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Comments 131151 to 131200:

131151. Dave Rado at 12:09 PM on 2 November 2007
        Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use
        Okay thanks. Some more relevant links: 1) Alps Glaciers Gone by 2050, National Geographic News. 2) Mountain Glaciers Melting Faster Than Ever, National Geographic News, which includes the following:

        Lonnie Thompson, an expert in ancient climates at Ohio State University ... said ... "Kilimanjaro's glaciers are melting so quickly ... that the mountain lost nearly a quarter of its ice from 2000 to 2006 ... [it points out that melting is accelarating everywhere and adds] ... If you look at what's happened to these glaciers, they're not just retreating, they're accelerating [their retreat]," he said. "And it raises the question of whether this might be a fingerprint of [human-caused global] warming.

        In other words, even if the melting of Kilimanjaro prior to 2000 contains 0% influence from climate change (which is unlikely), the influence of climate change on the melt rate of Kilimanjaro since 2000 is almost certainly well above 0%. No other factor, including deforestation, can credibly account for the sudden acceleration post-2000. 3) Himalayan glaciers 'melting fast', BBC:

        "Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people"

        Admittedly this article has the disadvantage that it quotes a WWF study - it would be nice to find a similar one that was independent of any lobby group. But it's mainstream stuff and worth quoting if you can't find a better one on the Himalayas' glacier melt and the likely effect of this on neighbouring countries. 4) China glaciers melting at alarming rate, Chinese National Coordination Committee on Climate Change.
131152. Dave Rado at 09:14 AM on 1 November 2007
        Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use
        To say that climate change is definitely not even partially responsible for the loss of glacier ice mass on Kilimanjaro is an inaccurate misrepresentation of the science. As Raymond Pierrehumbert's article that you linked to made clear, it is likely to be at least partially responsible. Furthermore, Gore did not "get it wrong" as you claim - in the movie, the retreat of Kilimanjaro is not claimed to be purely due to global warming , but it is given as an example of the sort of thing one can expect in a warmer world, and it is quite true that loss of major glaciers is something we can expect. I also think you ought to link to the global glacier mass balance graph at on the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NDIS) graph here, from which one can see that the worldwide trend is sharply downwards; and there is no dispute in the peer reviewed literature that this is mostly due to climate change. Admittedly, Gore could and should have chosen a better example than Kilimanjaro, such as the Andean glaciers, but he didn't "get it wrong", he just illustrated a valid and accurate point with a poorly-chosen illustration. Finally, I think you should point out that hundreds of millions of people (and huge ecosystems) rely for their water on the annual glacier summer melts that in many cases may cease during the next 50-100 years, as mountain glaciers start to disappear. This includes a large proportion of China's population, all of the “Stans” (Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc.) and most of the Andean countries in South America (e.g. see here , here and here).
        Response: Dave, all good points and I confess updating the Mt Kiliminjaro page is high up on my to-do list. Thanks for the link suggestions (I do link to the NSIDC graph elsewhere but here is a good place also) - will attend to this shortly as soon as time permits.
131153. John Cross at 22:28 PM on 29 October 2007
        We're heading into an ice age
        Hi John: Thanks for the thanks (although I will hasten to point out that all I did was offer some minor comments). I am especially delighted to me mentioned in the same acknowledgement as Dr. Solanki. I don't know if Dr. Solanki reads this blog, but if he does I would like to say that I have been reading his papers since I came across the Harold Jefferys Lecture that he did about 4 years ago. Very interesting work! Regards, John
131154. papertiger at 00:57 AM on 23 October 2007
        It's the sun
        I notice John, that you have done some renovating. Where did your last thirty years of satellite measurements of the TSI disappear to? To the unpracticed eye nothing out of the ordinary is apparent, but to people familiar with the site, it looks as though you are erasing key information that supports Biocab's contention that in regard to TSI it is the minimum measurement extended over time that is the most important. And the minimum is trending up - or rather was. If the current lack of sunspots extends a while longer, and the next solar cycle sees a drop in overall activity followed by a drop in global temperature, will you become a co2 denier? What about you Phil?
        Response: Not sure what you're refering to but I haven't removed anything (I am constantly tweaking the site but it's mostly adding links to new studies as I encounter them). Perhaps you were thinking of the discussion of satellite TSI data at The sun is getting hotter. As for the next solar cycle and the prospect of a drop in global temperature, it's funny you should mention that - I'm working up a page on that very subject which I'll post later this week.
131155. horatio algeranon at 14:50 PM on 22 October 2007
        Climate sensitivity is low
        Hi John, Excellent blog. With regard to the climate sensitivity issue, I did an analysis based on Schwartz' assumptions for climate sensitivity (1.1 deg C) and time constant (5 yrs) described here. I wanted to see what kind of warming (due to CO2) that his assumptions would predict for the past 3 decades and how that compares to what actually happened. His predicted result does not appear to jibe with what actually happened.
131156. ourphyl at 11:15 AM on 21 October 2007
        Solar cycles cause global warming
        Very interesting, I'll study your link. There is much interesting work by UNC prof Jose Rial (and others)on D&O paleoclimate cycles. They need to consider "tipping points" and occasional chaos, extremes that might be of interest. Jose also is a seismic scientist, his abstract re arctic ice follows: Measurements of seismic activity in Greenland's ice sheet indicate the activity is related to the ice sheet's probable fragmentation due to global warming. Project SMOGIS (Seismic Monitoring of Greenland's Ice Sheet), a collaboration between UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder, has detected intense microearthquake activity throughout the region close to the Jacobshavn glacier, one of the world's fastest moving glaciers. The seismic activity is clearly related to glacial sliding (at the base of the ice sheet) and crevassing, or large fractures expanding under the increased warming. "The area we are inspecting could be seen as belonging to the buttresses of a giant cathedral, which is the Greenland ice sheet," Rial said. "If the buttresses fail, the entire cathedral could collapse, perhaps in just a few years. This may be part of what has been called abrupt climate change." I don't know where this might fit in your list should it belong. Thanks and congratulations on a GREAT site.
131157. Philippe Chantreau at 12:29 PM on 12 October 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Now we're getting down to the aggressive and personal tone, as if it were going to give more credibility to your assertions. Satellite data for global temperature is in agreement with GISSTEMP, as shown in this graph: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/global2.jpg Since Tamino does not share your views, I expect that you'll try to attack the validity of the graph by suggesting dishonesty or bias, so interested readers should know that the thread of that graph's post contains references for all the data. A Climate Audit blogger used Anthony Watts data to compare with GISSTEMP and, funnily enough, found no significant difference. As a matter of fact, GISSTEMP had the best match with the stations rated by Watts as the better ones: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2061#comment-138432 The graph alone: http://www.inturnsoftware.com/downloads/crn12_crn5_giss.gif See also this work: Your accusation of fraud toward Hansen and GISS is interesting considering that the data gathered by their staunchest critics failed to produce any substantial difference. You apparently are ignorant of, or chose to ignore the fact that variations in solar irradiance are so small that they were not actually observed and measured until there were satellites. Because of the atmosphere, ground based instruments do not detect them reliably enough. Reconstructions have been done, however, as in the Solanki paper that skeptics like to cite, except for the conclusion section, of course:"It was shown that even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at the most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin." The full paper is available as a pdf: http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf Your assertion on Jupiter makes no more sense. I never affirmed that the Sun had no role, but instead pointed to the dominant body of research indicating that the main driver of the weather is internal heat. Is it distance that best controls heat propagation or other properties? Does distance matter more than density? Convective clouds, fueled by heat from below, have been observed and photographed and I provided a link to one of these photos. Do you have a link to a scientific study attributing the Jovian weather to heat from auroras? How much heat is actually there? What is the mechanism for that heat to travel downward? The most active auroras are at the poles, but as you pointed the poles are cooler, how does that reconsiliate with the "heat from solar particles" idea? You can throw accusations and insults but the questions posed by your "theory" are still not answered.
