Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 2448 2449 2450 2451 2452 2453 2454 2455 2456 2457 2458 2459 2460 2461 2462 2463 Next
Comments 122751 to 122800:
-
ProfMandia at 01:53 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Goddard has been wrong several times on WUWT. Before this, he misrepresented increased snowfall as an indicator that climate may be cooling: See: Cherry Snow and Snow. -
Berényi Péter at 01:47 AM on 10 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#65 Jeff Freymueller at 12:17 PM on 9 March, 2010 "Bringing up insolation is a red herring, because temperature is not directly related to insolation" And snow melt is not directly related to temperature. On Mount Kilimanjaro icecap is disappearing, although temperature there never gets above freezing. It is less moisture, more dirt on snow and the sun. It's just sublimating. There are regions where snow cover is clearly temperature limited and still other regions where the limiting factor is moisture. This winter we had more than usual snow cover in regions that are temperature limited (Western Europe, China, US East Coast) and less where it is moisture-limited (Middle East). Great Britain can be doomed for any number of reasons, but not for lack of precipitation during winter. If it is not cold enough for snow, it is raining. I would like to check regional trends for snow cover. Unfortunately the Rutgers snow lab does not provide data for such an analysis, although they must have it, otherwise could not construct the maps. #66 Peter Hogarth at 12:17 PM on 9 March, 2010 "Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon" Ramanathan 2008 Here it is. However, it has no quanitative data on soot snow albedo effect. Some backgound info can be handy. Anyway, we have learnt that global soot production is most indeterminate (up to a factor of five!). On the other hand, it is "responsible" for 30% of warming. Now, five timest thirty makes... -
stbloomfield at 01:31 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
You should consider using rel=nofollow in your links to climate denier sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow -
CBDunkerson at 01:15 AM on 10 March 2010iPhone app version 1.1 - now with search, image viewer and Twitter!
"I suspect all the nagging from Android users was a factor in Shine Tech starting on an Android app." Nagging? What nagging? Do we nag? I don't think so. So... um, any word on an Android release date yet? :] -
Sordnay at 01:11 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
JMurphy #5 I would like to read it, but I only have access to the abstract. Are those state-of-the-art models the same as GCM used for IPCC AR4 proyections? -
stbloomfield at 00:49 AM on 10 March 2010iPhone app version 1.1 - now with search, image viewer and Twitter!
Great to hear about an Android app! -
WAG at 00:36 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Is anyone surprised at Watts? Just last week he claimed that an article from 1989 proved global warming was a hoax. I'm not sure what was dumber - that claim, or Andrew Bolt saying that the Skeptical Science iPhone app was a secret conspiracy by Al Gore. You can give your thoughts here: http://akwag.blogspot.com/2010/03/watts-vs-bolt-whos-dumbest-denier.html -
Ken Lambert at 00:30 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
The explanation of how we have more sea ice floating on warmer water (with interleaving warmer and cooler layers) is very confusing indeed. When a kG of ice freezes it gives up latent heat energy equal to 80 times that of raising the temperature of a kG of seawater by 1 degC. Conversely melting a kG of ice will absorb about 80 times the heat energy of cooling seawater by 1 degC - or you need to cool 80kG of seawater by 1 degC to melt 1kG of ice. That transport of heat energy must go somewhere - whether by complex Antarctic circulations or movement farther afield. Doing an energy balance for Antarctica and its unique circulation alone would suppose it is a closed system - and if this is assumed in large part, then an increasing mass of sea ice would give up its heat to the surrounding water and air - and would raise their temperatures. Therefore increasing mass of sea ice would be consistent with warming air and seawater and transport of heat by complex circulations - not necessarily anything to do with external AGW forcing at all. -
CBDunkerson at 00:29 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
When you look at the total ice coverage of the planet it comes out as roughly; 90% Antarctic ice sheet 9% Greenland ice sheet 1% Arctic & Antarctic sea ice, all other land ice The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are both melting. The Arctic sea ice and the world's glacier mass are both decreasing. But there is that fraction of 1% in the Antarctic sea ice which has grown, so 'skeptics' insist that shows cooling. It is absurdly illogical to take the trend observed in less than 1% of the planet's ice over the opposite trend seen in the other 99+%, but that isn't stopping far too many from going there anyway. -
