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Rob Honeycutt at 06:44 AM on 17 September 2010The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Baz... "As I understand it, if the oceans don't heat, then it's over!" I honestly think that Dr Pielke is playing a dangerous game with his own professional reputation. If the "oceans don't heat" then there's a lot of explaining to do. Why are the ice caps melting? Why is Greenland's ice mass loss accelerating? Why are season start and end dates changing? Why is sea level rise accelerating? Why to the climate sensitivity data accurately explain paleoclimate? Why are we getting very consistent warming data from satellite and ground based temperature readings? This is just to name a very very few of the thousands of empirical observations detailed right here on the Skeptical Science site. Why are we getting these thousands of bits of information very consistently pointing at the same answer? Yes, I know there are data that isn't consistent as well, but these are FAR fewer than the one's that point to AGW. And these have the nasty propensity to be very inconsistent in their explanations and mechanisms. Yes, if the ARGO data continues to show no warming we need to figure out where Trenberth's "missing heat" is. Pielke is putting himself out there where Dr Spencer was with the UAH satellite data that was showing cooling until the data was fixed. Spencer suffered a huge loss of credibility when we found out the problem with his data. Pielke would be wise to tread more carefully as he wades into similar waters. -
scaddenp at 06:24 AM on 17 September 2010It's El Niño
Ken. So do I but Erl apparently does not. -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Baz - Would you prefer the term "less alkaline"? Whether you like or not, "acidification" is the term used for the pH change of the oceans. And disagreements about terminology does not change either the physical reality of the pH change or its effects on the ocean organisms. Incidentally, thanks for the response on the time-frames for considering warming/cooling trends. 30 years for a climate measure seems to be the consensus view based upon internal variability and instrument noise. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:17 AM on 17 September 2010The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Baz... Actually, it's not just the scientists who are saying that we DO know enough to act. It's the economists who are pasting the climate models onto economic models. There is a tremendous amount of research that has gone into creating that IPCC range for climate sensitivity of 1.5C to 6.2C, with ~3C being "best fit." Today the costs involved to deal with climate change are actually manageable. But each year we go without serious action pushes us into extremely hazardous territory. People keep saying, you buy fire insurance for your home on the tiny risk that something terrible will happen. If there is a 10% chance that we are out past the 3C mark then we should be doing something BIG... right NOW! What you have to understand is, with people like Dr Pielke, they are the voices that are keeping the IPCC numbers down. There are other voices saying the IPCC numbers are too low. The IPCC is required to listen to all those voices and give an opinion on the science. If you are JUST listening to Pielke you are cutting out 95% of the information on the issue of climate change. Likewise, if you listen to others you'll get a skewed sense that we are destined to hit 7C+ by 2100. Personally, I don't think it's 1.5C. And I don't think it's 7C. The extremes are invariably always wrong. But the middle is still concerning enough to take action. You definitely don't want to sink the world economy. No one is suggesting that. But solid market based solutions are required to address this. Now. -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Dear Adam C at 220. You say that I wrote this: "("I work with acids, so you're wrong")." And you actually put it in speech marks - as if it were verbatim. What I actually wrote in Post 130 was this: "As the owner of this site can confirm from my registration details, I work with acids, and I hate the ter(m) "acidification" as it's just plain wrong." I'm surprised that comments like yours don't get deleted - when they are so obviously in error. If you want to bark at someone on a forum such as this, and even draw in cliches like 'strawman' and 'cherry-picking' (congrats, you managed to get two cliches in one post!) then at the very least make an attempt to get your facts correct. It serves no purpose to poke or bark, but it's also a useless waste of time if you actually get your facts wrong when quoting someone. -
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
