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michael sweet at 02:05 AM on 21 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
Here is the correct link for the Pielke report.
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michael sweet at 02:03 AM on 21 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has put out a new report. It has some very strong language for scientists. The National Academy of Sciences (USA) and the Royal Society (UK) had a similar report a couple of weeks ago. Maybe scientists have gotten tired of the deniers getting all the news headlines.
Hopefully the mainstream media will pick up on these reports. Unfortunately, Nate Silver's new website chose Roger Pielke Jr. to write about climate for them. His first post was reviewed at Think Progress. It is Pielke's typical cherry picking to claim damages have not increased.
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MA Rodger at 00:55 AM on 21 March 2014Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?
Tom Curtis @27.
I concur with your numbers. In my haste to be done @26, I failed to convert from disc to sphere so my energy flux was 4x too big.
I would note that, while this does correct the arithmetic @25, there is still a fallacy within the logic. Solar energy can be considered in equilibrium prior to AGW. Today's imbalance is not with the solar energy (although with a warming climate, the solar imbalance could be considered now negative). What is heating the ocean is the increase in LW back radiation, a flux about twice the size of the solar flux. Thus it would be more correct to say that the oceans are actually retaining 0.16% of ocean's back radiation.
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Tom Curtis at 00:41 AM on 21 March 2014Climate's changed before
JCMac1 and Dikran Marsupial, you will probably find this article on the thermal regulation of dinosaurs interesting. It reviews the evidence that dinosaurs maintained fairly stable core body temperatures, but did so not by maintaining a high metabolism (as do birds and mammals), but by the use waste heat from normal muscular action to warm the body, coupled with various tricks to prevent the two rapid loss of heat. Importantly, heat production by that means is one quarter to one tenth of that in animals with high metabolic rates. Therefore dinosaurs needed to dispose of only a quarter or less of the heat of a similarly sized mammal.
High temperatures are only a potential problem to humans because they restrict the rate at which heat can be disposed of. If only a quarter of the heat needs to be disposed of, a similarly sized animal can safely live with much higher external temperatures.
Further, feathers are (from memory) a feature of small dinosaurs only. There are large dinosaurs among the branch that developed feathers, but no evidence that they retained feathers into adulthood. Even at high temperatures, for animals of low body mass to retain stable internal temperatures without high metabolisms, they need substantial insulation. Hence feathers.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 23:53 PM on 20 March 2014Global warming not slowing - it's speeding up
Micawber
A smal correction. Although around 93% of heat is going into the oceans, that does not mean the remaining 7% is warming the air. The 7% is split between melting ice, warming the ground and warming the air, in roughly equal proportions. So air warming is only about 2-2.5% of the total heat.
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Dikran Marsupial at 23:52 PM on 20 March 2014Climate's changed before
JCMac1 I don't have my dinosaur books with me today, but I'll try and address some of the points you make:
Firstly dinosaurs adapted to various climates, but they did so over the course of tends of thousands to millions of years. It is the rate of climate change that is the problem rather than just the final temperature reached.
Most dinosaurs, like most modern reptiles are unable ti directly regulate their body temperature (which is one of the reasons that the require so much less food endergy than us mammals - so there is an evolutionary advantage to this). If heat were a serious problem, dinosaurs would not have evolved to be very large as this increases the volume to surface area ratio, which in turn makes gaining or loosing heat more difficult.
The bony plates on e.g. stegosaurus were for cooling, ..., and heating. This is fairly well known. Apparently the bony plates could be flattened in the morning to raise body to operating temperature after loosing heat overnight, but could also be made vertical and pointed away from the sun, inwhich case they could be used to cool body temperatre.
I am no aware of any suggestion that dinosar feathers were filled with liquid rather than air (or indeed that birds do this either), or how this would really help with cooling.I think it is quite likely that the feathere were for insulation, rather that cooling, helping to keep the body temperature approximately constant, rather than specifically for cooling.
Life can certainly survive a return to the sort of temperatures seen in the Cretaceous. The same is unlikely to be true of human civilisation as it exists today. There are simply too many of us for us to be able to adapt to that sort of change in our agricultural environment. I'm sure that we as a species would also survive, although there would be great hardship and loss of life along the way (mostly due to starvation). I personally don't think that makes it a case of "well that's alright then".More seriously, the "skeptics" have invented the concept of CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) simply because the know that they can't defend the argument that there is no AGW, so a shift of the goalposts is required. AGW doesn't need to be catastrophic for it to be worthwile taking steps to mitigate against in in order to maximise the quality of life for the current generation and for the next.