Berényi Péter at 00:09 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
As far as I can see the fuss is not about consistence but existence (of gorwth in Antarctic sea ice extent). IPCC AR4 WG1 4.4.2.2 Figure 4.8 caption says "Antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ± 9.2 × 103 km2 yr–1 [...] the small positive trend in the SH is not significant" which is not true. Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing (for whatever reason) and the trend is significant. Comiso 2003 referenced in IPCC AR4 is a book chapter (not peer reviewed), there is no updated version and the 5.6 km2 figure is nowhere to be found in it. The statement in the book that comes closest to the IPCC claim is "In the Southern Hemisphere, the trends for extent in each season are basically insignificant except for autumn". IPCC has omitted any reference to fall conditions. However, not even Comiso is right. According to Zhang Hadley Centre finds a 27 × 103 km2 yr–1 (significant) inrease rate, almost five times more than the IPCC figure. I don't care much for explanations until facts are not established firmly. -
gallopingcamel at 00:04 AM on 10 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
The Steven Goddard piece was posted on WUWT only yesterday but in 24 hours almost one hundred comments were made. That suggests a surprising interest in ice caps. -
Martin Vermeer at 23:48 PM on 9 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
Péter Berényi, I think you should read this: Mitrovica et al. (2006). It revisits your Walter Munk "enigma" reference. -
JMurphy at 23:45 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Sordnay, read the 'Gillet 2003' link in the article itself : "Recent observations indicate that climate change over the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere is dominated by a strengthening of the circumpolar westerly flow that extends from the surface to the stratosphere. Here we demonstrate that the seasonality, structure, and amplitude of the observed climate trends are simulated in a state-of-the-art atmospheric model run with high vertical resolution that is forced solely by prescribed stratospheric ozone depletion. The results provide evidence that anthropogenic emissions of ozonedepleting gases have had a distinct impact on climate not only at stratospheric levels but at Earth's surface as well." -
Sordnay at 23:05 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Could you please show how this stratosphere cooling and troposphere warming is consistent with GCM projections for antarctic region? Also those models project the observed increase in sea ice extent? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 22:50 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
1. "Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation." And by us (many) of skeptics is the main reason. Interesting for me here is the example of this graph: http://i34.tinypic.com/dcora.jpg http://i34.tinypic.com/dcora.jpg; and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) ... 2. I also repeat his earlier comment: "... most of Antarctica, over the past 35 years, is cooled (http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2008/05/080507132855-large.jpg), which is typical for the Millennium cycles, although the reasons may be Miscellaneous (e.g.: "A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850." E.R. Thomas et. al., 2008)." ... and the trend in the southern ocean temperature increase is significantly lower than the north ... -
omnologos at 22:12 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Slightly OT...have you already published a blog explaining what kind of observed phenomena might be "not explained by" / "incompatible with" / "inconsistent with" anthropogenic global warming? -
HumanityRules at 22:09 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
68.NewYorkJ at 13:14 PM on 9 March, 2010 There seems to be an inconsistency here. Models predict that a signal for heavier or more precipitation will be detectable later in the 21st century yet some groups have published that such a signal is already present in the historical 20th C data. This earlier Groisman paper seems to express that contradiction for extreme precipitation events. This seems to mimic that hurricane situation were models also predict that an increase in stronger hurricanes would only be detectable late 21st C (if at all). A debate raged over whether such a signal could be detected in the historical data, the IPCC aknowledged the possibility of such a signal, although now the consensus has changed to no detectable signal. Also I had high hopes that rainfall measurement would be more straighforward than temp. Unfortunately this paper scuppered that. Hanssen-Bauer and Førland - Journal of Climate, 1994 -
Catprog at 21:47 PM on 9 March 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Is there more ice forming around Antarctica or is less ice being spread over a bigger area? -
Doug Bostrom at 19:03 PM on 9 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