Arkadiusz - the paper you link in your post does seem to provide some evidence linking the PDO to the SOI and ENSO. This isn't my field - I find it difficult to evaluate as a result. But there's certainly nothing in there about the PDO forcing the last 50 years of increasing temperatures. As to Dr. Spencer's graph - that's another horror of bad data manipulation. He shows no evidence of removed CO2 (and other factor) forcings from his data; the warming is built in. He's also working with rate of change (the derivative) rather than total change; in any modeling system I know of that increases your noise considerably. Ned's graph is far more interesting, and I believe, more relevant to this discussion. -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Rob Honeycutt 226. Thanks for your reply. And of course, as I have stated, I agree with the physics behind CO2 and the warming that has occurred, and I agree with most of your concluding paragraph. Where I disagree is that we DON'T know enough. I admit that it's a gamble which could turn horrific. But my money is on the mild result. Quite seriously, I would like 10 more years before we worry. Now, some would say that's 10 years we haven't got. But you could say that the world ain't gonna change anyways! And that we should spend it on adaption rather than change. But to me, a layman, it all appears as though we simply don't know enough - and that's been reinforced by spending the past hour reading the Ocean Heat Content thread on this site (with comments by Prof Pielke). I appreciate that some on here want 30 years before 'admitting' that we got it wrong. That's an awful long time, and a lot of money spent trying to change something that changes itself. Not being a scientist, I didn't have the intellectual constraints, and obviously chose a much shorter time to jump ship. The next few years is going to be mighty interesting - OHC and surface temps. As I understand it, if the oceans don't heat, then it's over! Thanks to those that were polite and answered my questions. I shall stay here as there's lots to read. Again, thanks. -
Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
johnd - I take it you have not read my post on the conditions relevant to radiation fog? The ground radiates to the sky, with said IR being intercepted over the first 100+ meters or so. The first 1 meter of air intercepts very little of this energy. The ground then cools the air via conduction. That's why (when it progresses to the condensation point) this effect of cold low level air is called "radiation fog". It occurs via IR radiation heat transfer. There's really no puzzle here. -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
e. 222, See above. -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Soory, I should expand on that. I actually asked (in my ignorance) why I should continue to use HadCRUt when the rest of the world seemed to switching over to GISS. I was pleased to get an email from Mr Jones himself stating that GISS uses proxies for Arctic cover. He didn't tell me how far away that proxy was - that DID come from a sceptic site! -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
scaddenp. Sorry that you missed my earlier post, that my 'GISS uses proxies' actually came from Phil Jones, not a "denialist site" (what a charming term?). -
The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Paul Daniel Ash 225. That would be 204 then, would it? - my reply to 'The Yooper'. Can't understand why you didn't see it. In 199 you said, "Any response to the other information in my comment?" Yet in 225 you say "I was not asking questions" Well I beg to differ - I spy a question mark. It was to THAT comment that I replied, "There was only one question mark in your 177, and I responded." Clear? -
CoalGeologist at 05:16 AM on 17 September 2010The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
@#18: It may be repetitious to note that of the data shown on this graph, only the PDO has been normalized to remove the impact of warming. The residual shows the amount that the temperature deviations of the Northern Pacific have differed from the global average. The data source you referenced state that "monthly mean global average SST anomalies are removed to separate this pattern of variability from any "global warming" signal. It doesn't specify how the anomaly is removed, but the implication is that even when this is done, the PDO Index still shows a negative residual during the 50s, 60s, & 70s. Correlation does not, of course, imply causation, but two possible hypotheses are that processes related to the PDO were responsible for some component of temperature change during this interval, or that both were affected by something else. The important part of this graph begins in the mid-1980s, when the two trends begin to markedly diverge. Please correct me if I'm wrong. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:42 AM on 17 September 2010Video update on Arctic sea ice in 2010
CBDunkerson... Not only that but they traveled for an additional 3 days to find the MY ice. He said they were doing 13 knots. That's potentially (though he did not state this) another 1000 NM. AND he said other ships in the area were experiencing the same. -
muoncounter at 04:11 AM on 17 September 2010The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
#18: "Here's a figure" Wow, that's quite the graph. The conclusions seem inescapable: when CO2 takes over as the dominant 'forcing', temps rise in a corresponding fashion. This took place in the late 70's-early 80's, matching the predictions made by Hansen et al., not in 1988, but in 1981. If there isn't a Ned fan club, there should be! -
Albatross at 03:59 AM on 17 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
Great graphic @3 Boba. Nicely done. -
muoncounter at 03:55 AM on 17 September 2010How much did aerosols contribute to mid-20th century cooling?