The problem with the air-conditioner feather theory seems to me that the feathers themselves would insulate the skin from the area at the surface of the feathers that were actually evaporating the water. It is also not clear why this would be any better than simply sweating through the skin. Why don't birds, such as ostriches do this?
Birds will continue to fly, should temperatures reach Cretaceous levels once more, this is demonstrated by the fact that there were flying birds in the cretaceous.
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Manwichstick at 23:12 PM on 20 March 2014Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: J.S. Sawyer in 1972
Excellent !!
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CBDunkerson at 21:33 PM on 20 March 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Phronesis, the 2004 Oreskes study found 75% of papers explicitly or implicitly supporting the consensus, 25% taking no position, and 0% contradicting the consensus. Thus, amongst papers expressing any view that study found 100% support for the consensus. Your claim that it found only "a 75% consensus level" is a logic error on your part. If you count papers which don't address the issue at all you could bring in hundreds of thousands of papers on quantum physics, stellar cartography, economics, sociiology, et cetera and claim that since none of these take any position on global warming there is less than 1% support for it... or any other subject you want to dismiss via blatantly flawed logic.
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Phronesis at 20:17 PM on 20 March 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Guys this is really bad. It would be better if you just focused on the facts.
This does not do anything to address the issue: "Thus it's perhaps not surprising that Cook et al. (2013) and its 97% consensus result have been the subject of extensive denial among the usual climate contrarian suspects. After all, the fossil fuel industry, right-wing think tanks, and climate contrarians have been engaged in a disinformation campaign regarding the expert climate consensus for over two decades. For example, Western Fuels Association conducted a half-million dollar campaign in 1991 designed to ‘reposition global warming as theory (not fact).’"
And under "The 97% Consensus Is a Robust Result", you start by citing a study that produce a 75% consensus level -- but you don't tell us that. You cite that study without even revealing the figure, which does not support the claim in your headline. Also, it was a study of abstracts, not scientists, so it's unclear why you think we can mix the two.
The other 97% finding you cite is based on 77 people, which you don't mention.
There is no survey of scientists that gives us 97%. The Cook study was about papers, and you make no mention that most of the papers included in the consensus were coded by human raters as implicitly endorsing AGW. Nor do you mention the substantial disagreement between the raters, or the fact that the disagreed upon observations were still included in the results.
Since the debate is mostly about severity and confidence levels, studies that use broad or ambiguous litmus tests of simple agreement with human caused warming are not very useful. Actual surveys are better, especially if they ask more useful, finer grained questions, like this: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/climate-change/structure-scientific-opinion-climate-change/#
Try to find your 97% there. Severe outcomes are endorsed by less than half of the sample.
(-snip-).
Moderator Response:[DB] Tone-trolling snipped.
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JCMac1 at 14:10 PM on 20 March 2014Climate's changed before
Here's a theoretical stab in the dark about a biological fingerprint that has adapted to a hotter climate in the past. Dinosaurs. Not sure if this view or even topic has been circulated but I thought I'd share it here considering people are trying to rely on the past to understand our present situation.
Searched the net to no avail on the subject of dinosaurs and their cooling systems but this doesn't mean it's not out there. Looking over some graphs it was interesting to note that during the times of the dinosaurs it was much hotter on average than it is today. So I asked myself how dinosaurs kept cool to survive and arrived at some intersesting theories that I havn't seen around yet.
1. Were the vascular bony structures protruding from some dinosaurs originally meant for cooling the dinosaur?
2. Were dinosaur feathers originally filled with liquid instead of air?
3. Were feathers on dinosaurs originally meant to act as air-conditioners to cool the dinosaurs instead of flight?
The reason these questions are on my mind right now is that some people think we can survive dinosaur age global temperatures because life existed during these temperatures. My real questions are how did life at the time adapt to those temperatures?Think about this, dry cotton insulates but wet cotton cools a person faster than if they didn't have it on to begin with. What if feathers are the same way? What if when they're hollow with air they maintain heat and help flight for today's climate. But during hotter times they could have been filled with liquid switching them to air conditioning units instead of flying and insulating units.
Not sure if this is true or even possible but it's really, really bugging me because I can imagine it as a truth and this points to the fact that not even birds will survive going back to those temperatures without them losing their ability to fly.
