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Comments 40501 to 40550:
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chriskoz at 08:17 AM on 26 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
wili@13,
Here's an interesting quote from that article:
About 17 teragrams of methane [...] escapes each year from [...] East Siberian Arctic Shelf, said Natalia Shakova, [...]; the world emits about 500 million tons (teragrams) of methane every year from manmade and natural sources. The new measurement more than doubles the team's earlier estimate of Siberian methane release, published in 2010 in the journal Science.
(my emphasis)
If their estimates are accurate, that would partially explain the increase in CH4 concentration from late 2000s:
The concentration increased by ~.050ppm, from 1.740ppm, which is %3, while contribution from Arctic Shelf's emissions jumped from ~8/500 (1.6%) to ~17/500 (3.5%). That difference (up to 2%) does not quite make up the %3 difference in concentrations but the most of it. The rest must be coming from other sources, perhaps increased emissions from hydraulic fracking. Keep in mind that these are just rough envelope calculation by myself; proper calculations may give different proportion.
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Ruurd Lof at 07:18 AM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Hi, I like the idea of using metaphors in order to get the message to the public....but. To use the image of Hiroshima bombs to instruct people about global warming seems to me a little over the edge. Scientifically the comparison is like 5 pears equals 5 appels. And I do not really think that the public gets the message except that naming Hiroshima is like naming the Holocaust. It is intended to shock people. I think people should be shocked about Global Warming, but for the right reason.
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CollinMaessen at 05:25 AM on 26 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #47
Thanks for the mention. :)
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome and thank you for all that you do.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:16 AM on 26 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
DB... Why am I not surprised?
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jdixon1980 at 04:15 AM on 26 November 2013Will extreme weather like super typhoon Haiyan become the new norm?
wpsokeland@34
"The average trmperature of our globe is varying over the past 30 years with swings of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees centigrade -- up and down. The general overall trend is upward. Since the solar constant, your only energy source ts constant and, if greenhouse gases were continually increasing via human input, the average temperature of our globe would be continually increasing. There would be no temperature swings as seen in the data. Any PhD in heat transfer would know that a different energy source is active in the real temperature variation." (my emphasis)
I agree that any Ph.D. in heat transfer understands conservation of energy, and thus, to the extent that the thermal energy that is added to a system isn't converted into something else like chemical potential energy, latent heat of phase change, mechanical work, or mechanical potential energy, the average temperature of the system (as long as "average temperature" is calculated by properly weighting temperature data with heat capacity of the material at the recorded temperature, to accord with conservation of energy) is generally physically forced to rise when you add thermal energy to it. I don't think you have to be a specialist in heat transfer or have a Ph.D. or even a B.S. in anything to understand conservation of energy. Conservation of energy is an intuitive concept that people are generally taught in required science courses in high school if not before.
That said, I suspect you are misapplying the principle of conservation of energy to the global climate. What do you mean by "average temperature of the globe?" I assume you probably mean average surface air temperature over land? If so, that represents a very tiny component of the thermal energy of the climate system, about 90% of which is found in the oceans. Given the cycles of heat flow back and forth between the oceans and the land and atmosphere, it is unsurprising and consistent with AGW theory that there are fluctuations in land surface air temperature rather than a constant rise. My understanding is that, when you account for warming of the oceans, the total thermal energy of the climate system has been consistently increasing over the past 30 years, as would be expected given the thermal disequilibrium caused primarily by spiking CO2 levels primarily due to human activities.
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wili at 03:13 AM on 26 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
LiveScience has a good article on the methane study, too. LINK
RealClimate and neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog are both planning lead posts on this story soon. How about SkS?? '-)
Moderator Response:[RH] You can actually hotlink your own URL's if you look at the second tab above the comments box labeled "insert." Just highilght the text you want to link and the paste the URL into the box that pops up. It's easy and will save the moderators some work. Thx!
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tluke at 02:52 AM on 26 November 2013Global Warming Paws Fails to Materialise: Earth Still Warming and Global Sea Level Rising Like Gangbusters
I sent a summary of this paper to a friend who is both a scientist and somewhat skeptical of the AGW consensus. She sent me a response to the article (and a few others that address the gap in arctic coverage) by Judith Curry. I read Judith's response and I had a very hard time following her critique. I have seen some responses to what Judith Curry has written on other issues in the comments on Skeptical Science but I am not aware of anything on this particular issue. I would like to provide my friend with a response to Judith Curry's critique that focuses on the science. Any suggestions?