131158. papertiger at 00:39 AM on 11 October 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Your five points rest on the first point - that Jupiters weather is driven by internal heat source. Lets suppose this is true for a minute. The heat would be distributed according to distance from the center of the gravitational compression. Since it is a shorter distance from the center of the planet to the pole then it is from the center to the equator, the pole would be warmer. It's not. In fact the poles are already ten or twenty degrees colder then the equator. Hot equator, cold poles. Exactly what you would expect from a solar dominated weather system. Funny isn't it? Then we got this NASA fellow predicting a change that he hasn't bothered to look for, or if he had he would have noticed that it already happened. You might want to quibble that the sun isn't any hotter then it was in the eighties (interesting that you want to rely exclusively on satellite data for solar irradiance, but then discount the satellite data of Earth's average warming in the troposphere, which shows no trend, in favor of the flawed surface station data manipulations of Hansen's team at GISS), but Jupiter's new red spot gestated in the 30's, slowly gaining momentum over time. An exclusive satellite record tells us nothing about the 30's thru the 70's, and is thus useless for explaining the Sun's impact on Jupiter's weather. But I can tell you are going to continue truncating history to suit your narrative. Some people are always trying to ice skate uphill.
131159. mvalisa at 17:42 PM on 7 October 2007
        CO2 lags temperature
        Nice correlation between T and CO2 level. However, given a correlation between two variables one has still to clarify which is doing what. One might of course notice that in the most recent "burst" CO2 gets well above the temperature curve, unlike the previous cases. Does anyone know what in the past produced the "fast" T and CO2 growths? Marco
131160. Philippe Chantreau at 00:16 AM on 2 October 2007
        Evaporating the water vapor argument
        Incidentally, it is fun to point that burning hydrocarbons from fossil fuels is also the only net addition of water vapor to the system, except for a comet impact. The simplest case, methane (natural gas) goes like this if I'm not mistaken (fully developed, with the "real" molecule numbers): 3CH4+6O2 gives 3CO2+6H2O. For every molecule of methane burned, 3 molecules of water are added to the atmosphere. It obviously does not change anything to the John's argumentation above and the existing research results, but, even in the absence of that evidence, arguing that water vapor is a more potent GHG would not undermine the argument that we should veer away from fossil fuels.
131161. roverdc at 17:32 PM on 27 September 2007
        There is no consensus
        Concensus only has meaning if there is no pressure to conform in either direction. In the climate debate this is extremely far from being true. How far could we reasonably expect a questioner to go in an IPCC panel when that instantly collects a denialist label and probably guarantees a dead end to even the most able career? In the current climate it is reasonable to assume the dissent camp is at least ten times the admitted size. I know that as an admittedly uninformed questioner I get some pretty vitriolic responses from the eco faithful.
131162. Philippe Chantreau at 13:45 PM on 27 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Poles should be warmer than the equator? I'm not sure why. Are you sure that the atmosphere (i.e. the layer between the "altitude" at which hydrogen becomes liquid and the one where pressure becomes negligible) is actually thinner at the poles? The Kunde et al paper mentions the lack of latitudinal heat transport. If there was a mechanism for the heat from the ionospheric hot spots to somehow travel downward, it would still not be moving to the latitudes where heat would be needed to fuel the convective clouds, which have been precisely observed, as in this other pic I linked: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/captions/jupiter/watercld.htm Because once again of the lack of latitudinal heat transport and the vortex shaped polar circulation, your argument applies negatively to your hypohesis too. If solar wind heat could warm up the polar atmosphere at the lower levels, that heat would remained confined to the poles. Also, how likely is it that this heat is quantitavely apt at generating Jupiter's weather? It seems that the solar wind heat hypothesis creates more problems than it solves.
131163. papertiger at 06:56 AM on 27 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Thick Jovian atmosphere. Jupiter is an oblate spheroid. The distance from the center of the planet is shorter from pole to pole then it is across the equator. In the storms are fueled internally model the poles should be warmer then the equator, because the heat would have a shorter distance to travel to reach the surface, less material to heat. The aurora are dissimilar from Earth's due to two factors. Jupiter's mag field is 1000 times more powerful, the particles are a 1000 times as hot, and Io is erupting fresh material at escape velocity which feeds and augments the mag flux.
131164. nrlen at 19:43 PM on 26 September 2007
        1934 - hottest year on record
        The graph cannot be right. 1934 is the hottest year, with 1998 second. The graph shows 2005 as hotter than 1998. The whole thing does not ring true, it looks manufactured to promote the alarmists assertions and to minimise the exposed errors.
        Response: The graph is of global temperature. '1934 is the hottest year' applies to US temperature.
131165. Philippe Chantreau at 08:31 AM on 26 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        I should probably emphasize that the observations show localized hot spots in the upper ionosphere, just for clarity. Saying that solar heats up the polar atmosphere is a little bit of a stretch considering how thick the Jovian atmosphere is.
131166. Philippe Chantreau at 12:34 PM on 25 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Having the full paper is definitely better. I stand corrected. The warming mentioned by papertiger concerns the upper ionosphere at levels of a few microbars. In that sense, it is true that the atmosphere is heated by particle deposition and other sources not fully understood (Joule effect was mentioned). However, this is more relevant to the upper atmosphere's chemical composition and does not appear to have much implication for its weather, considering how high it is happening and that Jupiter's storms are fueled by heat from below.
131167. Philippe Chantreau at 11:54 AM on 25 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Hot dog!! Thanks for the tip John!
131168. Philippe Chantreau at 11:49 AM on 25 September 2007
        It's the sun
        What it also shows for the 20th century is that the timing is not quite right. Temp increases sharply before the TSI and then, even before the TSI reaches its first 20th century spike, the temp actually starts to decrease, followed by a TSI decrease, and then the temp increases again, followed again (very modestly) by the TSI. If I was using a skeptical aproach to attempt a correlation between the 2 on this graph, it would appear that TSI was driven by temperature during the 20th century.
131169. Philippe Chantreau at 11:31 AM on 25 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Interesting paper. I don't have a subscription so I could not read the full article. I might miss something but from the abstract and the excerpt provided I do not see where it is demonstrated that heat from solar particle winds (?) warms up the polar regions. Any cites on how the particles would generate the heat? Whatever heat is there is unlikely (that's an understatement) to amount to more than the solar irradiance itself, which is, as we have well reviewed, 2.4 times less than the internal heat. I have not read anything suggesting that internal heat is confined to the equatorial regions. Although the lower latitudes Jovian auroras are somewhat mysterious, the polar ones are mostly similar in nature to those of Earth, as suggested by the Cassini/Galileo data: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2002/release_2002_46.html I don't know of any research attributing a significant part to auroras in the atmospheric heat budget of any planet and I still have not burned my hand by touching a neon tube. If there is some research about that, a cite would be nice. From my (modest) recollection of physics, I would think that trying to heat anything with particles is like trying to boil a kettle by throwing hot pebbles at it. Eventually you may succeed with a super-dense barrage of particles, but that's not what the solar wind is.
        Response: Phillipe, for the record, free registration to the Science website will get you access to that article. Science has a window of free access (providing you're registered) - the only articles requiring subscription are recent ones and much older papers but 2004 is fair game.
131170. papertiger at 05:09 AM on 25 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Let's return to the main thrust of your post. You say "Temperature is relatively uniform on Jupiter - the temperature at the poles is nearly the same as at the equator. This is due to the chaotic mixing of heat and airflow from vortices (eg - the White Ovals). The oscillatory motions of the White Ovals ceased after they merged, dampening the movement of heat from Jupiter's equator to its south pole." This is all falsified by observation of the Shoemaker Levi 9 comet aftermath. When the comet hit it created certain shock chemicals which were tracked over the years by Galileo's CIRS; hydrogen cyanide (HCN), carbon monoxide (CO), and carbon monosulfide (CS). The HCN is long lived and provides a footprint to study latitudinal transport. From the paper Jupiter's Atmospheric Composition from the Cassini Thermal Infrared Spectroscopy Experiment -