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StBarnabas at 06:26 AM on 20 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
Many thanks again for this excellent weekley roundup. Of particular interest to me (a veteran MATLAB user of abour 30 years) and never having time to learn 'r' is Michael E Mann's article "Why Global Warming Will Cross a Dangerous Threshold in 2036". The code is in MATLAB - so if there are other users out there direct data and code links are repasted here (hope the mods are OK with this)
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/supplements/EBMProjections/Data/
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/supplements/EBMProjections/MatlabCode/
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localis at 02:31 AM on 20 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
CBD - I agree that those bent on denial no matter what will deny everything no matter how farcical their arguments become. My point with the Keeling Curve is that amongst the deniers I personally have encountered none of them even knew what it is and what it represents (mainly because they have no real interest in climate change and prefer to believe anything that doesn't make them feel they have to compromise their life-style). At least it is the one piece of easily available evidence that can force them to start thinking about the real mechanics of the issue. They might then even be able to make a sensible judgement on the relevance of cow farts!
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Tom Curtis at 01:14 AM on 20 March 2014Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?
Bruce Williams, MA Rodger:
Wikipedia gives the blast yield of Little Boy as 67 x 10^12 Joules
It also gives the surface of the Earth as having an area of 510 x 10^12 m^2
TOA insolatin is 1366 W/m^2 in a plane perpendicular to the suns rays, or 341.5 W/m^2 averaged over the Earths surface. Allowing for albedo, that reduces to 239 W/m^2. That yields a total of 121890 * 10^12 Joules per second (ie, 1.1289 * 10^17 Watts) incoming energy ignoring reflected Short Wave Radiation (SWR) over the Earth's, or the equivalent of 1819.25 Little Boy explosions. From that, we determine that the average 4 Little Boy explosions per second absorbed by the Earth (ie, incoming energy less reflected SWR minus Outgoing Longwave Radiation) is 0.22% of incoming energy less reflected SWR. That is 0.31% of energy falling on the oceans, but that figure is not particularly meaningfull as the Oceans absorb 90 plus percent of total energy absorbed. A little more meaningfull is the fact that the oceans absorb 0.28-0.3% of energy falling on the oceans.
That energy is absorbed, however, over the full depth of the ocean. It may transit the surface, but that does not mean it is stored at the surface. Therefore SST and OHC are not exactly coupled, and OHC can continue to rise when SST are steady or even falling.
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rocketeer at 00:58 AM on 20 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
It's cow farts! (Yeah, I know, that's methane but they will throw out any argument on the theory that somebody must be ignorant enough to believe it.)
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MA Rodger at 00:30 AM on 20 March 2014Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?
BruceWilliams @25.
Your 0.56% derivation is suffering some profound problems. Firstly you should divide by 4 (not 2) to obtain the area of a projected disc from the area of a sphere. But most important, solar radiation is ~1,366 W/sq metre. That is reduced to ~70% of that value due to albedo. To convert to W/sq mile (which you appear to be using) you would multiply by 2,589,988. And a joule is a watt.second not a watt/second. (Luckily you are only dividing by 1.) Thus I make the solar energy hitting the planet 4.8766e17 W so you are within the ballpark so far, but purely by luck rather than anything else.
Your TNT energy is marginally high & your energy per bomb marginally low. How you manage to then obtain 1,000 bombs per second I cannot imagine. It should be something like 7,000 bombs. I assume the 71% is the areal proportion of the oceans, thus some 5,000 bombsworth of solar radiation strikes ocean. If 4 bombsworth is absorbed, that would be 4/5,000 = 0.08%, or seven times less than the figure you derive. Hey, that means the last two lines of your derivation was okay. Well done!! (I should confess that my arithmetic is subject to occasional error. It is, however, not subject to systemic error.)
But then, I have a feeling you are not bothered by the actual figure. Rather you want to bash on about the recent global average SST.
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CBDunkerson at 21:26 PM on 19 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
localis, actually the deniers have a whole collection of nonsense for denying the Keeling curve;
- Mauna Loa volcano biases the results
- The results are faked
- It doesn't matter because CO2 doesn't cause warming
- The CO2 is coming out of the oceans/volcanos/my posterior
- Doesn't matter because cloud fairies will cause a large negative feedback
- Et cetera
Granted, none of these make a bit of sense... but deniers don't need their arguments to make sense. They'll take any pretext for ignoring reality.
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localis at 19:05 PM on 19 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A
The Keeling Curve is the one solid piece of evidence that anyone can monitor daily which indisputably shows C02 levels rising. It therefore seems a great omission by those arguing for the reality of climate change that this essential information seldom enters the conversation. Even the most outspoken denier has difficulty disputing the reality (and the implications) of what it reveals.
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Pete Wirfs at 14:17 PM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
@#5 villabolo
No worries.
If you think someone might have the desire to retrieve files from your PC, the best security is to turn it off or disconnect it from the internet when it is not being used. Also you need to provide good physical security so no one picks it up and walks off with it.