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:19 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Thanks Michael, glad to hear my intuition wasn't too far out! Hopefully this fully addresses SASM's question.
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michael sweet at 01:05 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Dikran,
Freezing of sea ice releases a lot of heat into the atmosphere. This accounts for much of the increase in temperature in the Arctic in fall. Then the ice insulates the ocean from the coldest part of the winter. In the summer, that heat is absorbed again from the sun to melt the ice.
The melting and refreezing of sea ice does not contribute to the net heat budget of Earth since it is returned later. Melting ice caps uses some heat, but it is a small fraction of what the Earth absorbs from AGW.
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Bernard J. at 18:55 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dang, deleted some text in that last paragraph. The gist is apparent, I hope.
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Bernard J. at 18:49 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Heh, synchonicity...
A while back I was talking with one of my colleagues in the staff tea room and, after a bit of back-of-the-journal-envelope arithmetic, we worked out that at the rate that the human population is currently growing, if one started from around the time that the Keeling curve data began to be collected the rate of Hiroshima energy accumulation would follow pretty closely the human population clock as it ticks over today.
Except that the accumulation of energy is about 4.6 bombs/second using the value for Little Boy was actually a little greater than the rate of turning over of the human population clock, so the HPC would run too slow...
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:41 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
SASM If you want to avoid the impression of trolling, when someone answers your question, explicitly state those parts of the answer that you accept, and explain why you reject those parts of the answer that you do not accept. Do not just raise another objection without dealing correctly with the answer you have already been given. A common tactic of trolls is not to give a hostage to fortune by explicitly agreeing to anything as it means that they cannot then go back to that topic later and say the opposite. Also if someone asks you a direct question, give a direct answer.
Now as to the assymetry. The Arctic is an ocean and it has currents floating into and out of it all the time. As the Arctic ocean is colder than the Atlantic or Pacific, that suggests that these ocean currents are on balance transporting heat into the Arctic, causing it to be warmer than would otherwise be the case. This doesn't happen for the Antarctic, becase it is a land mass, so the ocean currents can't bring heat to the pole (note the Anarctic peninula is warming). Secondly if sea water gets much colder than 0C it freezes, rather than getting colder. This means that the ocean under the ice is much warmer than the air above it in the Arctic. There is no similar phenomenon that stops the rock under the ice in Antarctica from getting colder until there is an equilibrium with the air temperature above the ice. I am not a physicist, but my intuition suggests that the formation of ice is slightly exothermic (i.e. gives out heat) as otherwise you wouldn't need heat to melt it. That explains why the oceans don't get much colder than a few degrees below zero C (depending on salinity). I suspect someone here who is a physicist can explain the details.
P.S. I was going more for an English civil war look ;o})>
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ajki at 16:59 PM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #47
re: Toon of the Week
Brilliantly summing up COP19 and the undergoing political process. Just plain and simple brilliant.
And not for the first time.
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barry1487 at 16:36 PM on 25 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
YubeDude,
Side note on bamboo for construction/scaffolding:
I first came across it being extensively used in Hong Kong. My first thought was that it was a third world thing (not really knowing Hong Kong's financial status at 22 year of age). But then someone told me that it was a great material, as it was cheap, lightweight, easily and quickly grown, strong and flexible. Scaffolding can be more extensive and higher thanks to the weight/strength ratio.
I also learned that it is a better scaffolding material for high winds, taking the force of wind better than metal, owing to the flex, and that if it falls, the lighter weight does less damage.
So though it looks like a compromise developing countries have to make, it turns out that it may well be a better choice of material, especially for high wind events.
Rebuilding costs to developing countries is a subtler issue than at first glance. If infrastructure is cheaply made and restored, then rebuilding could be less onerous, other factors depending, than for wealthier countries with expensive infrastructure. But a fairly safe generalization is that structures in the developing world (bamboo scaffolding aside), do not withstand high winds as well as wealthier countries. Immediate impact for third world communities is more devastating. And, according to the IPCC, most areas of the world more vulnerable to the risks of climate change are where developing countries are.