gallopingcamel at 14:59 PM on 9 March, 2010 Roger on the "US" versus "them" correction, but I still disagree. I've read this account: Lindzen and Choi unraveled and find it to be quite tractable as well as convincing thanks to the author's skill with translating the technicalities of the case into terms most of us can understand. As to "first do no harm", I think we may have a fundamentally different perspective on this. My view is that the current mode of operation we're following with regard to energy sources and expenditures is astoundingly anachronistic, habitual and thoughtless in the bad sense and worst of all will not scale successfully and in fact is headed inexorably toward collapse. Even if the C02 efflux from our fossil fuel consumption were entirely innocuous, we still need to move as swiftly as possible to a more progressive suite of energy sources. Particularly with regard to liquid and condensate fossil fuels we appear to have squandered our limited endowment of these irreplaceable temporary scaffolds without focusing on how they could have been exploited to lift us to a more permanent arrangement for improving the human condition. We're fecklessly burning a limited resource that cannot satisfy our needs in perpetuity but instead should have been used as a temporary tool while seeking a better and more reliable means of powering our civilization. When we've mindlessly consumed our petroleum gift, we've got another problem. We'll then not only be faced with replacing petroleum as an energy source for uniquely demand applications such as aviation, but we'll have created the necessity to jam hydrogen and carbon together to create polymers using money and "alternative" energy supplies when we could have used petroleum for this application for centuries, if we'd not burned it all. Burning petroleum is the most rottenly crude way to use it and we'll realize this to our deep regret a short while from now. I'm deeply unhappy with the choices we're making with regard to our stewardship of petroleum. We're doing a lot of harm right now, that's my opinion. -
Charlie A at 17:07 PM on 9 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
#62 Ian Love addresses some of my questions from #39 where I note that the sea level rise and acceleration in rate of rise dates back to 1700-1800. He says "( Kaufman et al. Science 2009): the temperatures are found to rise from about 1800, as does the sea-level. The temperature rise is, of course, attributed to AGW." Unfortunately, I do not have access to the paper since it is behind a paywall. Could you summarize briefly the anthropogenic effect that caused warming back in 1700-18000 period. Was it due to CO2 emissions ? -
gallopingcamel at 16:22 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Michael Trogdon (#36), for most people in the USA this has been a very cold winter with plenty of snowfall records being set. In Florida record cold temperatures going back to 1960 have been broken. My (very amateur) take on all this is that high sea surface temperatures may have something to do with high winter precipitation (snowfall records). The same high SSTs can lead to a hot and humid summer. Therefore I predict a hot summer but making predictions is a dangerous game so if 2010 turns out to be cooler than average in the USA you will be entitled to gloat and I will send you an excellent bottle of scotch of your choosing! If am right, how about sending me 750 ml of Glenfiddich? The supercomputers with their sophisticated models that include el Ninos, la Ninas, Pacific Decadal Oscillations etc. sound wonderful but will they outperform my wet finger? The British "Met Office" is notorious for its inability to forecast what kind of summer to expect. It is only fair to remind you that professional "experts" armed with all kinds of wonderful tools did a woeful job predicting US hurricane activity over the past two years. -
gallopingcamel at 14:59 PM on 9 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
doug_bostrom (#131), Maybe I have been hanging around this site too long as I find myself agreeing with you again. The shift in carbon isotope ratios is convincing evidence that the extra CO2 is from fossil fuels. My quibble was related to the residence time for "new CO2" in the atmosphere. The IPCC went with a high figure which may explain why the CO2 concentration is not increasing as fast as the IPCC predicted. As I said earlier, just a quibble as the CO2 curve is still a genuine Hockey Stick although the blade appears to be straighter than IPCC (AR4) predictions. With regard to the Trenberth vs. Lindzen issue, the number of scientists backing either one is irrelevant. However, if counting scientist heads did matter, your cause would be lost beyond redemption. The opposition already has over 30,000 signed up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition Trenberth has credibility problems because he admits recent cooling trends in private while denying them in public. See Inhofe's "Minority Report". Please look at pages 20 and 22 which quote Trenberth denying recent warming thrice. In (#129) I made a typo. It should have read: Lindzen and Trenberth are experts in climate science, yet they disagree; neither of US can claim sufficient expertise to know which of them is closest to the truth. The Inhofe report published last month has already garnered support from 700 scientists. While counting heads is unimportant in hard science it does give politicians a warm feeling to know they are not alone. I was hoping you would scold me for the "First do no harm..." statement in (#123). -