Sometimes servers are easier to break into than PCs simply because they are providing data to the public 24 hours a day 7 days a week; this allows a hacker far more opportunity.
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BruceWilliams at 13:52 PM on 19 March 2014Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?
Is this to say that the oceans are retaining about 0.56% of the energy shining onto them from the sun?
And if so, why isn't the warmer ocean causing the surface temperature to rise? I assume by global surface temperature in your above graph you are measuring both the land and ocean surface temperature, correct?
0.56% Derivation
Earth Surface area = 196.9e6 mi^2
1/2 that = 9.845e7 mi^2
Earth recieves about 3.538 W/mi^2 avg
Total = 3.483e17W/s (Joules)
Little Boy about 16 Kton of TNT
1 Ton TNT about 4.25e9 J
Little Boy = 6.8e13 J
Earth recieving 1000 Little Boys/sec
Oceans = 71% so getting 710 Little Boys per second
4 of those retained = 0.56%
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BruceWilliams at 13:08 PM on 19 March 2014Global warming not slowing - it's speeding up
I have only been able to find 1 graph showing ocean surface temperature and it showed that from about 2005 to present the ocean surface temperature has dropped slightly. This does not jive with increased ocean surface energy. Does anyone know of any additional information available?
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Tom Curtis at 11:42 AM on 19 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
Michael Sweet @21, Eschenbach also showed a map of the locations in which SST excedes 30 C (Fig 5, AOTM):
The contrast between the West and East Pacific makes it very clear that ocean currents and prevailing winds are a major factor in determining the upper reach of SST. The mixing of cold waters with surface waters of Peru makes temperatures greater than 30 C effectively impossible under current conditions, for example.
Further, and as you can see, in general 30 C SST occurs at higher latitudes in the NH than in the SH, and is more likely to occur in enclosed waters (Sea of Japan, Mozambique Channel) than in open waters. The two phenomena are related, of course. There are more enclosed waters in the NH than in the SH.
The importance of enclosed waters is not that they are shallow. (The Persian Gulf is shallow, but the other enclosed waters with high SST are not.) Rather, it is that they limit mixing with nearby cold water. That is made particularly clear in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, which are both wide enough to present no significant restriction on mixing. Despite that they also experience very warm temperatures because the only significant body of water they can mix with are equatorial waters to the south, which are warm year round rather than just seasonally.
As noted, the impact of limited mixing explains why there are higher SST in the NH than occur in the SH, despite the fact that the SH recieves more insolation. So, as you would expect, insolation does not explain everything.
Finally, the peak daily TOA insolation is found outside the tropics, as can be seen from the wikipedia chart above. That does not result in peak SST outside the tropics (ignoring the Persian Gulf). That may be in part because outside the sub-tropics, the surface has a net energy deficit:
As a result, prolonged sunlight may not lift temperatures above levels in which they are close to energy balance. Further, at higher latitude, the rate of warming will be slower, so that temperatures will not rise to very high levels until many hours after noon, by which time insolation is falling again. These two factors complicate the issue, so that I would not like to predict the latitude of maximum SST even in a pure waterworld with no lateral mixing. It will not be confined to the equator, however, and probably shifts seasonally across the equator.
So, the situation is not a simple as my exposition above may suggest. Never-the-less, it is ironic that Eschenbach picked as his two primary pieces of evidence facts that are explicable in terms of insolation alone (ie, the shapes and relative positioning of the gaussians and the relative peakiness of summer vs winter periods.
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wili at 11:16 AM on 19 March 2014East African countries are dealing with the impacts of climate change
It looks like crop losses will be greatest soonest in the tropics, at least for corn and wheat: http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2014/03/climate-change-will-reduce-crop-yields.html
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michael sweet at 08:50 AM on 19 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
Tom,
I was amazed to see your data on sea temperatures showing the hottest temperatures outside the equatorial region. Your chart of solar insolation was a remarkable explaination of the data. I will have to look at the ocean temperature charts a lot more carefully to find the hot spots away from the equator.
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villabolo at 08:40 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
Forgive me for asking a foolish question but is there any danger, from all this, to our PCs?
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pmj_rit at 07:30 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 3
The above is very good practice. For the sake of your own your users' peace of mind please implement it.
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John Hartz at 06:29 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
will:
Check out: CO2 on Path to Cross 400 ppm Threshold for a Month by Brian Kahn, Climate Central, Mar 18, 2014
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wili at 05:26 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
I still don't get anything.
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Lionel A at 05:00 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
I got 505 errors from Climate Progress from earlier on today here in the UK, it is now back but content that was posted recently, one on the Paris smog and another on fracking related quakes in Ohio state, has gone AWOL it does seem like they are having problems.