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Tom Curtis at 16:23 PM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #47B
Trevor S @4, voters have only limited influence over the policy outcomes of elections, despite propaganda to the contrary. The first, and most fundamental reason for this is that voters do not get to vote for policies individually. When you go to an election, you get to vote for a candidate for your local seat and (depending on jurisdiction) perhaps also an upper house member and/or chief executive. The candidates you are voting for will have a large number of policies, either personally, or as dictated by the policies of the party for which they stand. Consequently, when you vote for a particular member, you do not, because you cannot vote for any one policy. Rather you vote for a bundle of policies, some of which you may disagree with. Further, you do not just vote for that bundle of policies, but also for the member (and their party), and hence as part of the bundle for which you vote is an estimate of the integrity, intelligence and vigour of the candidate and the administrative competence of the party.
If this were not enough, candidates will often hide some of their policies, of simply change their policy after election. On top of that, the voter is more or less lied to continuously by the supposedly free press, much of which considers its role in a democracy to by similar to that of Pravda in the USSR. Even diligent citizens, therefore, must be to some extent ill informed.
Consequently, the claim that the policy outcome of a newly elected government is "what the voters want" is simplistic, and in fact must be false in any democracy in which policies are not approved line by line by the electorate. At best, the policy outcomes are what the voters can live with, given the range of policy and administrative alternatives.
This is not to exonerate voters for the slow and ineffectual response to climate change. However, the politicians and journalists who should have as their first duty the facilitating of their full accountability to the electorate, but who have instead resorted to irrational policies, faux policy debates, personality politics, and outright lies (in the case of politicians); and to false balance (at best) and in many cases outright anti AGW mitigation propaganda (in the case of journalists) bear far heavier blame. They are betraying democracy, and with it the citizens of their nations. Unfortunately, in the face of global warming, they are betraying future generations at the same time.
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Albatross at 15:48 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Hi Bob,
Brilliant work! Take a bow, you deserve it.
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SkepticalinCanada at 15:02 PM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Please, please, please....the article and one of the comments say that Canada does not care. It is more correct to say that the current right wing government of Canada and a certain proportion of Canadians don't seem to care. Some Canadians, including myself, are passionate about this issue, and care very much. I am ashamed of the way the representatives of Canada have deliberately sabotaged climate talks, and hope that the next election brings some sanity to the issue.
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TonyW at 14:13 PM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Perhaps a reduction in the rate of growth of emissions is indicative of the real level of global economic growth. It's unfortunate that there isn't a common way of estimating economic growth across the globe, and that some countries employ all manner of tricks to make the figure look as good as possible. Consequently, it's all but impossible to determine if carbon intensity is really reducing. However, energy and, thus, emissions (given that all energy sources have some fossil fuel element and that the global energy mix is still predominately fossil fuels) being a reasonable proxy for the level of the economy, I would say global economic growth has been in the doldrums for the past two years. Hopefully (from the point of view of a liveable environment), permanent economic contraction can set in, to start the emissions actually decreasing. -
scaddenp at 13:37 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
I have not looked at ocean circulation and climate in any detail at all, however, this little fact sheet on the thermohaline circulation does talk qualitatively on the effects on climate.
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scaddenp at 13:15 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Frankly it is hard to someone seriously if they are reading WUWT. You are happy with being misinformed? Why would that be?
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scaddenp at 13:12 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
If you see here, other people keen to have C&W available have stumped up the funds to make it freely available. However, the points I made above were outlined in the Realclimate article which you claimed to have read.
Most of the energy imbalance created by CO2 goes into heating the ocean which has complex mechanisms for distributing heat vertically and horizontally, with decadal level effects on surface temperature. Want to describe that without models? Noone is claiming that climate is solely a function of GHG. Currents, cloud cover are all part of this but they are responses not forcings.
If you are aiming at solely nitpicking anything at all that you can, without also making some effort to understand the explanations given to you and to read the references supplied for understanding, then frankly that counts for trolling. Writers and commentators here are not here to pass some test you want to put, but are certainly interested in helping someone understand the science. You come across as trolling when you dont acknowledge responses, apparently ignore links and instead jump to some new denier talking point.
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wili at 11:07 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Ah, I see that further down it says:
"Shakhova and her colleagues estimate that 17 teragrams are escaping each year, though the new study says the estimates are likely on the conservative end."
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wili at 10:52 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Thanks, DB.
Picked up by CC now: LINK
Here's Shakhova's quote in that article: "In 2003, we started from zero observational data on methane available for this area"
So in under ten years it's gone from nothing to "100–630 mg methane m−2 d−1" or as the NS piece puts it "500 tonnes of methane to bubble out of every square kilometre of the sea bed each day."