        HCN latitudinal distribution. Once produced by shock chemistry during the SL9 impacts, HCN is stable and almost inert in the stratosphere, so that it is a tracer of atmospheric motions. In fact, the peak abundance is still at the impact latitude [emphasis is mine], and the total HCN mass in Jupiter's stratosphere observed between 1995 and 2000 is comparable to what was inferred right after the SL9 impacts in 1994. The sharp falloff of HCN observed at high latitudes cannot be due to chemistry driven by particle bombardment in the auroral regions. Ion chemistry does not break the CN bond but only efficiently recycles HCN. Thus, a dynamical explanation is the most logical explanation, and HCN should provide a powerful constraint on mixing at mid-latitudes in the southern hemisphere by meridional winds and horizontal wave-induced diffusion. The CIRS observations yield a maximum 5° latitudinal shift in the location of peak abundance from the impact latitude, a behavior consistent with a meridional velocity of zero and a spreading due to diffusion. The equatorward spread of HCN is then mostly by diffusive transport. If horizontal diffusion were constant with latitude, the SL9-produced HCN would maximize at the south pole. The most probable dynamical reason for the southward decrease is the inhibition of wave-induced diffusive mixing of HCN in the presence of strong circumpolar winds (vortices) in Jupiter's polar regions. This effect is analogous to the polar vortex that produces a confinement vessel for the Antarctic ozone hole from mid-latitude air in Earth's stratosphere and dynamically isolates polar regions from lower latitudes. Latitudinal temperature gradients measured by CIRS in Jupiter's upper stratosphere indicate the existence of strong polar vortices near 65°N and 65°S, yielding jet streams with eastward velocities of about 20 m s–1 or higher near 1 mbar. Ground-based observations at the Infrared Telescope Facility confirm the presence of a north polar vortex.

