DB, thanks for those graphs. They seem to confirm something that I've been meaning to ask about. Specifically, we know that right now the oceans are absorbing about half the CO2 human industry releases each year. It would seem logical that if we stopped releasing all that CO2 the oceans would then start to absorb some of the excess we have built up... which would lead to an initial rapid decline in atmospheric CO2 level and then a long slow decline once equilibrium between the atmosphere and oceans was reached. This matches what is shown in the chart. Thus, while it would take tens of thousands of years to get back down to the historical level of ~280 ppm from where we are now there is still a lot to be gained from limiting emissions as quickly as possible... because that could allow us to drop back down to 350 ppm or lower within a few decades. The biggest problem is really our continuous CO2 emissions... our annual output is overwhelming what the natural sinks can 'sequester' (short term) each year and building up in the atmosphere. If we reduced emissions by about half there'd be no further atmospheric accumulation, and if we reduced emissions further than 50% atmospheric levels would start to drop. -
MarkR at 18:54 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
The 0.6 °C claim comes from looking at shorter term temperatures; maybe daily or weekly. So in a way it's correct, I think your post should clarify the difference. In annual terms it's far smaller, but from an El Nino peak the difference can be 0.6 ° C. -
Phila at 16:50 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Norman: A model can imply a generalization of patterns and perform fairly well, it cannot determine a specific case. I am sure astronomers will see various exceptions to predictions and rules. They may indeed. Still, the fact remains that anyone who chooses to bet on exceptions rather than scientific "predictions and rules" is likely to lose. The smart money tends to be against it, just as it's against the idea that modern climatology will be overthrown, and its adherents revealed as frauds and fools, by a bunch of carping amateurs who can't be bothered to do basic homework on the topics they claim to understand better than the experts. -
Tom Dayton at 16:06 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Norman, one of the causes for the drastic reduction in CO2 of the Martian atmosphere probably was the stripping of the atmosphere by the solar wind, in the absence of protective Martian magnetic fields. -
Marcus at 15:52 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Another significant point lost of the so-called "skeptics" here (I really do wish they'd stop saying they're "skeptics", because they're NOT) is that this decade was also dominated by the deepest solar minimum in over 100 years-yet in spite of this fact, global temperatures for 2000-2009 was still about +0.2 degrees warmer than for the whole of 1990-1999. Yet, if the "skeptics" are to be believed, then apparently we shouldn't be concerned about this. -
Tom Dayton at 15:47 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Norman, why do you assume that a thicker ancient Martian atmosphere had the same amount of CO2 as today's Martian atmosphere? Instead, the current CO2 is what's left over after much of the original CO2 degraded in various ways, and crucially different from the case of the Earth, was not replaced by volcanic activity (due to lack of plate tectonics recycling crust). The ability of Mars to have had liquid water depends on several factors, most of which differed from now. The coolness of the Sun in ancient times would have been balanced by other factors. -
johnd at 15:40 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
John Bruno at 13:03 PM, what is being overlooked is that the most recent El-Nino was identified as an El-Nino Modoki. An El-Nino Modoki is very different to the normal El-Nino as explained in this:- Impacts of recent El Nin˜o Modoki on dry/wet conditions in the Pacific rim during boreal summer Abstract Present work uses 1979–2005 monthly observational data to study the impacts of El Nin˜o Modoki on dry/wet conditions in the Pacific rim during boreal summer. The El Nin˜o Modoki phenomenon is characterized by the anomalously warm central equatorial Pacific flanked by anomalously cool regions in both west and east. Such zonal SST gradients result in anomalous two-cell Walker Circulation over the tropical Pacific, with a wet region in the central Pacific. There are two mid-tropospheric wave trains passing over the extratropical and subtropical North Pacific. They contain a positive phase of a Pacific-Japan pattern in the northwestern Pacific, and a positive phase of a summertime Pacific-North American pattern in the northeastern Pacific/North America region. The western North Pacific summer monsoon is enhanced, while the East Asian summer monsoon is weakened. In the South Pacific, there is a basin-wide low in the mid-latitude with enhanced Australian high and the eastern South Pacific subtropical high. Such an atmospheric circulation pattern favors a dry rim surrounding the wet central tropical Pacific. The El Nin˜o Modoki and its climate impacts are very different from those of El Nin˜o. Possible geographical regions for dry/wet conditions influenced by El Nin˜o Modoki and El Nin˜o are compared. The two phenomena also have very different temporal features. El Nin˜o Modoki has a large decadal background while El Nin˜o is predominated by interannual variability. Mixing-up the two different phenomena may increase the difficulty in understanding their mechanisms, climate impacts, and uncertainty in their predictions. -