Alan E at 13:56 PM on 9 March 2010Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
John said: "The amount of human CO2 left in the air, called the "airborne fraction", has hovered around 55% since 1958." Isn't the Airborne Fraction around 43-44%? Appears that you have it reversed - 55% would be the proportion absorbed by the sinks. Or is there a higher AF since 1958 because of the time lag for the sinks to absorb the large, recent emissions? A -
NewYorkJ at 13:51 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
To illustrate the above point, as an example, compare February snow cover extent numbers with the Arctic Oscillation index (this applies to all winter months as well). http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/monthly.ao.index.b50.current.ascii.table There's a strong negative annual correlation between the two sets of numbers throughout the overlapping time series (snow cover extent goes back to 1967). Strong negative AO -> higher snow cover extent and vice versa. This isn't surprising, because a strong negative AO tends to push Arctic air much further south. With winter precipitation, this means higher snow cover extent over the northern hemisphere. Note the strong downward trend in the AO since 1989 - a time period some "skeptics" use as a starting point to "disprove" snow cover models. -
Ned at 13:50 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
Cowboy writes: Methane, 20 times more effective as CO2 with respect to 'greenhouse' effect, has been increasing in the atmosphere for 200 years, but we want to blame CO2 for warming? Overall, the forcing from methane is +0.48 watts/m2 while that from CO2 is +1.66 watts/m2 (see John's post from last year, here). So while methane is a substantial player in the current radiative imbalance, it's definitely of less importance than CO2 at least for now. You're right that there are natural methane sources such as wetlands (175 Tg/year), termites (20-30 Tg/year), and biochemical processes in the oceans (10 Tg/year). However, anthropogenic emissions (from fossil fuel production, landfills, rice paddies, livestock, landfills, etc.) have more than doubled the natural, pre-agricultural background methane flux. See here for more details. Before humans began modifying the environment, atmospheric methane stayed within the range of 400-700 ppb through repeated glacial/interglacial cycles, for at least the past 650,000 years (see Wolff and Spahni 2007). It's now over 1700 ppb. That increase is due to our agriculture, industry, and land use impacts. -
Andy Skuce at 13:29 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
CBD: I do agree that where there are higher methane levels in the bottom water (incorrectly, I think, labelled "deep water" on the figure captions on this site) the surface water amounts tend to be relatively less in the deeper water furthest from the shore. I guess this is due to greater oxidation of the methane as it rises in the deeper water. The relationship I was looking for, and couldn't see, is more methane in the bottom water in the shallower area, which is what I would expect to see if the water was warming from the top down. However, as you suggest, there may well be currents that complicate the story. I don't doubt the overall thrust here, I'm just struggling to understand it better.Response: The label "deep water" was intentional. I noticed in the paper, they label it "bottom water" but in the press release, they call it "deep water". I just went with the phrase that would make more sense to the average person. It's a judgement call - do you go with the scientifically more precise term or the term that makes more sense to the public? -
NewYorkJ at 13:14 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
libertarianromanticideal says: "and all nine predicted that North American winter snow cover would decline significantly, starting in about 1990." Your link clarifies a few things. First, it says that all 9 models predict a statistically significant downward trend, but only over the course of the entire 21st century, with no real change over the 20th century. It also refers to the northern hemisphere (not just North America). Over the 1990-2010 period, it doesn't project much change. Clearly variations in the Arctic Oscillation (such as the recent negative extremes) can create a lot of snow cover extent variation at the decadal level. You can see similar variation in models with the green line in your link. It's why longer periods need to be looked at when making evaluations: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/cherry-snow/ In other words, give it more time. Cherry-picking time periods is something politicians do. As far as a 10-year-old article that is popular among contrarian circles these days, snow does seem more rare and exciting. The recent generation isn't really used to it. -