        So you can see that there was no appreciable latitudinal heat transport for Red Jr. to interrupt. Also this paper proves that Jupiter's polar regions are heated by solar wind particles accelerated to relativistic energy level by the magnetic flux, rather then heat mixing from the equatorial region.
        Response:

        There are actually "5 thrusts" to my post, any one of which puts paid to the idea that climate change on Jupiter is due to a warming sun:

        1. Jupiter's storms are fueled internally, not by the sun
        2. The changes occuring (eg - disappearance of vortices, creation of Red Spot Jr) are the result of internal turbulence, not an external forcing
        3. Global warming isn't happening on Jupiter - it's a change in the distribution of energy with more in the equator, less in the poles due to disappearing vortices
           
        4. The climate change cited by skeptics (changes of 10 degrees) haven't even been observed yet - they are model predictions
           
        5. The sun isn't getting hotter
           

        However, I appreciate your tenacity and hard work in researching Jovian climate - the comments have been engrossing and John Cross will be chuffed to find a paper on the impact of Shoemaker Levi as that was what got me started on Jupiter in the first place.
131171. Philippe Chantreau at 01:54 AM on 25 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        Rereading through Papertiger posts, I thought it would be interesting to address the issue of water on Jupiter. Here is what I found in 10 minutes of straight, basic googling. Observations by the Galileo probe in orbit around the planet led to more information on this subject than the atmospheric probe, which entered over a very dry, cloudless area. This release gives the skinny: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7136/abs/nature05718.html Here is also a cool pic from JPL: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/captions/jupiter/watercld.htm I had conversations with proponents of outer SS planetary warming before and for some reason, they seem to be fond of Dr Beebe. She contributed to this paper: http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v31n4/dps99/212.htm. Overall, it does not seem that Jupiter suffers a lack of water such as to invalidate the convective models proposed by Gierasch and many (most) others.
131172. Philippe Chantreau at 02:55 AM on 24 September 2007
        Mars is warming
        This seems to be the best work so far on Mars' recent weather: Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars
        Response: Thanks, this was the study I was refering to but I didn't have a direct link to the study. I've updated the page with the link added.
131173. Philippe Chantreau at 02:36 AM on 24 September 2007
        Mars is warming
        Once again, it is useful to ask ourselves this question about other planets: how unusual is this (the recent southern ice caps sublimation)? This link gives a hint: http://www.msss.com/http/ps/seasons/seasons.html. Consider also that Mars' orbit takes about 589 days, letting us observe only three full seasonal cycles in 5 years. It has long been known that Milankovitch cycles are the best fit to the available evidence for historic glaciation-deglaciation cycles on Earth. The energy source, the Sun, is extra-terrestrial but there is no evidence that it got brighter or dimmer in proportions apt at changing our climate and in any case, that is not what Milankovitch cycles are. As far as I can recall, the energy received changes because of the planet getting closer, farther, or being oriented slightly different, which is a function of its orbit and precession; in that sense, extra-terrestrial is a little misleading, since these qualities could really be called intrinsic to the planet. The point of the paper cited by papertiger is that Earth and Mars' Milankovitch Cycles could be resonant. I wonder if anyone has tried to obtain some level of confirmation from pure celestial mechanics calculation. In any case, it is interesting but quite irrelevant to the current terrestrial warming, which does not correlate well with neither Milankovitch nor with the so-called Martian warming. That Martian warming is really a re-warming back to the kind of weather seen by the Viking crafts, and the Earth should now be heading for cooler climate if only Milankovitch was at play.
131174. biocab at 13:46 PM on 22 September 2007
        It's the sun
        No, what it shows is that the solar irradiance in 2006 was 1367.25 W/m^2.
131175. biocab at 01:44 AM on 22 September 2007
        It's the sun
        Ben Lankamp, the source is http://lasp.colorado.edu/science/solar_influence/index.htm It's not unrealistic given that the data is NH instrumental. Solar irradiance is going up, not down. You cannot take just one sunspots cycle out of context. The last would be pseusoscience.
        Response: The only information at the LASP page about long term trends in solar irradiance is the following graph:

        