#14: "The 1940s coincided with some historically cataclysmic events - Any chance this might have had some climatic impacts?" The sulphate emissions curve (red) on the graph above has a bump which appears to be WW2, as does the carbon emissions graph from CDIAC data shown below.
But the scale of the emissions during the more recent decades seems to overwhelm.
Note to John C.: Sorry, I was using width=480; I will downsize in the future.
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Daniel Bailey at 03:53 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
Re: GnDoty (601, 602, 605, et al) My impression, reading your posts, is that you have been disinformed (as opposed to misinformed) as to the basics of climate change and CO2's role in regulating temperatures. No harm in ignorance, as long as one is truly seeking a better understanding of things. Here's a short version of CO2's role as a greenhouse gas. I would add to that the fact that the amount of fossil fuel CO2 concentrations man adds yearly to the atmosphere is 100 times that as produced annually by all of the Earth's volcanoes worldwide. CO2 is intricately linked to global temperatures and is the biggest temperature control knob of the GHG's. We see in the paleo record that natural changes in forces have operated historically at the millennial and geologic timescales. Change typically is slow. The record is punctuated, however, by short bursts of rapid change in both CO2 concentrations and temperatures. The paleo record is a good place to look for context. However, there is no comparable point anywhere in the record where CO2 levels have spiked so dramatically on such a short timescale. In 150 years, man has raised CO2 concentrations 40% of pre-industrial (read: the maximal levels of CO2 concentrations in inter-glacial periods). The rate of change is now the issue. Because of that, various feedbacks that could be expected to arise when change is slow seem to be not occurring as previous. For example, the ability of the oceans to sequester CO2 seems to be dropping (the base of the oceanic food chain, phytoplankton levels have dropped 40% in the last 40 years), the volume of the Arctic Ice Sheet is at an all-time low (surprise: the Arctic Ice Sheet acts as a carbon sink as well) and we may be seeing the pole area ice-free in summers as early as 2012 (inhibiting its function as a carbon sink). I will mention but not even discuss methane clathrate/hydrate releases already underway. We now know that we need never worry about Ice Ages again (one large factory can emit enough CO2 yearly to forestall decent into ice ages). The biggest remaining worry: will we still be able to produce enough food in a changing climate (droughts and floods play havoc with soil productivity) to support a population expected to reach 9 billion? Between unendurable heat and floods (Pakistan is the current poster child for both) becoming commonplace & suppressed food production will eventually cause significant human losses and migrations, creating enormous social and political unrest. Wars will occur, possible with nuclear exchanges. This is what the science is telling us. This is what the future holds in store. You are intelligent. I have read your comments. All that is lacking is a better understanding, one not blocked by an active disinformation campaign. Fill your mind with the coins of your pocket and your mind will fill your pockets with gold. The Yooper -
JMurphy at 03:28 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty, it appears that you believe in a conspiracy by politicians and scientists to take all our money, remove all our freedoms and lord it over us ? Even if you don't actually believe all that, it would appear that your political beliefs are getting in the way of the facts. If that is not the case, you will obviously want to learn more and this website is good for that. Start here and here, then look at the following skeptical arguments : Climate's Changed Before CO2 Lags Temperature It's Freaking Cold ! There's No Correlation Between CO2 and Temperature Humans are too Insignificant to affect Global Climate Precipitation and Storm Changes (From the EPA - there are further links there) If you are truly serious about the truth about all this, you will look at the above and then come back and tell us what you disagree with and why.Moderator Response: Indeed, GnDoty, please not only read the posts at those links, but put your comments on whichever of those posts is relevant. This post is narrowly focused. Off topic comments usually are deleted. -
mspelto at 03:22 AM on 17 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
An interesting experience that Boba's graph reminded me of. I was completing multiple regression analysis of the mass balance record of the Lemon Creek Glacier, Alaska. This is a 50 year long record. I compared mass balance to 10 different circulation indices from PDO to ENSO and AO. However, I failed to remove the year column before running the data. Year came out with the best correlation of all. Simply put in the last 40 years anyway year has been a decent proxy for temperature.