Cowboy at 12:43 PM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
"Cowboy at 16:52 PM on 8 March, 2010 On a romp, posting years-old information, cowboy. That article you cited is of course from 2003; the rise in methane long since resumed. Your point? " 1. Methane, 20 times more effective as CO2 with respect to 'greenhouse' effect, has been increasing in the atmosphere for 200 years, but we want to blame CO2 for warming? 2. Obviously, methane doesn't need any man-made global warming to be released into the atmosphere. -
thefrogstar at 12:23 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter, I’m still trying to understand your (very interesting) point. Would it be fair to describe it thus: That any significant change in surface warming (and hence snow melt) due to increasing CO2 will have an asymmetric melting-effect about the winter solstice (when examined at temporally “symmetrical” points in the insolation calendar) due to the effects of CO2 being at the red-end of the spectrum (and so greater at warmer points of the winter)? And that this is, in fact, the opposite of what is being observed? I’m not familiar with any of the numbers involved, but how much of the snowmelt is due to the proximal-cause of local insolation, as opposed to the advection of heat from warmer locations (it also presumably having a latitude component)? I’m still digesting the points about soot particles. Do their effects (if significant) on snowmelt show a pronounced temperature- or spectral-bias ? (Yes, I know they may look black, but does that mean they can always be treated as black-body absorbers/radiators?) -
Peter Hogarth at 12:17 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Sorry, title of article is: "Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon" Ramanathan 2008 -
Jeff Freymueller at 12:17 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#58 Berényi Péter. Your explanation is not clear. I'm not sure whether you are distinguishing between snow fall and snow cover -- they are not the same thing. In the meantime, maybe you can clearly explain why the last snow melting earlier in the spring is evidence against overall warming. Bringing up insolation is a red herring, because temperature is not directly related to insolation (I mean in terms of variation of both through the year in the same place). If it was, the hottest time of year would be in late June, and the coldest in late December. However, in many places the hottest/coldest days are shifted relative to the longest/shortest days. You appear to be assuming that more cold = more snow. You get snowfall when warm, moist air gets chilled, right? Very cold air can hold only a little water vapor, so cold air by itself is not enough to make snow. In many places it has to warm up to snow (read the mountain skier's post early on if you want another opinion). Even the assumption that more cold = more likelihood of snow may be correct only when the temperature is close to 0C, and a small temperature change means the difference between snow and rain. However, that just isn't true for non-coastal areas north of something like 50 N. In those places it is colder than 0C all or almost all of the winter. A bit of warming there will make little or no difference on snow cover for most of the winter. If you look at a map, there is a lot of NH land that falls into this category. So the bottom line is that I just can't see how even the increasing snow cover trend in some parts of the years is automatically related to temperature changes at all. The snow cover at that time is more dependent on when snow falls and sticks. But the melting phase in the spring/summer has a much simpler relationship to temperature, and that part of the year follows exactly what you expect from warming. And beyond all that, how you make the leap from this to disproving CO2-driven warming is just beyond me. -
Peter Hogarth at 12:12 PM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter at 08:33 AM on 9 March, 2010 I think you may have misinterpreted my point, or I wasn't clear (which is likely in an off the cuff remark) As you're aware, if you have soot, you have CO2. Historically and recently they are linked, both a result of burning Carbon based fuel, early 19th century wood and then transition to coal mid 19th century (at least in US) if I remember rightly. This was my point in "difficult to separate soot production from CO2 production" - I didn't mean difficult to filter... I'm aware that the ratio of CO2/soot has got better (?) in recent years due to higher efficincy burning, fuel change, and filtering, but it is just that we are burning a lot more than previously...much more CO2, more gas burning, relatively less particulates in recent decade? I take it you are using the timing of the snow falling/laying/melting as counter evidence of CO2 warming, and promotion of soot to prime suspect? Does this explain warming of the oceans as well? Check: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n4/full/ngeo156.html. Which states "It is important to emphasize that BC (Black Carbon) reduction can only help delay and not prevent unprecedented climate changes due to CO2 emissions." There is a free version, but you'll have to wait a while for me to track it (and a few more) down. -