        What it shows is a close correlation between Solar Irradiance (the orange line) and global temperature (dotted blue line). But they also show the correlation ends when the modern global warming trend begins in the mid-70's. The data is all there and it's unambiguous - there's a reason why so many studies (listed above under "Other Studies on solar influence on climate") conclude the sun's influence on recent global warming is minimal.
131176. Philippe Chantreau at 03:00 AM on 21 September 2007
        It's the sun
        I like your analysis Ben. If you haven't, check Tamino's post "PMOD vs ACRIM." He did an outstanding job of examining solar data. Hope John isn't going to get tired of me always referring to other sites!
        Response: Not at all - the point of Skeptical Science is to point people to relevant resources, primarily the peer reviewed papers but good blog posts too. Tamino has two great posts which I link to from my Is the sun getting hotter? page (and I even lifted one of his graphs to use on my page).
131177. Philippe Chantreau at 16:10 PM on 20 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        What "local" climate statistics do you use to justify the assertion that Saturn or any other outer SS planet is undergoing climate change? The IPCC definition of climate for Earth involves a 30 years period. I'm sure you know what kind of time period that translates into for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto (respectively 356, 884, 2522, 4947 and 7435 years, give or take). I find interesting that "skeptics" so eagerly recommend taking the enormous amount of highly accurate data available for Earth with a grain of salt (or the all shaker for that matter), while at the same time accepting wild conclusions on poorly understood extra-terrestrial "climates" based on very scant, spotty observations. If you want to tell me about climate change on outer SS planets, I'll take the skeptical approach and ask for some serious climate history and data before considering any conclusion. As for Pluto's expanding atmosphere observation, it was made under ideal conditions, with equipment never available before (KECK, if I remember right). So, even if the event witnessed on that occasion is a regular occurrence, it could never have been seen before, for that reason and this other detail: with a year lasting close to 248 Earth years, Pluto has not been observed through a full orbit yet. Should we add that Pluto's atmospheric changes are suspected to be highly albedo dependent and that Pluto has been darkening since the 50's (collection of space materials is probable)? There are countless caveats and like considerations for all the planets supposedly experiencing "climate change." How about crunching some numbers and showing us what kind of energy output would be necessary from the Sun to obtain those changes that you assert are Sun driven? Then we could compare that with the observed changes in solar irradiance. You could crunch some more and come up with theoretical values of increased energy input for Venus and compare with what is actually happening there (not much unusual if I recall), where the Sun is mighty close. Jupiter deserves some crunching too: three vortices merged into one to form the so-called Red spot Jr. How unusual is this? By the way, the idea of Jovian internal heat is not new, see this: But Galileo certainly helped restart the debate, as discussed here: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/1996/96-103.txt I noted the following passage: " According to mission scientists, Galileo probe data strongly suggest that circulation patterns in Jupiter's cloud tops and its interior (which runs 10,000 miles deep) are part of one continuous process. Dr. David Atkinson of the University of Idaho continues to report persistent Jovian wind velocities of over 400 mph. The probe detected no reduction in wind speed, even at its deepest levels of measurement,approximately 100 miles below Jupiter's clouds. Galileo scientists regard this finding as confirmation that the main driving force of Jupiter's winds is internal heat radiating upward from the planet's deep interior. The strength of the Jovian winds and the fact that they do not subside with depth is very significant, according to Dr. Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA." This blurb is interesting also: http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/julsep96/sep0996/model.html Closer to Earth: for all the talk about Mars, it is worth pointing that it went trough significant cooling after the Viking landing, before experiencing the more recent warming some are so excited about (which is best explained by dust storm patterns). It does not leave that much correlation with Earth changes. The bottom line is this: what is presented as climate change carries little meaning when the climates in question are so poorly known to start with. Outer SS planets are exposed to all sorts of influences that have as much weight as the solar constant in their "climate." Attempts to show a solar source to terrestrial climate change by pointing to observations on other planets whose significance is unclear should be received with the highest skepticism. Especially when there are satellite observations of solar irradiance available for Earth. Sorry for the long post.
131178. papertiger at 04:49 AM on 20 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        Uranus has just passed into the equinox of its orbit where the whole of the planet is receiving sunshine evenly, as opposed to just the one pole getting continuous sunlight. So of course it is going to cool down on the poles. By the way, you left out Saturn and Enceladus on your list of planets or moons undergoing climate change.
131179. papertiger at 04:42 AM on 20 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        I have heard discussion about ammonia clouds (being imaged for the first time and such). What is the conductivity of ammonia as compared to water? As I remember it, water is only a conductor due to impurities. Ingersol and company "infer" water deep under the opaque cloud cover, beyond direct inspected, due to lightening strikes. Is it not possible that some other chemical is the source of lightening activity on Jupiter? There were two events which allowed the direct examination of whether Jupiter's atmosphere contained appreciable ammounts of water. The Galileo atmospheric probe, which found no water, and the Shoemaker Levi comet crash. In the first instance, Ingersol explained the lack of water found by the probe as due to it falling in an area analogous to a desert region on Jupiter. IN the second case, the comet, due to it's disintigration, fell over a wide area of Jupiter. Spectroscopic analysis found some water but it wasn't native to the planet. The water vapor found was carried by the comet and after a short period of time was converted through photolytic processes into Co2.
131180. Philippe Chantreau at 07:46 AM on 19 September 2007
        Temp record is unreliable
        Obviously, it is beyond unthinkable at CA that the evidence pre-existing their "scrutiny" could have any validity. Let us not forget what exactly the CA/McIntyre effort basic drive consists of, in summary: we do not like what the scientific research concludes on this issue, so we are going to review every single detail, fishing for anything that could lead in the direction that we favor. On the other hand, the actual climate research follows this basic process: study climate, by considering the physical laws governing atmospheric dynamics and their interrelations, by modeling these on supercomputers, by gathering as much data as can be obtained and carefully sorting through and analyzing that data. It is not very suprising that when the CA folks actually get into a scientific way to analyze data, their conclusions confirm the prior ones from real researchers.
131181. Philippe Chantreau at 08:54 AM on 18 September 2007
        Temp record is unreliable
        John V on CA has results using "good" stations and "bad" stations (per Watts definitions) and comes to results extremely close to GISSTEMP. GISSTEMP is closest to the curve obtained withe the "good" stations. There is a post and a link on Rabett Run, you can also go directly to CA.
        Response: Phillipe, thanks for the comment. You can find Rabett's post here plus here's a direct link to John V's graphs on Climate Audit. What I find particularly interesting is Steve McIntyre's response:

        "...keep in mind that USHCN stations have already passed one cut of quality control. They are represented as “high quality” stations. No such representations have been made for stations in China - they may be good, they may be bad, they may have had accurate records throughout the turmoil of Chinese history, they may not. I don’t know how you’d even begin to place “confidence” in the Chinese record in the absence of such analysis."