Daniel Bailey at 15:26 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Re: HumanityRules (13) Missed your question earlier, sorry. The referenced quote "similar, perhaps, to a future anthropogenic greenhouse maximum" of about 4,000 PPM CO2 is a bit odd. It is caveated, however. My interpretation is that the 4,000 PPM CO2 level referenced as a future anthropogenic maximum is if mankind continues its Business As Usual without change (if we "burn it all"), and if the oceans lose ability to sequester CO2 as they have been doing, and if we trigger a methane hydrate/clathrate release as is thought to have occurred during the PETM, than a 4,000 PPM CO2 level is about the maximum achievable. A lot of uncertainly there. But I would not consider it alarmism, but only a reference to an upper limit, caveated appropriately for the intended audience of the magazine. But without seeing the quote in its context, that's as far as I will go. Hope that's clear, The Yooper -
Daniel Bailey at 15:02 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Re: John Bruno (19) I think adelady's point with her music analogy was the common misconception that everything will continue as usual in a warming world with no ill consequences, just warmer. I.e., no synergistic or systemic issues worsening things, no tipping points, no population collapses, etc. And at some point you run out of keys... But what do I know, I'm basically tone deaf. :) PS: Thanks for the excellent post! The Yooper -
John Bruno at 14:43 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Thanks Adelady, although you lost me on the music analogy. - jb -
John Bruno at 14:40 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
scaddenp at 14:01 PM: "More interesting is that La Nina temperatures are now warmer than El Nino temperatures of similar magnitudes in previous decades." Great point, I totally agree. And perhaps why we are seeing coral bleaching during a La Nina. (although there are alternative explanations) -
Paul Magnus at 14:38 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
This is such a sad reflection of the US weather mans abilities. Just pathetic. -
Daniel Bailey at 14:30 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
Re: Camburn (34)"They took the EM and put it on Polar five and flew grids over the Arctic in 2009. The results were much thicker ice than had been anticipated."
Actually, thin, “rotten” ice can electromagnetically masquerade as thick, multiyear sea ice, as was found by Professor David Barber aboard the research vessel (NGCC) Amundsen in 2009. So, an Arctic ice expert with decades of researching the ice takes a ship physically through the areas of thickest multiyear ice in the areas covered by the AWI aerial overflights finds ice, though thick, that is rotten and essentially no barrier to late-season navigation. Nor the type of ice to build a recovery around. This also has been covered here, where they include this link (which references the Barber video). The Yooper -
Norman at 14:23 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
#46 CBDunkerson, Thanks for your response, but from what I have been able to find, Mars currently has more CO2 in its atmopshere than Earth does. Oxygen and Nitrogen are IR inert so if Mars had a thick atmosphere these gases wouldn't help it. "Q) Why is Mars so cold? A) Mars is cold because it is much farther from the Sun than Earth. Because of this, Mars receives about 2.5 times less solar energy than Earth." From Solar Energy reaching Mars. If the Sun was significantly colder eaons ago the amount of radiation reaching Mars would be even less. How would that support liquid water? Not sure what information source you are using for you statement: "Thus, astronomers have been able to study the life cycle of stars in considerable depth. The idea that stars get hotter as they grow older is not, as you seem to imply, some vague hypothesis based on nebulous computer models... it is observed reality." My source makes the claim it is a model..."Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single star, as most stellar changes occur too slowly to be detected, even over many centuries. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars at the various points in their life, and by simulating stellar structure with computer models." Source of above quote. A model can imply a generalization of patterns and perform fairly well, it cannot determine a specific case. I am sure astronomers will see various exceptions to predictions and rules. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 14:19 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