mspelto at 11:28 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
I agree with Doug less sea ice in the arctic provides a better moisture for early season snowpack which is after all arrayed around the Arctic Ocean. Snowcover extent is more sensitive to temperature during the melt season, March-August, this is when the extents are so negative. Moreover given that we have had no decline in snowcover extent in the winter, the only way to have large snow cover declines during the melt season is for greater melting due to higher temperatures. -
Riccardo at 10:29 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
pdt, absolutely correct. I should have said "are not filtered out efficiently" Berényi Péter, "A low temperature stage does miracles by coagulation." still waiting for this miracle and the other one you promised several times of disproving AGW. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:19 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter at 10:10 AM on 9 March, 2010 How can the CO2 thing explain the fact that we are getting ever more snow in late fall and less in late winter? I am listening. For my part I tried to understand how increasing atmospheric C02 could explain why my daily newspaper is sometimes delivered into a puddle at my doorstep but I eventually concluded there was no relationship. But with a little more serious intent, perhaps this is similar to the so-called "lake effect" snows in the area downwind of the Great Lakes, on a grander scale involving the ocean? Early winter sees high surface temperatures on the lakes, which gush evaporating moisture into passing cold fronts leading to heavy snow downwind of the lakes. I suppose the same thing could happen as oceans warm up, even if slightly? -
Berényi Péter at 10:10 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Diesel engine for cars may be obsolete. On the other hand large diesel engines may have some merit. Due to scale more filtering can be installed cost effectively. As for nanoparticles. A low temperature stage does miracles by coagulation. -
pdt at 09:51 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#57 Riccardo at 09:33 AM on 9 March, 2010 "50 nm particles are not filtered out from automotive diesel exhaust" This is not strictly true. A smaller percentage of 50nm particles are filtered than larger particles, but some are. In other words, the filtration efficiency is size dependent. This is one reason that future regulations will have a number-based component. Off topic, but personally, I wonder if diesel engines can really be viable in the future with all the emissions regulations they will need meet, including HC, CO, NOx, and particle number. NOx is particularly difficult in lean-burn engines. Proposals exist for systems with three separate components in the exhaust as well as a tank of urea and a urea injector. The exhaust system in a stoichiometric engine (most gasoline engines) is much simpler and the efficiencies can be quite high when hybridized like the Prius. -
Berényi Péter at 09:38 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#56 Jeff Freymueller at 08:39 AM on 9 March, 2010 "it is hard to see how an overall negative trend in snow cover is a smoking gun" I talk about neither snow extent nor snow volume, not even temperature. I am talking about trends in different parts of the year. Late October is usually much warmer in Northern Hemisphere than February. Also, there is more snow in February than in November. But as time goes by we are getting more and more snow in November, less and less in February. Why is it so? There is more heat in the environment to be trapped when it is warmer. Still, late October snow is getting more frequent while in early march it's diminishing. Snow extent decline from winter to summer solstice is much more pronounced than in the other half of the year, although this part is colder (due to temperature lag caused by ocean heat storage). From end of January to veneral equinox there are seven weeks, from autumnal equinox to mid October there are only three. Late February is colder than mid October, but has the same insolation. Still, the trends are reversed. The only conceivable difference is the state of snow. Old snow has larger crystals, the same amount of soot (inside them) causes more short wave absorption. How can the CO2 thing explain the fact that we are getting ever more snow in late fall and less in late winter? I am listening. -
Riccardo at 09:33 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter, 50 nm particles are not filtered out from automotive diesel exhaust and i'd not say that it's so easy ("just matter of regulations") even for cars, let alone power plants. You only have chemical abatement of NOx. Indeed, Euro IV engines are still a problem due to nanoparticle (smaller than about 1 micron) emissions which are still high. -