        Eg - he concedes that in spite of all those photos of air conditioners and car parks, the US stations are actually good quality. So instead, let's go pick on China instead!
131182. John Cross at 01:30 AM on 18 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Papertiger: Interesting idea about the tides on the sun, but I am not sure it is as large as you might think. I took the following quote from PLANETARY TIDES AND SUNSPOT CYCLES by Condon and Schmidt (Solar Physics 42, 1975) "Thus the maximum tide height produced by the Earth is only Hme = 0.1 mm. The tide due to Mercury is comparable, and those caused by Venus and Jupiter are about twice as large. The tidal effects of all the remaining planets are much smaller." John
131183. John Cross at 00:45 AM on 18 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Papertiger. I suspect that you have overlooked the fact that Jupiter is a sphere. My 55 W/m2 value looks at the intensity of solar radiation at Jupiter's radius as opposed to earth's radius. However your 33 W/m2 looks at emissions from the whole of Jupiter. The formula for the surface area of a sphere is 4 pi r2 so we need to divide the 55 W/m2 by 4 to get about 13.75 W/m2. Dividing 33/13.75 gives you 2.4 so I would say the 2.5 value is pretty close. John
131184. Steve Bloom at 06:23 AM on 17 September 2007
        Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
        John, note that Christy (with Spencer) pulled a bait and switch on his CCSP report co-authors after they'd gone to all that trouble avoiding trashing his work in the report. I don't think they were amused. Also FYI, Roy Spencer has become Rush Limbaugh's in-house climatologist.
131185. papertiger at 18:43 PM on 16 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        John Cross asks an interesting question. 1) The orbit of Jupiter is somewhat eccentric and at times is 70 million km closer to the sun than other times. Could the your warming be associated with this annual effect? Answer: Jupiter is huge. So huge infact that the focii of orbit between Jove and the sun is actually outside the solar surface. This makes the relationship between the two roughly analogous to the relationship between the Earth and moon. The Moon's gravitation causes tides on Earth. Likewise Jupiters gravitation causes tides on the sun. This solar tide results in a greater surface area photosphere, hence higher insolation on Earth, when Jupiter is in perihelion.
131186. papertiger at 10:23 AM on 16 September 2007
        Mars is warming
        Nice picture of the southern icecap by the way.
        Response: Thanks, it was either a photo of the icecaps or a picture of Fred Thompson. I think I made the right choice.
131187. papertiger at 10:20 AM on 16 September 2007
        Mars is warming
        Sediment cycles on Mars in resonance with Earth

        After computation of the astronomical Milankovitch cycles on deep sea cores for the last 2.4 Ma the same cycles revealed to exist in land sediment series: Long Term (last 2.4 Ma, Pleistocene) and Middle Term (last 127Ka, Last Interglacial - Last Glacial Time-span) Time Series after cycle computation with the newly developed ExSpect method. Moreover, the same calculation method proved useful for Short Term Time Series as well on sediments of the last 10.000 years (10Ka). The latter cycles as those obtained for ice and glacial lake deposits on Mars could also clearly be traced back in the planetary correlations computed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This points to an extra terrestrial astronomical forcing of the origin of all these cycles on both planets Earth and Mars.

        Which begs the next question - how would they know this without taking a sediment sample on Mars? Answer: they got one with the the Mars orbital satellite.
131188. papertiger at 04:25 AM on 16 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Lets go ahead and quantify, by all means. John Cross has helpfully converted the vague "4% of the level we receive on earth" into the more useful 55 W/m2. On to the internal energy source. This is the tricky part. How much "heat" is Jupiter giving off? I have seen rather vague discriptions, with qualifiers such as "almost" and "about", but no concrete numbers. Before Pioneer visited, the heat given off of Jupiter was estimated as "several" times the incident sunlight. After Voyager it was "about" 2 and 1/2 times. Now the author of this post has lited on "almost" twice as much. No help here, so I went to the library. In Reta Beebe's book Jupiter: The Giant Planet page 72, we learn from Rudolf Hanel and his team at Goddard, who developed the duel instrument radiometer and Michelson interferometer used by the Voyager spacecraft, that

        By comparing the intensity of the infrared light that was obtained during daylight and dark intervals, Hanel and his team could separate scattered infrared sunlight from infrared radiation that was emerging from below the clouds. They show that Jupiter emitted energy at a rate of 0.0033 W/cm2.

        Well dang. Something doesn't compute. How is 0.0033 W/cm2 "almost twice as much" as 55 W/m2? Someone explain this to me, because I am stumped.
        Response: John Cross' later comment addresses this but let me clarify a few things. Firstly, your figures are correct. Jupiter emits energy at 0.0033 W/cm². As there are 10,000 square centimetres in a square metre (eg - 100cm x 100cm), this means 0.0033 W/cm² = 10,000 x 0.0033 W/m² = 33 W/m². The surface area of a sphere is 4 x pi x r². So the total amount of energy emitted by Jupiter = 33 x 4 x pi x r² Watts = 414 r² Watts (I can't be bothered looking up Jupiter's radius).
        
        Secondly, the solar flux at Jupiter is roughly 55 W/m². But Jupiter only absorbs solar energy on the half of the planet facing the sun. Eg - the area that absorbs solar energy at 55 W/m² is a circle with the same radius as Jupiter. The area of a circle = pi x r². Hence, the total amount of solar energy absorbed by Jupiter = 55 x pi x r² Watts = 172 r² Watts .

         

        In other words, Jupiter emits about 2.4 times as much energy as it absorbs from the sun. Thanks for your research in quantifying the incoming and outgoing radiation. I've updated the text from "almost twice as much" to "more than twice as much".
131189. papertiger at 03:23 AM on 16 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        Phil, Here is the first two sentences from Gierasch

        "The energy source driving Jupiter's active meteorology is not understood. There are two main candidates: a poorly understood internal heat source and sunlight."