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Daniel Bailey at 03:21 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
Re: sun tzu (600) Spot-on, sir. Diagnosis 100% correct. Blinders off. The down side to being able to see is this realization: most people intuitively understand that we are "heading for a cliff", which is why they close their eyes, stick their fingers in the ears, bury their heads in the sand & repeatedly mumble "it can't happen, it can't happen..." It can, it will, it's almost here. Very sobering, this seeing thing. The Yooper -
GnDoty at 03:17 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
My replies have been between classes so I apologize for the short responses. "Has anyone said anything about "controlling" climate?" Well yes, you did when you said "Controlling? Well, that's another matter--but it will be tried over the next century, even if the attempt is blunt, unwieldy, and ultimately does more harm than good." So you're telling me we are more worried about the acidity of the ocean from CO2 saturation (which is balanced by higher temperatures causing more evaporation) than places like the mississipi delta dead zones due to fertilizers from agriculture up-river. I'm glad we agree this is about money and power. -
dsleaton at 02:36 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty--that's ridiculous. Has anyone said anything about "controlling" climate? Are you saying that humans can't change climate? If we dropped ten nuclear bombs in ten large volcanoes, the thirty-year trends would certainly be affected, and that's a tiny amount of power we can wield over our environment. We have the power to kill most of the life on this planet in a matter of days. I wonder if that would affect climate? The oceans are becoming more acid due to relatively rapid saturation with CO2, and life, marine biologists reveal, is having a hard time adapting in such a short time. Where might this added CO2 have come from, I wonder? The time is long, long past where we wonder whether or not we have an effect on the nature of Earth. We eradicate species on a weekly basis. At what point in the process of replacing nature with concrete and asphalt do you suddenly realize that humans (a part of nature, by the way) are quite capable of changing climate? Controlling? Well, that's another matter--but it will be tried over the next century, even if the attempt is blunt, unwieldy, and ultimately does more harm than good. Climate certainly does change without the influence of humans, but you're willfully ignoring the nature of this recent, very rapid climate change that is occurring against the grain of several your major natural cycles. Why aren't "we" as a species taking responsibility for this change? I'll tell you: money and power. -
CBDunkerson at 02:08 AM on 17 September 2010Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
ClimateWatcher #64, "Of course, if water vapor is providing positive feedback, one can still question why the warming rate is below the best estimate for the low end of IPCC projections." Only if they are living in a fantasy world where the statement above ISN'T nonsense. Observed warming is within the range of IPCC projections, not below the low end. Have you been listening to Monckton's fictional accounts of 'IPCC projections' which don't actually appear anywhere in the IPCC reports? "Both RSS and UAH, with recent corrections, indicate cooling trends in the pre 1998 data." Oddly the people who actually produce the RSS and UAH data all say that their results show long term warming trends... both pre and post 1998. "Also lost in that tale is that the -middle- troposphere, where models predict the greatest warming, indicates much less warming for both RSS and UAH." Source? -
CBDunkerson at 01:54 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty writes: "I find it interesting the only rebuttle to sun spots driving temperature is a 40 trend, which is a blink of the eye in geologic time." Yes... because it is well known that sunlight travels at speeds best measured in 'geologic time'. PLONK -
GnDoty at 01:47 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
Sorry for my typo, which should have read 40 year trend. You can cherry pick time periods all you want. The fact is climate changes without the influence of man. That's why we find whale fossils in the Sahara Desert and shark teeth in north Texas. The position you are taking is essentially that man is more powerful than mother nature and can control climate. Do you honestly believe humans can prevent climatic events like the many that have occurred in the past. If you answer no for any of those events, then why are we focusing on it. I'll answer for you. Money and power. -