Ned at 09:21 AM on 9 March 2010Mars is warming
ReBar writes: Someone must have the answer to why dust from volcanos and pollution cause cooling on earth and warming on Mars. Read the article again. Lots of dust (in 1977) made Mars slightly cooler, and less dust (in 1999) made the planet slightly warmer. On both Earth and Mars, more dust = cooler. I hope this helps. -
Ned at 09:11 AM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
For what it's worth (not necessarily much) I'd agree with Andy S that the odd N-S directionality in the figures looks like an artifact of the interpolation of sparse data (via kriging, IDW, or whatever). Look at Fig 1A in the paper (which shows the distributions of stations sampled). There's a much greater sampling density along the coast, and along certain N-S or other transects. Meanwhile, there are some isolated points (e.g., 170E, 73N) that seem to have a disproportionate influence on the interpolation results. -
Jeff Freymueller at 08:39 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#47 Berenyi Peter: "... does disprove carbon dioxide generated warming." It seems like I have heard that claim before, and it was wrong the other times, too. First, the overall area under the curve is negative (more on the negative side), so it is hard to see how an overall negative trend in snow cover is a smoking gun against warming. SNOW COVER is not SNOW VOLUME, it is area covered by snow. It may or may not tell you anything about snow volume. Over the northern part of North America, a quite large fraction of the continental area*, temperatures are below freezing for a lot of or most to all of the winter (depending on where you are, where I live it is for about 6 months), and the loss of snow cover in spring depends on when the last of the snow melts. What you observe is a negative trend in snow cover during the spring and summer -- that is, the last snow is disappearing EARLIER in the season now compared to previous years. That sounds like exactly what you would expect from warming. It may be that more snow cover is present in winter compared to earlier years, but temperature only controls snow cover when the temperature is close to 0C/32F, so I have to say, "so what?" *-Canada plus Alaska is a lot bigger than the lower 48 US states, and snow cover is very minor in the southern part of the US and in Mexico, so a majority of the area that sometimes has snow cover is located in the north. This is going to dominate the variation in snow cover. -
CBDunkerson at 08:34 AM on 9 March 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methane
Andy S, actually if you compare the sea floor and sea surface maps (it is more difficult with the atmospheric, which uses a different color scheme) I think you will see that the difference between the two IS 'at right angles'. For instance, high concentrations of methane are retained at the surface along the shallow coastline, but drop to lower concentrations (compared to the sea floor values) further out to sea. The only significant exception to that trend being the high concentrations maintained in roughly the middle of the map... to the north and south of an island which likely sits on an elevated ridge. As to the north south banding... my first guess would be undertow currents. Relatively warm water comes in to the coast, flows under, causes the methane to melt, and pushes it northwards. -
Berényi Péter at 08:33 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#52 doug_bostrom at 05:13 AM on 9 March, 2010 "snow cover is diminishing" NH snow cover is diminishing between week 5 (end of January) and week 40 (mid October), increasing otherwise. In last week of the year (late December) NH snow cover is increasing on a 60,000 km2/year rate during the last four decades. I was not clear enough perhaps. I have calculated trends for each week of the year (with a correction for the calendar effect). On the figure you can see this trend for each week of the year. In fact these "weeks" are a bit (34'24.46") longer, making 52 of them fit into the average Gregorian year. Since winter solstice is roughly week 51, snow cover increase starts some 10 weeks earlier and ends five weeks later. As you can see, there is a negative delay of 2-3 weeks. Also, summer solstice is about week 25, but maximum multidecadal decrease rate occurs on week 23-24. The overall trend is downward, since late fall/early winter upward snow cover trend is only 16 weeks long, 30% of the entire year. It is also the darkest part of it, so short wave surface absorptivity multiplied by insolation and integrated for a full year goes up considerably. #53 Peter Hogarth at 05:47 AM on 9 March, 2010 "all this soot, from burning what exactly?" I have told you. In early part of industrial revolution it was steam engines and coal (or wood) burning stoves. Now it's mainly diesel engine exhaust, tire wear, biomass burning and unfiltered smoke from coal fired power plants.