        Doesn't sound like he has extensively analyzed the Jovian storms to me. Further on he says,

        We estimate that the total vertical transport of heat by storms like the one observed here is of the same order as the planet's internal heat source. We therefore conclude that moist convection-similar to large clusters of thunderstorm cells on the Earth-is a dominant factor in converting heat flow into kinetic energy in the jovian atmosphere.

        Now isn't it interesting that when in doubt Gierasch offers up water vapor as his main transport of heat energy on a planet without water. Recall it is the water born heat exchange which is not well modeled, misunderstood, discounted, and ignored by the IPCC on Earth as the basis for alarm, regarding CO2 warming. Does this not disturb you?
        Response: I think the point of the "is not understood" is that his paper sheds some light on Jupiter's meteorology. Also, there is water on Jupiter. Ingersoll 2000 says "We estimate, based on the inferred abundance of water in the deep atmosphere that the base of the water cloud is at 6 bars. From the base to the top of the cloud clusters the vertical distance is 80 km, or 0.1% of Jupiter's radius. Water is the principal agent of cloud electrication, as the other condensates are thought to be less abundant than water."
131190. TMLutas at 05:50 AM on 15 September 2007
        Temp record is unreliable
        I strongly suspect that periodic physical checks are needed to avoid error. Poor ventilation, not painting when needed, allowing vents to get partially or totally blocked, etc. can have a heating effect on these stations independent of UHI. The abortive attempt to hide the station locations and an awful lot of hot air floating around the Internet about how physical checks aren't really necessary makes me think that the universal commitment to quality is more theoretical on some people's part than real.
131191. Philippe Chantreau at 22:39 PM on 14 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Here are a couple more questions: how much increased solar irradiance would it take to "warm" Jupiter in the extent that you propose (and that you haven't quantified)? And how would that same increased irradiance be felt on Earth (where a significant solar irradiance increase has not been detected recently). By the way, the sheer pressure generated by Jupiter's gravity is enough to produce a lot of its internal heat.
131192. Philippe Chantreau at 20:44 PM on 14 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        Papertiger, your comment about Jupiter is in disagreement with research conducted by Gierasch (summary and comment readable on space.com), and several other teams. Gierasch has extensively analyzed the jovian storms and has concluded that they can not be fueled by solar energy, there is not enough of it. Other teams have built very successful models of Jupiter's atmosphere, they all use internal heat as the energy source. All this has been published and is easy to find. Jupiter's core is extrememly hot, from compression and the residual heat from the planet's formation. That heat is the main driver of the planet's weather and climate.
131193. Ben Lankamp at 06:59 AM on 14 September 2007
        It's the sun
        Small addition: this is what you get when you compare random years, say 1966 and 1996 (thirty years): 1365,951 and 1365,621, a decrease of -0,330 W/m². This is all using the Lean (2000) data from your webpage. Now 1966 was three years away from the maximum of cycle 20 in 1969 and 1996 was the minimum at the end of cycle 22.
131194. Ben Lankamp at 06:42 AM on 14 September 2007
        It's the sun
        What is your source of 1367,25 W/m² for 2006, honestly for me it would seem like an unrealistic jump from the late 1990's to now. According to the PMOD-WRC data (link above, 'direct satellite measurements'), which is consistent with Lean (2000), the average TSI last year was 1365,4 or 1365,5 W/m² which seems more appropriate than 1367 W/m². In any case you cannot directly compare 1957 with 2006 because 2006 was the 11-year cycle minimum and 1957 was a cycle maximum, so compare maxima or minima or averages per solar cycle instead. E.g. if I use the Lean (2000) data from your webpage and compare 1957 with 2000 (maximum of solar cycles 19 and 23), I get 1366,681 and 1366,724, which equates to deltaF = 0,043 W/m² or a deltaT of 0,06 according to your equation. The first half of the century however I see a deltaF of 1,6 W/m² in the maxima and deltaF of 1,0 W/m² in the minima, equating to deltaT = 1,6-2,4 degrees. This strikes me more as a debate on data than principals or methods, by the way. The detrended data shows no [significant] decrease or increase in TSI/ISI. From that perspective I neither agree with the Lockwood article that ISI has decreased in the last 25 years nor with the claim that it has increased in the last 50 years. I would have to make myself more familiar with the exact fundamentals of radiative forcing before investigating whether or not the trend found would induce any (significant) forcing, your equation looks nice but I want to check it for myself first :-). On CO2 forcing: climate sensitivity to doubling of its concentration has a probability range even in the IPCC reports, however further discussion on this is not meant for this page.
131195. John Cross at 05:52 AM on 14 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Paper Tiger: I found your link interesting but I do not see the connection with what seems to be your premise that the climate change is caused by an increase in solar radiation. As John Cook pointed out there is a great deal of internal heat, you can argue about its source but not the fact that it is there. Also as John pointed out the energy received by Jupiter from the sun is 1/25 the amount that earth receives. Taking a typical value of 1365 W/m2, that means that Jupiter gets about 55 W/m2. This of course also means that the changes in solar values are 1/25 that of what we see on earth. Taking some typical ACRIM values for the solar output during solar cycles we see a difference of 3 W/m2. In jupiter terms this would be a change of 0.12 W/m2. Much less than current enhanced CO2 forcings on Earth. Can this be responsible for warming Jupiter. Now, in the tradition of science, let me ask you some questions, specifically how can you exclude the following. 1) The orbit of Jupiter is somewhat eccentric and at times is 70 million km closer to the sun than other times. Could the your warming be associated with this annual effect? 2) What was the effect of Shoemaker-Levy 9 on the planet and can you state that we are not seeing residual effects from that? Finally, based on the above, what would allow you state that the warming is caused by solar output (especially since we haven't seen any increase in solar ouput on Earth)? My take on this is that we don't really know what cause the climate to change on Jupiter so it can not be taken as evidence of increased solar output. Regards, John
131196. biocab at 05:13 AM on 14 September 2007
        It's the sun
        Well, let's compare 1957 (50 years ago) with 2006 (one year ago). In 1957 the ISI was 1365.7689 W/m^2, while in 2006 the ISI was 1367.25 W/m^2. Where is the decrease? The radiative forcing from ISI is 0.85 K per each W/m^2 of solar IR. From 1957 the extent of ISI has been 1.4811 W/m^2, that is 1.26 K. It is more credible than the 0.02 K from the heat absorbed by the CO2. The point where I don't agree with you is the radiative forcing for CO2, which is not 5.35 W/m^2, but 0.414 W/m^2. That was considered in the NAS paper. It seems, from the article, that the value for deltaF wasarbitrarly fixed.
131197. papertiger at 03:09 AM on 14 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        Here is something that I found striking in it's implication for climate change in the Jupiter system.