First off the comment Antarctic being ice free because CO2 levels being above 600 ppm is misleading as when Antarctica started to freeze 34 million years ago CO2 levels were 760ppm. The opening of the Drake passage is likely the key factor that caused the initiation of ice sheets in Antarctica. Cause and Effect are very confused as a cooling Antarctic would have reduced global CO2 levels as the oceans would have absorbed it from the atmosphere. This leads to what is always the biggest problem with paleo records with CO2 and temperature. Changes in ocean temperature CAUSE a change in solubility that leads to the observed EFFECT of changing CO2 levels. Determining the climate sensitivity from a CO2 change that is the EFFECT of changing ocean temperatures is meaningless. For example... The LGM to Holocene experienced a 80 ppm change in CO2 levels. The polar regions experienced an ~12 °C change in temperature. The change in solubility of CO2 in water for only a few meters deep of the polar oceans is more than enough to explain the change in CO2. No forcing required. Did the warming cause the CO2 levels to change? Yes. Much like this case. The polar oceans warmed, even if they were ice free, any water below 18 °C experiences significant changes in CO2 solubility with temperature. How can the climate sensitivity be determined from the FEEDBACK of warming oceans releasing CO2? It can't. Much like the cooling Antarctic region would have reduced global CO2 levels. Saying that lower CO2 levels CAUSED the cooling is not accurate. It is fully accurate to say that cooling oceans CAUSE lower CO2 levels. Much like warming oceans CAUSE higher CO2 levels. Fortunately the solubility of water is not open to debate. John Kehr The Inconvenient Skeptic -
adelady at 14:15 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Typo alert - mistakenly not mistakingly. I do get fed up with this stuff about 'there was record cold somewhere'. Climate change is not like a key change in a piece of piano music - you don't just shift everything up a tone or a third so that everything is the same just with each note played a bit further up the keyboard. -
Stephen Baines at 14:15 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
The thing that scares me is that we may be due for a strong El Nino (1998-, 1982-, 1972- like) after this La Nina is over. There seems to be a 10-15 year interval between the big events, and if that coincides with increasing solar inputs...well, it'll get something hot pretty quick. Not looking forward to that. -
Ned at 14:14 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
I am deeply unimpressed by the claim that "the 2009-10 El Nino IS the second strongest since 1998". If you look over a slightly longer time frame (say, going back to 1950) there have been at least five El Ninos that were stronger than 2009-2010: 1972-1973 1982-1983 1987-1988 1991-1992 1997-1998 That aside, Camburn should think hard about this comment by scaddenp: More interesting is that La Nina temperatures are now warmer than El Nino temperatures of similar magnitudes in previous decades. Yes, exactly. What is now considered a "cold" year (say, 2008) would have been a record warm year any time before 1998. -
Ned at 14:05 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Camburn writes: Also, the GISS temp data has become the outlier of all data sets. The 1200K radius is not effective at extrapolating air temperatures. Evidence, please. The GISSTEMP trend (1979-present) is virtually indistinguishable from those in other temperature reconstructions. When I wrote this, it was actually identical to most other land/ocean temperature reconstructions (to within the nearest 0.01 C/decade). It's true that they all do bounce up and down from month to month, and right now GISSTEMP happens to show a microscopically larger trend than the other major temperature reconstructions: NOAA NCDC: +0.163 C/decade NASA GISS: +0.166 C/decade UEA CRU: +0.158 C/decade RSS LT: +0.164 C/decade UAH LT: +0.140 C/decade Insofar as there is any "outlier", it's obviously UAH. In any case, the 1200km smoothing radius used by GISS is just fine. Again, see here for a debunking of many myths about the surface temperature record. -
scaddenp at 14:01 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Second strongest since 1998 is not same as "second strongest". 1983 and 1973 were also stronger. But since these are wiggles on a trend, I still want to understand why you think it is in significant. Obviously you will get record warms in El Nino not La Nina. That's obvious. More interesting is that La Nina temperatures are now warmer than El Nino temperatures of similar magnitudes in previous decades. -
Colorado Bob at 13:58 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
From the US - Climate scientists plan campaign against global-warming skeptics The American Geophysical Union plans to announce Monday that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. The effort is a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-climate-scientists-20101108,0,3784003.story -
Stephen Baines at 13:55 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
John Bruno is correct. I was watching the NOAA ENSO page regularly because it was relevant context for a couple of papers I was writing at the time. The last El Nino was pretty medicore one - although it persisted for a while longer than initially predicted. It also tended to be most obvious in the Central Pacific rather than along South America. The MEI plotted above can be hard to interpret. Eastern Pacific SS temperature anomolies were typically in the 0.5-1.5 C range (El Nino conditions hold when three consecutive 3 month running averages exceed 0.5). For comparison, anomalies in 1998 were >4.0 C over large at times. I don't know where this notion that it was a strong El Nino comes from. Maybe its a misintrepretation of the phrase "strongest since 1998." Since El Nino's have a 4-7 year frequency, all that phrase boils down to is "it was the strongest since the one before last." Not as impressive. This La Nina looks a whopper though. Wish I was out taking samples (though I'd probably get sea sick!). -