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wili at 04:36 AM on 19 March 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 6
This is a great thread, but it does make me feel a bit paranoid everytime one of my favorite climate sites is down, as Climate Progress seems to be right now for me. Is anyone else having this problem.
OT (but is anything climate related really off topic?): The current official daily numbers at Mauna Loa now work out to the first 7-day period of above 400 ppm this year, by my calculations (but please do recheck my maths, someone).
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Dikran Marsupial at 01:53 AM on 19 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
RussR wrote: "Very well, you've made your case. I accept that I was incorrect and in light of the data, will revise my argument from "never" to "less than 0.1% of the time"."
This is the sort of facile smart-alec response that I would expect from someone who is merely trolling, and so your credibility here slips another notch. If you were genuinely interested in the science you would have made a serious attempt to revise your scientific position, rather than just add a post-hoc loophole in an attempt to limp on for a while longer. Nobody is fooled by this, I am always amazed by Tom's patience, and the difference between his attitude and your speaks volumes, pity you seem unable to follow his example.
Moderator Response:[JH] Russ R is on a very short leash with respect to compliance with the SkS Comments Policy. He has been warned multiple times about the need to comply. Any future posts he makes on the 'thermostat' hypothesis will be summarily deleted for violating the "excessive repetition" prohibition. Russ may respond to the new materials posted in response to his last post, provided his response is substantial, and not (yet again) merely dismissing contrary data because it is inconvenient.
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Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
Tom Curtis - The 'thermostat' hypothesis has been seriously proposed in the literature, as per Lindzen's Iris papers; and as noted in this discussion it has been shown to be false. It just doesn't hold up under examination, under the data.
But as with the ongoing Lindzen papers (repeating the same claims while ignoring published rebuttals) and with hobbyists like Eschenbach at WUWT, it appears to be (IMO) attractive as some kind of magical counteraction to AGW, something that absolves us of any responsibility to change. And as such I expect that this mythical thermostat will continue to be invoked by those in denial, or who are relatively uninformed about the science.
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Tom Curtis at 00:11 AM on 19 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
KR, the ridiculousness of the "hard limit" theory as an argument against climate change is multiple. It is not supported by the basic data. It has no physical basis. It contradicts the fact that higher SST determined in the past by proxies as you note, including some as high as 40 C. It is accepted, therefore, not on any scientific basis, but out of desperation to believe that global warming cannot be harmfull. The problem is, it fails even that purpose.
Taking Palau as an example, the average SST in the warmest month in Palau is 29.2 C. The rise in SST expected at Palau in the warm scenario is 2.5 C. Consequently, with current predictions of global warming, in a BAU scenario we expect ocean temperatures in the Pacific Warm Pool to rise to 31.7 C, ie, below the "wall". That is, still below any reasonable estimate of the "wall". So even if this absurd hypothesis were true, it might possibly limit warming a little next century, but this century it is irrelevant anyway.
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Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
I would note that tropical sea surface temperatures are considered to have been rather higher during the Eemian, which is in and of itself sufficient data to disprove a 'thermostat' hypothesis.
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Jim Hunt at 22:44 PM on 18 March 2014The Extraordinary UK Winter of 2013-14: a Timeline of Watery Chaos
My latest musings on this topic, including the latest from both the Met Office and the NOAA, and some pictures of the after effects here in Soggy SW England:
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DSL at 13:28 PM on 18 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
When does the magical cooling mechanism kick in? Does it automatically occur regardless of what Hadley and Walker circulation are doing to cloudiness? I note that in, for example, Palau, rainfall shows a pretty flat trend despite temp rising (Figs. 10.3 & 10.4).
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michael sweet at 12:34 PM on 18 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
Russ,
There are now approximately 13 posts relating to the land temperatures at Kritimati island. You brought up this subject as your primary argument to support your wild claim that there is a "wall" to surface sea temperatures. You have provided no reason why the land temperature at Kritimati Island would relate to the sea temperature in the Pacific Warm Pool 3,000 miles away, or even why any current land temperature would relate to a future maximum sea temperature even if it was nearby. The thermal mass of the ocean controls the land temperatures of very small, low islands like Kritimati and Tarawa except for rare occasions like the calms Tom described. You have provided no additional data or citations to support your wild claim. The moderator has to ask what your point is. Tom has provided copious data showing current sea temperatures are frequently over 31C and as high as 35C. What is the point of your argument about Kritimati Island land temperatures? How does it relate to your wild claim of a "wall" in sea temperatures?