That would be bad enough if it were a linear increase. But since it is part of a feedback system it is almost certain to be exponential in its growth. I'd love to see estimates of total methane release from the area at this time.
Moderator Response:[DB] Hotlinked URL.
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wili at 09:19 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Here's the link to the Nature article (thanks to prokaryote at RC):
Ebullition and storm-induced methane release from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf
Moderator Response:[DB] Hotlinked URL.
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scaddenp at 08:37 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Found the paper I was looking for: "Validity of the temperature reconstruction from water isotopes in ice core", Jouzel et al 1997 (the et al including Johnson, Alley, Cuffey and Dansgaard).
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wili at 07:57 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
From the main article:
“This is the second year in a row of below average emissions. Perhaps this represents cautious progress,” Le Quéré told IPS.
Surely, Le Quere should have said "This is the second year in a row of below average growth in emissions"? Perhaps something was lost in translation? A casual reader could be quite confused by this. Meanwhile, Allen and Stocker are pointing out that we need to be reducing the rate of emissions by about 2% or more starting now. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/historic-co2-emissions-require-immediate-cuts-16771
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wili at 07:17 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Oops. Here's the actual link to the NS article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24639-arctic-storms-speed-up-release-of-methane-plumes.html#.UpJdRI2kCxl
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Trevor_S at 07:17 AM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #47B
@ 3 One Planet
"mainly concerned about pursuing more for 'their population' so they can get re-election of leaders by showing what they got away with. That pursuit of re-election is particularly damaging when the ones wanting election can easily promote the 'popularity of getting away with unsustainable and damaging activities'."
For that to be true, (and I mostly agree with you) it means it's a reflection of what the voters want. If it wasn't, they wouldnt be elected. If we are to play the blame game, lets lay it squarley at the feet of those most deserving, the voters. Those very same voters who emit (in the Annex 1 nations) most of the Worlds CO2e. One just has to look at the result of the recent elections in Australia. If you are aware of the Science of AGW (and who could not be these days) , aware of the projections showing the damage that will be caused from the your emissions and then vote to elect politicains who have no intention of a reduction of any efficacy, then who is really to "blame" ? You're either a physcopath, a denier, or don't really care (this is not a critisism, just an observation). Back to Australia, voting for the ALP would have simialry seen no effective reduction, as they both subscribe to a similar mantra ... Is it any wonder that's the path persued by politicans the World over ?
Apprently we need to form an orderly que to do the right thing and every nation wants to be last in the que to have a "competetive" advantage. There are a few individuals doing the rfight thing (I like to think my partner and I are, in terms of CO2e emission we're ultra low) but the ones with the spotlight on them aren't eg Gore, Flannery, Mckibben etal are all prodigious emitters.
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chriskoz at 07:08 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
PluviAL@2
Obviously you don't provide any reference to your pluvinergy "magic", why? Because you simply don't have it. Curiously I looked around and all I found is this:
http://www.pluvinergy.com/products.html
and a link to some non-existent blog and non-existent youtube video therein. Google reported that that this "pluvinergy" concept existd at least since Feb 2010 (someone mentioned the term on some blog back then) so by now it should be at least widely discussed technology.
The verbatim quote from the website above:
Although Pluvinergy is much simpler than cell-phones, DNA technology, or Nuclear Technology, it still requires more detail than can be offered in a basic website.
We have laid out the complete theory, process, and plan for development and rapid deployment...
is like the quote from the XIXth century inventor of perpetuum mobile: surely his invention was simpler than the contemporary technology, yet difficult to grasp by "not-involved" reader. That's because te "miracle" was only his dream and indeed, dreams may be quite complex to grasp by others. The dreamers have even patented some of those "miracles". The patents are nothing but just harmeless distraction from the realistic knowledge. Those machines back then were all sorts of spinning mechanical contraptions in a box, according to then fashion trends (steam engine, reciprocal petrol engine), now climate science and earth energy budget seem to be infashion, so the according "machines" are being "invented".
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PhilMorris at 07:06 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Pluvial@2. Well perhaps the moderator should have treated your submission as spam. I went to your website, clicked on the link 'How it works' and was not too suprised to see nothing of significance there, except a link to buying a book on Amazon. Hm, seems like advertising to me!!
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wili at 07:04 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
I don't really want to know anything about "pluvenergy." For now, just consider how humans (specifically industrial society) has trashed the planet (even leaving out GW) with the energy it has used so far. Clearly, providing humans with vast new energy sources is not in the best interests of the planet, nor even in the best long-term interests of humans.