The soot particles in question are rather small, average diameter 50 nm. They stay in air until precipitation brings them down (quite effectively).
"Difficult to separate soot production from CO2 production"
No, it is not. There is soot filter for both diesel engines and power plants. Just a matter of regulations. As opposed to carbon dioxide sequestration, it is not prohibitively expensive nor unattainable.
Biofuels are forgettable, forests should be maintained (dead wood removed), tire materials redesigned.
The best part of it is that there is almost nothing in the "pipeline". As soon as soot production starts to decrease, particles get washed down and we are left with clean air and white snow. Also, filtering smoke has immediate local benefits, no large scale joint operation is needed (UNO & IPCC can be left out for good).
-
CBDunkerson at 08:16 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berenyi, temperature and insolation are not as tightly wedded as you claim. Temperatures can drop low enough for snowfall well before the Winter solstice in many parts of the NH. Further, January temperatures in many areas are actually COLDER than December despite being further from the solstice (ditto July temps being warmer than June). Also, snow coverage does not follow a simple curve of decreasing temperature to increasing snow coverage... past a certain point low temperatures can actually reduce snow accumulation. Thus, you cannot say that a 'delay in winter cooling' MUST cause the peak of increased snow coverage to come after the Winter solstice. The minimum insolation does not equate to the minimum temperature which does not equate to the minimum snowfall. And again, if soot accumulation is the primary cause why does the peak loss anomaly take place prior to the Summer solstice? Wouldn't the soot continue to accumulate? Wouldn't insolation two weeks after the solstice be just as strong as insolation two weeks prior... but striking sootier snow and thus causing MORE loss? Your argument has no foundation. -
ReBar at 06:18 AM on 9 March 2010Mars is warming
Someone must have the answer to why dust from volcanos and pollution cause cooling on earth and warming on Mars. -
Peter Hogarth at 05:47 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter at 05:07 AM on 9 March, 2010 One quick question... all this soot, from burning what exactly? Difficult to separate soot production from CO2 production, maybe? -
Peter Hogarth at 05:19 AM on 9 March 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
Ian Love at 23:14 PM on 8 March, 2010 Kaufmann made a number of minor corrections, latest Feb 2010 but chart doesn't change much:
-
Doug Bostrom at 05:13 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter at 05:07 AM on 9 March 2010 That graph seems quite hopeless as a demonstration of increasing snow cover based on area covered by anomaly above versus below the norm. Discussion over distribution of energy versus time or whatever, the picture seems an open and shut case that snow cover is diminishing. Am I missing something? -
Berényi Péter at 05:07 AM on 9 March 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#49 CBDunkerson at 04:05 AM on 9 March, 2010 "your graph seems entirely consistent with CO2 driven AGW" No, it is not. You should observe the phase relationship. If outgoing longwave radiation is blocked indeed to some extent as the CO2 AGW story puts it, then radiative cooling to space is delayed relative to solar forcing. However, what we actually observe is not a delay. Just the opposite. Most of NH snow cover shrinkage occurs before summer solstice. Also, NH snow cover growth starts a week or so earlier relative to winter solstice than it would be expected based on insolation alone. "there is NO way that increasing soot could result in HIGHER snow coverage at any point of the year" Overall albedo still decreases due to less snow in sunny seasons, so some warming is expected. If any of it goes to increase SST (Sea Surface Temperature), more moisture is available to produce snow in the winter. Also, very small amount of soot is needed to decrease snow albedo (several ppb). It would explain why warming began much earlier (mid 19th century) than carbon dioxide levels started to rise. Folks actually enjoyed smoke in those days. Or at least tolerated it better than we do. Watch what Union Pacific 3985 can do. It gets really nasty from 0:41.
Prev 2448 2449 2450 2451 2452 2453 2454 2455 2456 2457 2458 2459 2460 2461 2462 2463 Next