Perhaps I should have said that you were in violation of the policy against excessive repetition instead of sloganeering, I see the moderator has warned you again. Please address the points of fact that you have previously ignored instead of making useless rhetorical points.
Why do you bother posting here when you apparently have no interest in the data or peer reviewed reports?
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Tom Curtis at 12:26 PM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
Russ R @89:
1) Your hypothesis is that high temperatures will automatically result in high humidity. A failure of that connection is further refutation of that hypothesis, not justification for ignoring the data.
2) The data you presented does not show a "remarkably consistent upper boundary". It shows a distribution, with daily maximum temperatures ranging between 18 C and 27 C. The mean is close to 29 C, with a standard deviation around 1- 2 C. To show "a remarkably consistent upper boundary" you need to show the actual statistical distribution, and show that it has a sharp cut off. You have not even made an attempt at that. Nor have you defined the supposed "upper boundary" to even know whether it lies at 1 or 2 standard deviations from the mean. Rather, you have hedged your claim to make it unfalsifiable. When it was found that you had not hedged it enough, you provided ad hoc reasons to ignore contrary data. And now, you use an arbitrary binning method to ignore the fact that the data do not show a consistent upper limit at all. The only trope of pseudo-science your missing is the conspiracy theory.
3) You introduced Tarawa, not me. If you objected to the data, you should have mentioned that before detailed analysis showed it did not support your opinion. It is very revealing, however, that you consider the data source suitable when it supports your views, but unsuitable when it does not.
4) The Red Sea also shows temperatures comfortably above you supposed upper limit. It is over 100 km wide at nearly all points, and has an average depth of 490 meters. Therefore if the supposed mechanism of your upper limit worked, it would work in the Red Sea. But yet again, we will find, any data that falsifies your views will be excluded by you as irrelevant on specious grounds.
Russ R @93:
"Dikran Marsupial @91,
"Now if you were genuinely interested in scientific discussion, you would admit that your assertion was incorrect, and possibly revise it."
Very well, you've made your case. I accept that I was incorrect..."
Yet still no apology for the false accusation of cherry picking.
Well, who cares anymore. Russ has so trashed his intellectual reputation that I see no point in further discussion with him regardless of any apology or lack of it. As the good book says, "Do not cast your pearls before swine."
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Tom Curtis at 11:58 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
I have posted a comment on the thread suggested by KR. I have looked at Eschenbach's data, for at least he provided some (unlike Russ). I show from that data that it contradicts, rather than supports, Eschenbach's hypothesis, both because it shows a more poorly defined upper limit on temperatures in warm months than in cooler months; and because large scale statistical features of the data that Eschenbach attributes attempt to explain in light of his hypothesis, which therefore would be evidence for his hypothesis, are in fact a consequence of the actual pattern of insolation found in the tropics (which is not what is often naively supposed to be the case). As those patterns have a sufficient explanation in facts that are both well established by theory and observation, they are not evidence of some hypothetical alternative explanation.
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Tom Curtis at 11:52 AM on 18 March 2014Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
Following on from a discussion elsewhere, I would like to discuss Willis Eschenbach's hypothesis, in that he at least presents what at first glance looks like evidence for his hypothesis. The evidence is scattered through three posts at WUWT, and shows that SST above 30 C are uncommon. Eschenbach argues that because those temperatures are uncommon, there is a "hard limit" on ocean temperatures, slightly above 30 C.
Eschenbach's hypothesis faces an immediate hurdle in that his own data refutes it. Here is his plot of "all" NH Argo surface temperatures (Fig 2, AOTM):
The "all" is dubious in that there are far to few data points for "all" ARGO NH surface temperature records, and it is likely that Eschenbach has used a random sample of the data to make distributions clearer. Regardless of that point, however, it is very clear from the graph that there is not a hard limit at 30-32 C. Several temperatures are recorded above those values, and some very far above those values. This is most clear in 2012 which shows a cluster of data points above 35 C. Further, the period of peak temperature does not show a well defined limit. Indeed, the upper limit on temperatures is less well defined in the warm months than in the cool months, the opposite of what we would expect if there were indeed a "hard limit".
What we would expect with a genuine "hard limit" can be seen by comparing the NH warm temperatures with the lower range of the SH cool temperatures (Fig 2, Notes 2):
You can clearly see a hard limit in low temperatures slightly below 0 C, representing the freezing point of sea water. The key feature is that the lower limit of temperatures is far more sharp ly defined in the cool months than in the warm months. That is in strong contrast to the upper temperature limit, which is more sharply defined in cool months than in warm months, a feature which by itself refutes Eschenbach's hypothesis.