        Although astronomers had studied Jupiter from Earth for several centuries, scientists were surprised by many of Voyager 1 and 2's findings. They now understand that important physical, geological, and atmospheric processes go on - in the planet, its satellites, and magnetosphere - that were new to observers. Discovery of active volcanism on the satellite Io was probably the greatest surprise. It was the first time active volcanoes had been seen on another body in the solar system. It appears that activity on Io affects the entire Jovian system. Io appears to be the primary source of matter that pervades the Jovian magnetosphere -- the region of space that surrounds the planet, primarily influenced by the planet's strong magnetic field. Sulfur, oxygen, and sodium, apparently erupted by Io's volcanoes and sputtered off the surface by impact of high-energy particles, were detected at the outer edge of the magnetosphere. Particles of the same material are present inside Io's orbit, where they accelerate to more than 10 percent of the speed of light. It is clear to scientists from a comparison of data from Pioneers 10 and 11 (which flew past Jupiter in late 1973 and 1974) and the Voyagers that something changed in the four and one-half years between the Pioneer and Voyager encounters. It is not entirely clear just how far-reaching those changes are, or what brought them about. They may be related to Ionian activity. It is difficult to imagine, however, that at least some of Io's volcanoes were not erupting when the Pioneers flew past; it is also, the Voyager scientists say, difficult to believe the Pioneers' instruments failed to see magnetospheric concentrations of sulfur detected by both Voyager spacecraft (Voyager 1 saw greater concentrations than Voyager 2).

        Excerpted from Voyager Jupiter Science Summary May 7, 1990 Courtesy of: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) weblink Let me encapsulate. In the early 70's, Pioneer's 10 and 11 flew through the magnetic field of Jupiter and detected no sulfuric eruptions or particles that were obvious and pervasive in Jupiter's magnetic field in 1979. In short the climate changed.
131198. papertiger at 01:50 AM on 14 September 2007
        Jupiter is warming
        An internal heat source? That would involve gravitational compression. For a planet undergoing gravitational compression to have a climate change, such as a new Red Jr. or increased heat at the equator, the specific gravity would have to change. Jupiter would have had to gain weight.
        Response: Jupiter's internal heat source is not well understood but has been well observed for several decades (eg - Murphy 1975, Fazio 1976). Gierasch 2000 concludes that moist convection from the internal heat source is the dominant factor in converting heat flow into kinetic energy (eg - internal heat fuels the storms). But it's not changes in the internal heat source that is causing climate change on Jupiter at the moment. The predicted climate changes at the equator and poles are due to changes in the vortices that mix heat throughout the planet. I recommend reading this interview with Philip Marcus who explains the process in detail.
131199. papertiger at 23:03 PM on 13 September 2007
        Other planets are warming
        You realize that the argument, Jupiter is heated from within and only receives a small fraction of the energy from the sun that the Earth does, depends upon that 4% of energy being incapable of driving weather. We know this to be false from your own report regarding Neptune. While Jupiter receives 25 times less energy per square meter from the sun that the Earth does, Neptune receives 900 times less. How is it that the 900 times weaker sunshine can drive weather and promote seasonal changes on Neptune, as you testify on this very blog above, but the much stronger incident sunshine on the face of Jupiter is considered inconsequential? The fact is Jupiter is a strong case for solar driven climate change. The Great Red Spot is a singular weather event without a peer or analog on any of the other known worlds. Some people insist on describing it as a hurricane. This is incorrect. A hurricane is a low pressure zone funneling surrounding warm air to the ground. The Great Red Spot is a high pressure zone, forcing hot air out of the middle of the planet. It rises 8 kilometers above the surrounding methane cloud deck, like a turkey timer that is popping out to tell us that the thanksgiving meal is ready. And now we have another great red spot, which will probably be with us for a very very long time. Neptune is changing in a spectacular and miraculous way which a cut and dried pdf file will not impart to you. Have a look at it in color. Neptune's orbit is 164 years long, and Voyager only visited it once back in 1989, so we have no baseline to judge if this change is the natural effect of Neptune traveling through it's orbit, or if it is the result of an augmented solar effect. But either way it is the sun driving Neptune's weather. Voyager was launched in 1977 and didn't get to Neptune until 1989. Right now, thirty years later, Voyager still has ten more years of travel before it reachs the heliopause, where the solar wind gives way to the pressure of interstellar space. So don't let this joker fool you that the sun is too weak or feeble to affect Jupiter.
131200. greenman3610 at 19:28 PM on 13 September 2007
        Climate change on Jupiter
        thanks for this post, and for this blog. In the rapidly expanding field of denialist-squashing websites, this one is a standout.

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