ClimateWatcher at 01:46 AM on 17 September 2010Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
>>>"I take this as saying: The observations must >>>be wrong because they don't match the theory." > >I think it's perfectly reasonable for a paper to >point out that a certain set of observations doesn't >make any sense within current theory. Of course, if water vapor is providing positive feedback, one can still question why the warming rate is below the best estimate for the low end of IPCC projections. >The UAH measurements on tropospheric >warming/cooling were discrepant with ground-level >temperature measurements for over 10 years, and >all the climate community could say for sure was >that it didn't make any sense - until the UAH team >finally figured out their data analysis was in error. Well, for the MSU era, the MSU-LT (of both RSS and UAH ) track pretty well with the Land/Ocean indices (both CRU and GISS). The difference was the observations subsequent to the last big el nino, and not the corrections, however. Both RSS and UAH, with recent corrections, indicate cooling trends in the pre 1998 data. Also lost in that tale is that the -middle- troposphere, where models predict the greatest warming, indicates much less warming for both RSS and UAH. -
Rob Honeycutt at 01:33 AM on 17 September 2010The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
Daniel... And the scary part of this being the hottest year on record is, 1) We're now in an La Nina 2) The PDO is negative 3) We in a deep solar minimum I shudder to think what's going to happen when we flip over to the other side of those three. "Whoops! I think we just found Trenberth's 'missing heat.'" -
robert way at 01:08 AM on 17 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
Agreed, I have to be careful how things are interpreted. Changed accordingly. -
JMurphy at 00:15 AM on 17 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty, as adelady writes, the sunspot numbers representing that "40 trend" (going back to the 60s) are ACTUAL not modelled - apart from the projected figures beyond 2010, of course. Anyway, how about going back to 1850. What's the correlation there ? Shall we go further ? -
It's the sun
GnDoty writes: I find it interesting the only rebuttle to sun spots driving temperature is a 40 trend, which is a blink of the eye in geologic time. So? Why does this strike you as interesting? Let's say you want to explain the modern temperature rise. You have two possible culprits: solar activity or CO2. Prior to this time period (say, 1800s to 1960-ish) solar activity and CO2 were both increasing, so it's not possible to rule either of them out. From the 1970s on, however, solar activity starts decreasing, while CO2 keeps increasing. Thus, solar activity can't explain the post-1970 rise in temperature but CO2 can. It's fairly simple logic. Looking at solar activity over longer time periods is no doubt scientifically interesting, but not really necessary to rule out solar as the cause of recent warming. -
Ken Lambert at 00:04 AM on 17 September 2010It's El Niño
scaddenup #2 My understanding is that ENSO, La Nina, AMO etc are internal re-distributions of heat energy around the globe - not overall gain or loss of heat from the Earth system to space by forcing imbalances. -
Ken Lambert at 23:59 PM on 16 September 2010How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
KL #53 I meant Arkadiusz, not Andreas. Arkadiusz - your posts are full of interest if hard to read and absorb. A mine of information. -
adelady at 23:54 PM on 16 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty at 23:42 PM on 16 September, 2010 .... physical and not computer modelling. I'm not sure what you're getting at. I had a quick look through Jmurphy's references and there were a couple of projected trends but apart from that, all the other information, like the one I referred you to, were simply records of temperatures or observations of sunspots and related phenomena. Do you have a specific question about any of these? -
Ken Lambert at 23:52 PM on 16 September 2010How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