At this point I will make a short logical excursion. As everyone knows, there is a "hard limit" on liquid water temperatures at 0 C, ie, the freezing point. Despite that, the hard limit in sea water is obviously less than 0 C. The reason is that increased salinity reduces the freezing point. Therefore, the "hard limit" is only a hard limit under a certain set of condition. If you change those conditions, you also change the "hard limit". It follows that even had Eschenbach been able to demonstrate a hard limit, he would not have demonstrated that Sea Surface Temperatures would not rise above that limit in the future, under different conditions. Of course, that is a point purely of logical interest in that Eschenbach has not demonstrated a "hard limit" to begin with.
Returning to Eschenbach's evidence, he presents more evidence that he supposes supports a hard limit. Specifically, he shows that the closer to the equator, the smaller the annual variation in temperatures (Fig 3, AOTM):
He says of this graph,
"As you can see, the warm parts of the yearly cycle have their high points cropped off flat, with the amount cropped increasing with increasing average temperatures."
That, however, is not what you see at all. Rather, at the warmest times of the year, the upper limit of temperatures are least well defined. If anything, at that time you have a spike in temperatures.
I suspect the misdescription is because Eschenbach reffers to the guassians rather than the data. He expects the Gaussians to show a series of sine waves, with those closer to the equator being warmer than those further away. He thus interprets the actual series of successively smaller amplitude sine waves with the upper cycle nearly coinciding in values as the top of the cycles having been truncated.
Unfortunately for his hypothesis, there is a well known phenomenon in nature that shows a similar pattern to his Gausians, ie, the daily TOA insolation relative to latitude:
(Source)
You will notice the near constancy of insolation at the equator, and also that insolation at 20 degrees North is higher in the summer than it is at any time on the equator. The reason for that is that, at 20 degrees North, when the sun is directly overhead, the days are longer than they are when the sun is directly overhead on the equator. And with a longer day, and the same peak forcing we expect higher SST, which is what we see. Curiously Eschenbach draws attention to the fact that the peak temperatures are found not at the equator, but between 15 and 30 degrees North, in the Summer. But given the insolation data, that is just what we would predict. So also, given the insolation data, would we predict that peak summer temperatures through out the tropics and near tropics would match or exceed peak equatorial temperatures, and that the closer the equator, the less variation in SST.
Eschenbach also draws attention to the shape of the Gaussians (shown in Fig 6), noting in particular that "...summer high temperature comes to a point, while the winter low is rounded". But again, however, he needs search no further for an explanation than the insolation pattern:
I mentioned in my introduction that Eschenback presents data that "...at first glance looks like evidence for his hypothesis". It should not be plain, however, that it is onlyh at a first, and superficial glance that that is true. His most convincing evidence turns out to be a direct consequene of the patterns of insolation at, or near the equator. The more direct evidence is seen to contradict his claim of a hard limit, showing as it does a less defined limit to temperatures in the warmest months - the exact opposite of what is required by his hypothesis. It is only by maintaining a superficial glance, and by not paying attention to actual forcings that his hypothesis appears to have any support at all.
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Russ R. at 09:47 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
KR@92,
Thanks for the link. As I promised to michael sweet, I will "put it to rest" here, and take any further "thermostat" arguments to that thread.
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Russ R. at 09:32 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
Dikran Marsupial @91,
"Now if you were genuinely interested in scientific discussion, you would admit that your assertion was incorrect, and possibly revise it."
Very well, you've made your case. I accept that I was incorrect and in light of the data, will revise my argument from "never" to "less than 0.1% of the time".
Moderator Response:[JH] You have reverted to your snarky persona. If you continue down this path, there will be consequences.
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Michael Whittemore at 01:37 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #11
It is really good to see politicians using skeptical science to communicate climate change. I wouldn't be surprised if they start funding the site one day.
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2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
Russ R. - I believe that the thread on Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming would the most relevant discussion, where Chris Colose states that:
...there is no compelling physical justification to suggest that the tropical sea surface temperatures must be pegged at some maximum value independent of the forcing, or that clouds/evaporation must act as some sort of tropical regulation mechanism.
I suggest taking further discussion of any 'thermostat' hypothesis there.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you for ferreting out the Chris Colose article. I also agree that any further discussion of Russ R's assertion about sea surface temperatures take place on its comment thread.
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Dikran Marsupial at 01:14 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
RussR wrote " Sea surface temperatures never get above ~30C because thunderstorms (or occasionally tropical cyclones) limit further temperature increases and bring temperatures back down."
and later complained
RussR wrote "The data I presented covered 14.2 years or around 5187 days... you're pointing to 2 of those days. I'm pointing to the other 5185 days (99.96% of the data record) which show a remarkably consistent upper boundary."