Camburn at 13:54 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
Muoncounter: What is the effect of cosmic rays? -
Camburn at 13:52 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
muoncounter: Did you read more or just the first few paragraphs? In case you didn't: "An advantage of the EM technique is that it can be deployed from helicopters or airplanes. In the summer of 2001, a new helicopterborne EM sensor ("EM-Bird") was operated in the Arctic for the first, yielding high resolution thickness data of good quality. With the EM-Bird, we will now be able to perform systematic large-scale studies of the ice thickness distribution, improving our ability to better judge observations and predictions of possible climate changes" They took the EM and put it on Polar five and flew grids over the Arctic in 2009. The results were much thicker ice than had been anticipated. I will be the first to admit that one year does not prove anything. However, it does prove that there is large variances in ice thickness that were not expected as the 2009 data showed. -
scaddenp at 13:45 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Protestant - trying the "correlation prove causation" again. Did you read responses from the last time? No, the paper attempts to show that a modelled prediction is in accordance with observation. That is how science is done. "They claim there would be almost no greenhouse effect without CO2, thats an outrageous misinterpretation." No, what you are saying is an outrageous misinterpretation. I defy you to find any scientific paper that makes such a claim. From both observations and models, water vapour is temperature-controlled. Sure, water vapour feedbacks amplifies any change in any forcing but to investigate the cause of a trend requires looking at the forcings. -
Camburn at 13:35 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
John: Hate to quible, but the 2009-10 El Nino IS the second strongest since 1998. Your graph shows this. Read the Murphy etal paper. The answer to your question is contained within the paper. As far as GISS, it is the outlier amongst the big 4. RSS/UAH and CRU. The Arctic temps that GISS showed the summer of 2010 in the Arctic were approx 4.0C different than DMI temps. GISSTEMP uses one sensor, DMI uses hundreds. -
Stephen Baines at 13:21 PM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
@protestant #42 "Which one of you really believes that we would lose nearly all water wapor and have over 70% cloudiness without CO2? omg..." Actually, I do...and it doesn't take a complex climate model to believe it. Let's try... If you remove all the CO2, the climate will cool as 1/5th of IR absorption by the atmosphere is due to CO2 (that is well measured). You will rightly point out that there is still water vapor present that accounts for at least 75% of the greenhouse effect including clouds (also well measured). But I also know it's raining outside my house right now. That tells me water vapor condenses when the air temperature falls below a critical threshold, and that temperatures on earth often fall below this threshold...we have water in our atmosphere precisely because that atmosphere is warm enough to allow water vapor to keep from precipitating out faster than it evaporates. What happens when we weaken the greenhouse effect by removing CO2? It would lead to a colder atmosphere, which causes evaporation to decrease and precipitation to increase, which leads to a lower greenhouse effect, which cools the earth some more, which causes more water to precipitate, which lowers the greenhouse effect....and on and on until you reach a new much colder and drier equilibrium that depends on the other control knob -- the incoming solar radiation and the earths ability to absorb it and redistribute the remaining heat. You only need the model to estimate that stabilization point and the time frame over which it is reached. You don't need it to tell you that earth would be a lot colder than now in the absence of CO2, and that water would be less abundant. All you need to know that is that it rains, that water vapor absorbs IR radiation and that earth would be a lot colder if there was no greenhouse effect. Those facts are not in dispute. Without an IR absorbing gas(or gasses) that does not condense out when it gets colder, you cannot have a stable climate on earth that is anything like ours. Of course that also means when that non-condensing gas varies in concentration, for whatever reason, climate will follow it. That can happen for natural reasons, as it has in the past, or due to human impacts, as it does now. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:11 PM on 8 November 2010CO2 has a short residence time
Here's a nice graphic to help visualize the "long tail" of atmospheric CO2 (the very long residence time):
Kinda heightens the imperative to the danger excess CO2 carries: there is no quick fix.