dana1981 #51 The Anthropogenic (AG) forcings and natural 'Solar' in Fig 2.4 AR4 are calculated 'changes' from AD1750, the critical point being that the AG forcings were 'zero' in AD1750, so the AG values are referenced to a zero baseline; whereas the Solar forcing in AD1750 is not nesessarily 'zero'. That means that you can reconstruct the AG forcings (with proxies and theory) back to AD1750 and draw the curves from a 'zero' baseline in AD1750. The area under these curves represents the energy added or subtracted from the Earth system. If you do the same for Solar forcing you need to know what the value was in AD1750, referenced to a 'zero' solar forcing. This 'zero' solar forcing would be the TSI where the Earth was neither warming nor cooling. Since the Earth was warming out of the Maunder Minimum from about AD1715 the chances are that Solar forcing was greater than zero in AD1750, and that the area under a forcing curve drawn from AD1750 to the present will have a stating point above zero, which adds a slice of area (energy) 250 years x starting point (AD1750) forcing in W/sq.m. This could be a large number of Joules. kdkd #59 - this negates your point 1) and 2) OHC measurement is not the issue here - just that 90%+ of any long term heat gain must store in the oceans. -
GnDoty at 23:42 PM on 16 September 2010It's the sun
I find it interesting the only rebuttle to sun spots driving temperature is a 40 trend, which is a blink of the eye in geologic time. If you feel compelled to reveal further evidence, please do so as physical, and not computer modeling. -
mspelto at 22:27 PM on 16 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
The mass balance of glaciers which in turn controls long term terminus behavior is not primarily the result of localized conditions. This is borne out by the consistency of mass balance response regionally and terminus behavior regionally. Localized conditions generate some differences from glacier to glacier, but withing a mountain range the responses tend to be dominantly similar. Note the graph that I used in the BAMS 2008 report on North American glacier mass balance or at Realclimate. Thus, we have found that in terms of year to year climate change it is regional, local, global in terms of order of importance. The high correlation North Cascades glacier mass balance-Table 3 exceeding 0.8 on all of the glaciers. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 22:26 PM on 16 September 2010The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
Here CDIAC you can see as "powerful" smoothed CO2 data from ice cores - the Law Dome. -
CBDunkerson at 22:18 PM on 16 September 2010Video update on Arctic sea ice in 2010
HR, you concede that Barber's direct ice observations contradicted interpretations of the satellite data... but simultaneously claim that this is invalid because of the TERM he used to describe the difference? Seriously, this hangup on semantics seems to be an ongoing theme amongst many of the anti-science objections. The satellite analysis showed what was thought to be solid thick multi-year ice that would block ship travel through the region. Barber's direct examination found that this was instead actually small chunks of ice held together by a thin crust... and that these sections easily broke apart and posed no significant barrier to navigation at all. Is all that agreed? If so, then I really don't care WHAT the 'ice which does not block navigation' is called. It is a new scientific finding with significant implications. -
boba10960 at 22:09 PM on 16 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
If this works then the inverted glacier mass balance (Cogley, 2009) overlain on the GISS temperature record, both since 1880, will appear below:
Moderator Response: It almost worked ... you had an excess "/" at the end of your file name. I've edited it. -
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
Here's a figure I posted in another thread not long ago. The red and brown lines are temperature (from satellites & met stations, respectively). The green lines are CO2 (ice core & atmospheric measurements). The blue line is PDO. The yellow line is solar irradiance.
Presumably, the observed temperature trend is the result of the interactions of all forcings, including those shown here and others as well. But this graph makes it clear that neither ocean oscillations nor solar irradiance is the dominant cause of the observed temperature trend since the 1970s. CO2 provides a much better fit. Adding in the effects of other greenhouse gases, and subtracting the effects of volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols, would make this match even closer.
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The fine print:
PDO data from University of Washington. Surface temperatures from GISS land+ocean. Satellite temperatures from RSS. Law Dome CO2 from NOAA NCDC. Mauna Loa CO2 from NOAA ESRL. PDO and temperature data shown in monthly and 120-month LOESS smoothed versions. Law Dome CO2 dating based on "air age" with 20-year smoothing. Mauna Loa CO2 (monthly) are seasonally adjusted. Both CO2 data sets were log-transformed (base 2). Data sets with differing units (PDO, temperature, log[CO2]) have been scaled to fit on the same graph. Solar irradiance data from University of Colorado, shown annually and with a 22-year LOESS smoothing function.