You made an assertion, if you say that something can't happen, then pointing out a single occasion on which it did happen is not a cherry pick, it is a counter example that proves your assertion to be incorrect. Now if you were genuinely interested in scientific discussion, you would admit that your assertion was incorrect, and possibly revise it. Instead you have attempted to bluster your way out of it by accusing Tom of cherry picking. Sorry, I am not impressed, you are just continuing your trollish behaviour demonstrated earlier in the thread. If you want to retain a shred of credibility, then just man up and admit your assertion was incorrect.
Moderator Response:[JH] It is also incumbent upon Russ R to provide references to published and peer-reviewed scientific papers which support his assertion.
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Russ R. at 00:00 AM on 18 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
michael sweet,
Allow me to refer you to the definition of "sloganeering" the comments policy:
- No sloganeering. Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error. It is asked that you do not clutter up threads by responding to comments that consist just of slogans.
If you would kindly point me to the main article that "debunks" my argument, then I'll put it to rest.
Moderator Response:[JH] What exactly is your "argument"?
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Russ R. at 23:54 PM on 17 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
Tom Curtis @87 & @88,
- If your record day in Kirimati in 2010 had "very low humidity" why would it be in any way relevant to my argument about the convective behaviour of water vapour?
- The data I presented covered 14.2 years or around 5187 days... you're pointing to 2 of those days. I'm pointing to the other 5185 days (99.96% of the data record) which show a remarkably consistent upper boundary. (Where I come from, when you present an argument, but your data actually makes the exact opposite case, we call that an own goal.)
- Tarawa's weather station is located at an Bonriki International Airport. I'll leave it to you to ponder what an asphalt covered airstrip might do to daily max temperature readings.
- Pointing at the Persian Gulf SST as refuting evidence of how water vapor behaves in the tropics is a bit curious since the Persian Gulf is not in the tropics, its humidity is often negligible, and its geography as a body of water is analagous to that of an inflatible wading pool in a parking lot.
And yes, I'm still calling your October 26, 2010 Kirimati high temperature an "egregious cherry-pick"... the data are in plain view above.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is banned by the SkS Comments Policy.
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Kevin C at 21:48 PM on 17 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11
Oh yes, I read that the same way.
For me the huge surprise about the Shindell paper is that no-one spotted the issue before, given that its fingerprints are all over the hemispheric temperature record, and as you point out they are all over AR4 as well.
I keep asking myself whether I would have spotted it if climate were my day job. I suspect not - often the obvious is not obvious until someone points it out.
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Timothy Chase at 18:26 PM on 17 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11
Kevin C, re Otto... Looking at the article, the only point at which they acknowledge the distinction between direct and effective radiative forcing is at the end of the last paragraph:
Most of the climate models of the CMIP5 ensemble are, however, consistent with the observations used here in terms of both ECS and TCR. We note, too, that caution is required in interpreting any short period, especially a recent one for which details of forcing and energy storage inventories are still relatively unsettled: both could make significant changes to the energy budget. The estimates of the effective radiative forcing by aerosols in particular vary strongly between model-based studies and satellite data. The satellite data are still subject to biases and provide only relatively weak constraints (see Supplementary Section S2 for a sensitivity study).
Otto, Alexander, et al. "Energy budget constraints on climate response." Nature Geoscience (2013).
It seems clear that they are acknowledging the "effective radiative forcing by aerosols" as an issue that is not specifically dealt with in their paper, but which they or others may wish to turn their attention to at some later point. Incidentally, Drew Shindell is listed as one of the authors of Otto et al. (2013).
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Timothy Chase at 17:57 PM on 17 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11
Kevin C re radiative forcing... I don't which usage the authors of the different papers are employing. It really isn't my area of expertise.
However, until someone specifies otherwise, by "climate sensitivity" I would assume they mean Charney, not transient or earth system sensitivity, and by the same token, I would assume that by "radiative forcing" they mean direct radiative forcing, not effective. "Effective radiative forcing" is a derivative, more specialized concept. In this context, "direct" denotes primary usage, "effective" secondary. In the case of "climate sensitivity" refering to Charney it is more simply a matter of historical accident and common usage.
Or at least that is my best guess, not being as familiar with the literature as I might like.
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Kevin C at 16:39 PM on 17 March 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11
Thanks Timothy - didn't realise this was already present in the definitions of efficacy. The thing I haven't checked is whether papers like Otto et all are using direct or effective radiative forcing estimates - have you looked at this?
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