Temps that go up will, like the CO2 elevations, go down slowly.
On the plus side, no ice ages in our immediate futures!
The Yooper
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John Bruno at 13:03 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
"The El Nino of early 2010 was not "mild" according to NOAA this El Nino was the strongest one since 1998. While this El Nino was not nearly as strong as the 1998 El Nino it still met the criteria for being a moderate to strong El Nino." - Karamanski at 12:26 PM "Yes, the El Nino of 2009-2010 was the 2nd strongest according to NOAA." - Camburn at 12:34 Sorry, your'e both wrong. The 09/10 El Nino was "mild" according to NASA and was not even among the top 7 strongest of the last 50 years. Take a look at the NOAA MEI graph below and then tell me you want to argue the 09/10 El Nino was anything but mild-to-average:
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muoncounter at 12:41 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
#32: "Using fixed wing aircraft, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research found the ice to be thicker than anticipated." From the AWI website: The results have been obtained by means of computations with a numerical dynamic-thermodynamic sea ice model, using six-hourly atmospheric forcing data. Perhaps some modeling is part of that work after all? "the effect of magnetic flux on high latitude temperatures." Sounds like you may have heard that its all due to cosmic rays? Been there, done that: no dice. -
John Bruno at 12:38 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Camburn at 12:32 PM: please explain the relevance of your comments. -
John Bruno at 12:36 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
HumanityRules at 12:08 PM: Sure, if your'e interested in looking at the peak monthly low, then yes, the monthly data might be better. And why not look at daily temps? Or daily temperature in Jupiter FL? (my home town). The finer the spatio-temporal grain of the measurement, the greater the range of the values. Looking at monthly extremes isn't "more accurate". It is just a finer-grained comparison and inevitably yields a greater extreme value. In an older version of the post I had a section speculating Art was doing exactly what you suggested: start at the peak and measure the difference to the following low. To me, this seems a stretch to use this measurement to quantify how much cooler temp is during La Nina. But I suppose it is important to clarify "how much cooler than what?" My relative value was the baseline/neutral point in the cycle/running average, i.e., I suggest using the cycle amplitude, while you are suggesting a peak to valley measure. Your suggestion is always going to be biased by the strength of the preceding cycle peak: a really strong El Nino high followed by a weak La Nina low, would, by your method, be misleading in suggesting the La Nina was very cold or greatly reduced global temperature. Seems like climate cherry picking to me. Keep in mind though, it doesn't matter how great the amplitude of the cycle is, since it just sits atop of an increasing baseline. -JB -
Camburn at 12:34 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Yes, the El Nino of 2009-2010 was the 2nd strongest according to NOAA. And also according to NOAA, this La Nina has recorded the fastest temperature drop of SST since records have been established. This is actually to be expected as Solar Cycle 24 seems to be sleeping. -
Camburn at 12:32 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
The heat graph from Murphy etal uses guestimates for the heat content of the ocean. The ARGO system is not showing the same results as projected in this paper. Also, the GISS temp data has become the outlier of all data sets. The 1200K radius is not effective at extrapolating air temperatures. One of the reasons that the GISS is showing so high is it incorporates Arctic temps that are extrapolated rather then measured. -
Karamanski at 12:26 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
"That is despite the facts that the El Niño that dominated the early months of 2010 was quite mild" The El Nino of early 2010 was not "mild" according to NOAA this El Nino was the strongest one since 1998. While this El Nino was not nearly as strong as the 1998 El Nino it still met the criteria for being a moderate to strong El Nino. -