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Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 22:02 PM on 16 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
I would have just loved that it was only now (2006) for example, glaciers in the Alps 'release' houses from the eighteenth century, crushed by the glaciers. Probably around 171? -177? A.D. these glaciers have a similar or even less coverage, than they do now. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:51 PM on 16 September 2010The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
The PDO is closely linked of SOI and ENSO. The relationship between Pacific Decadal and Southern Oscillations: Implications for the climate of northwestern Baja California., Pavia, 2009.: “These results confirm that El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forces the PDO.” Professor Horst Malberg, analyzed ENSO and SOI in paper: La Niña - El Niño und der solare Einfluss, (Editor: Institut für Meteorologie - Berlin, 2009 - work is only available in German), write: “Any temperature variation demonstrates the weakness of the working hypothesis of a dominant influence of anthropogenic CO2 effect on climate change. For the voiced suspicion that the anthropogenic greenhouse effect would be, if not before 1950, significantly influence at least after 1950, climate change, there is no real climatological evidence. Everything indicates that it is also in the last six decades by the IPCC in the postulated dominant CO2 greenhouse effect on global temperature change (warming) just a sham causality.” -
boba10960 at 21:05 PM on 16 September 2010What's happening to glaciers globally?
Excellent post! Very clear and understandable to anyone. Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but I hadn't realized until seeing this post that the glacier mass balance is so closely linked to global temperature. For example, if you invert the graph of Cogley, 2009 from 1880-2010 and overlay it on the GISS Land-Ocean temperature relationship, the similarity is striking. (I just did that but am unable to post a graph). -
johnd at 19:26 PM on 16 September 2010Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
scaddenp at 11:08 AM, Phil, the thermometer used by BOM to measure terrestrial minimum temperature is not IN the ground, but "placed close to the horizontal and just above the surface of the ground" as described on the BOM site. This is a picture of such a thermometer in place. As can be seen the bulb is not in contact with anything, only the capillary tube being in contact with the wooden base.
The reason I introduced the matter of the terrestrial minimum temperature is because it measures conditions that are closer to those that prevail at the point where evaporation takes place.
As Spencer's experiment shows, whether it is day or night, the ambient air temperature is not an indicator at all of what heat energy is made available at the surface to drive the evaporation process.
Whilst there may be sophisticated instruments to measure back radiation, it basically only measures what a simple thermometer on the ground measures, or what a bare-footed kid chasing the cows in on a frosty morning, and again at high noon, and that is that what his face feels 1.2m above the ground is not what the soles of his feet feel, if he lets them touch the ground long enough to register any sensation that is.
That is exactly where the energy that drives evaporation is inputted into the process.
If back radiation is any factor at all in driving the evaporation process, then consider this. The lowest overnight temperature at the surface is the baseline that determines what heat energy is left in the atmosphere once all that accumulated from the input of solar energy has been dissipated. Following the energy budget diagram posted earlier, it is clear that all the flows of heat energy are depending either directly or indirectly on the input of solar energy. After the terrestrial minimum temperatures have been reached any increase in energy that will manifest itself as radiation between the surface and the atmosphere can only have come from the solar energy absorbed either directly into the atmosphere, or after having first been absorbed by the land and oceans and then transferred by convection, evaporation or radiation into the atmosphere.
Apart from the energy being transferred by radiation and back radiation which indicates a nett transfer of 66 from the surface to the atmosphere, the single biggest form of nett heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere is evaporation at 78.
As mentioned by someone earlier, the diagram is not a very good one at representing the true energy budget and flow of heat, but if anyone persists with using it simply because there is none better, then it has to be considered as a whole, and defended by correlating what it appears to illustrate with what actually occurs in the physical world.
So far I haven't seen that being the case.
I also think that Spencer gets some things wrong, though I do believe he is right regarding negative feedback.
I also agree he is doing things the right way, though from a different perspective. Instead of looking to add further confirmation to what many accept as a foregone conclusion, an easy thing to do, he applies some lateral thinking, an approach sadly lacking in a world ruled by the confines of logic, and challenges that perhaps of the two faces of a coin, the heads side is not the necessarily the defining side.