Camburn at 12:11 PM on 8 November 2010Ice-Free Arctic
The St Rock sailed the northern northwest passage in 1944. Henry Larson was the captain. They left Halifax, Nova Scotia and docked in Vancourver, British Columbia 86 days later. Using fixed wing aircraft, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research found the ice to be thicker than anticipated. This was done in 2009. This is emperical data, not modeled nor guesses from the current satillites. The approx 60 year ice cycle is not dependent on the PDO. Within that 60 year cycle there is also a ten year cycle. Interesting information to study. One other thing that must be taken into consideration is the effect of magnetic flux on high latitude temperatures. There are numerous published papers that show that cause and effect. Here is something from the US Weather Bureau. "The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers … all point to a radical change in climate conditions, and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth's surface. … Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. … Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice have been were found, there are now often moraines... At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea, they have entirely disappeared." The date was October 1922. Antidoal evidence shows that we have a lot to learn about the Arctic and Ice. And the reasons for the increase and decrease of said ice. While co2 potentially plays a part, it is far from the only reason that the ice varies on a decadal scale. -
HumanityRules at 12:08 PM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
I don't think the annual temp record is the best tool for showing the variation in temp introduced by El Nino/La Nina. Here's the monthly data from 1996-2010.
Still not the nicest I know but it does more accurately show how much ENSO affects global temp. You can see the 1998 El Nino introduced 0.7oC of heating. From the peak in 2007 to the low point in 2008 we can see ~0.6oC of cooling in a year.
ENSO seems to have a larger short term affect on temp than you are suggesting here. It's worth considering how much the recent El Nino has contributed to the possible record temperatures for 2010.
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CBDunkerson at 11:32 AM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Norman #46, as it happens there is more than one star in the universe. Thus, astronomers have been able to study the life cycle of stars in considerable depth. The idea that stars get hotter as they grow older is not, as you seem to imply, some vague hypothesis based on nebulous computer models... it is observed reality. As to Mars... the belief that it once had surface water goes hand in hand with the belief that it once had an Earth-like atmosphere. Just as the greenhouse effect keeps Earth habitable it could have once allowed liquid water on Mars. Now that Mars has lost most of that atmosphere it has very little greenhouse warming... and thus is too cold for liquid water. In short, the Sun is not the only thing which could have made Mars warmer in the past. Odd that you would assume that. -
johnd at 11:07 AM on 8 November 2010Keep those PJs on: a La Niña cannot erase decades of warming
Some interested observers in Australia with vested interests in the weather, are seeing the onset of the current La-Nina as reminiscent of 1974 which was the beginning of 3 consecutive La-Nina years, even to the extent that in the late 60's, south eastern Australia suffered a severe drought that became a benchmark for droughts at the time, and as then, this drought just ended is also being seen as a benchmark drought. The only difference is that those 3 consecutive La-Nina years came to mark the end of 3 decades of generally cooler and wetter weather where there were 25% more La-Nina years than El-Nino years and the IPO was continually in a negative phase, whilst now is being forecast as marking the beginning of another 3 decades pattern of similar conditions. -
Norman at 10:56 AM on 8 November 2010Climate change from 40 million years ago shows climate sensitivity to CO2
Did not put up the link I will use Hyperlink. This chart shows the amount of IR CO2 will absorb from the IR spectrum. Chart of CO2 absorption ability.
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