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JMurphy at 19:17 PM on 16 September 2010Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
Interesting report from Jeff Masters's Wunderblog : This morning's unexpected intensification of Hurricane Julia into a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds has set a new record--Julia is now the strongest hurricane on record so far east. When one considers that earlier this year, Hurricane Earl became the fourth strongest hurricane so far north, it appears that this year's record SSTs have significantly expanded the area over which major hurricanes can exist over the Atlantic. This morning is just the second time in recorded history that two simultaneous Category 4 or stronger storms have occurred in the Atlantic. The only other occurrence was on 06 UTC September 16, 1926, when the Great Miami Hurricane and Hurricane Four were both Category 4 storms for a six-hour period. The were also two years, 1999 and 1958, when we missed having two simultaneous Category 4 hurricanes by six hours. Julia's ascension to Category 4 status makes it the 4th Category 4 storm of the year. Only two other seasons have had as many as five Category 4 or stronger storms (2005 and 1999), so 2010 ranks in 3rd place in this statistic. This year is also the earliest a fourth Category 4 or stronger storm has formed (though the fourth Category 4 of 1999, Hurricane Gert, formed just 3 hours later on today's date in 1999.) We've also had four Cat 4+ storms in just twenty days, which beats the previous record for shortest time span for four Cat 4+ storms to appear. The previous record was 1999, 24 days (thanks to Phil Klozbach of CSU for this stat.) -
adelady at 18:53 PM on 16 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty You might find this USA site handy. This is for the global stats, but you can choose a selection of national and global reports at the top. I had a quick look at one of the USA and there didn't seem to be much difference, but you might be able to track down what you're after with more focused steps through the topics. Global anomalies to August -
JMurphy at 18:11 PM on 16 September 2010It's the sun
GnDoty wrote : "I feel it is important to mention many areas are cooler than normal. For example, parts of China and the Pacific Northwest of the US." It's only important if it's true, but your statement would only be true if you replaced the word "many" with "some". If you believe otherwise, please post some evidence. Meanwhile, here is the true state of affairs : 2010 Tied with 1998 as Warmest Global Temperature on Record (Have a look at the Temperature Anomalies graphic) GnDoty wrote : "In the 1920's, Russia had over 600,000 deaths due to malaria. Thought I would throw that out there before you mentioned anything about AGW spreading disease." That is simply a diversion and this is not the place to go into types of malaria and treatments available back in the 1920s. With regard to sunspots, look here. Also, a quick search found a page with this graph. Does the declining trend since the 60s correlate with the increasing temperatures we have been experiencing ? -
kdkd at 17:07 PM on 16 September 2010How much did aerosols contribute to mid-20th century cooling?
krab: I quite like the blue line - it shows the relationship to the smoth and the raw points quite nicely. It's possible the raw points shouldn't be joined though ;) -
GnDoty at 17:00 PM on 16 September 2010It's the sun
I feel it is important to mention many areas are cooler than normal. For example, parts of China and the Pacific Northwest of the US. In the 1920's, Russia had over 600,000 deaths due to malaria. Thought I would throw that out there before you mentioned anything about AGW spreading disease. Pre-industrial era, an increase in temperature first must happen for increased oceanic evaporation which increases greenhouse gases. I also would be interested in a response to my statement on the correlation of sun spot activity and temperature.Response: For the record, I wasn't talking about AGW spreading disease in Russia - the 15,000 deaths were directly heat related due to record hot temperatures.
To answer your question "can you really deny the fact that as sun spot activity increases, so do temperatures?", no, you cannot deny that. As the sun gets brighter (eg - more sunspots), the Earth receives more energy and warms. Conversely, as the sunspot activity falls, this equates to less energy reaching the Earth. Over the last 40 years while global temperatures have been rising, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. This means the sun cannot be causing recent global warming and in fact, is slightly masking the global warming trend.
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