Back to the topic of increased carbon: There has just been an article published about a carbon feedback that could have major consequences in the coming years and decades:
Nature Geoscience DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2007.
Here's a link to an article in New Scientist about the research: DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2007.
Quite a dramatic story! Worthy of a main post, or at least to be included in the next weekly roundup?
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scaddenp at 06:56 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
This has come up before but I cant find it. There is a paper demonstrating that it is regional. Fractionation during precipitation is reason. Anti-phased cooling periods between Antarctica and Greenland would also not be observed in ice core if the proxy was global (and would be challenging comparing GISP2 to tropical glacier icecore and insisting that they represented a single global proxy!).
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Larry E at 06:03 AM on 25 November 2013Will extreme weather like super typhoon Haiyan become the new norm?
The chart is interesting. If you use the vertical bands to designate decades you can put a red dot at the appropriate point on that timespan for each cyclone. This greatly improves understanding of the data.
Sorry that I don't know how to post graphics here, since I don't have a place on-line to post my enhanced graphic.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:00 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Steven Foster @40... Richard Alley, who is probably the leading expert on the Greenland ice core data, repeatedly states that the Greenland summit data is a regional, not hemispheric, record of temperature.
Moderator Response:[DB] Steven Foster was a sock-puppet, fake user ID deployed by the departed Morgan Wright. Both have had user privileges revoked, as will any subsequent iterations.
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Dumb Scientist at 05:18 AM on 25 November 2013Book review - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars now Available in Paperback
For the last 800,000 yrs, CO2 stayed below 300ppm
CO2 was last at 400ppm ~3 Myrs ago: much of Florida was underwater
This'll be interesting. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:57 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Also, where is the reference for this?
"All the snow they get in Flagstaff comes from the desert air"
The college of agriculture and life sciences of U. of Arizona says that it comes from Pacific storms and their associated fronts. They also concur with Tom Curtis on the desert bands, as does essentially everything I've read about it.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link that was breaking page format.
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PluviAL at 03:50 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
The problem, one-planet and wpsokeland, is that these are impractical solutions. The ascent of civilization is energy based. To stop ascension seems to chaotic, the better solution is to bring all people onboard. a) 75% of the population is outside the vessel of wealth; poor. b) If population growth is best controlled by economic ascension; as China's experiment with population control seems to indicate.
Alternatively, geothermal energy is insufficient. It is about 44 TW, compared to solar of 174,000 TW. Considering civilization now uses about 17 TW, the 44 TW is not enough. PV is a far better solution, or even wind, a product of solar energy. We argue at length that both of these are impractical too.
Please don't consider this spam, I believe the host of the website has already considered it and allowed me back into the community. Has anyone considered my argument in Pluvinergy? Not to flatter, but the level of scientific literacy, and open mindedness here is my best hope for a fair hearing. Being as intellectually honest as I can manage, this seems to be a genuine solution. And if, as I agree with the problem summarized by the article and these two posts, the analysis of the problem is correct, Pluvinergy is the only viable solution proposed. It may be wrong as proposed, but according to its argument it is the only real solution.
I would really appreciate any comment or direction. The illustrations are very bad in the paper version so I plan to redue the book as an interactive book, so any direction is valuable. PS: It is ok to tell me I am crazy, I have gotten a lot worse comments in creagslist community. But, I expect much better input from this community. Thanks.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:39 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Steven Foster, as I recall, the lowest known tropopause height is about 8 km, which is approximately 26000 ft. Your tropopause height numbers are way off, where did you get them? In tropical regions, it can be as high as 17 km. The top of Greenland is not closer to the Stratosphere than to sea level, that can be verified with 2 minutes on Google.
As for this statement "the snow in Greenland all comes from the stratosphere" what do you have for substantiation? It is such a strong statement, and so contrary to all the research on air dehydration at/actross the tropopause that you should present some very serious backup.
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steven foster at 00:20 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Seventhly, the summit of Greenland is 10,000 feet in elevation, making it closer to the stratosphere that to sea level in terms of elevation, because the troposphere is much thinner at the poles than elsewhere, extending to maybe 15 or 20 thousand feet max and 30 or 40 k at the equator. And since snow falls downward, not upward, and the Arctic Ocean is at sea level, not much snow which precipitates from the Arctic Ocean would ever reach the summit. In terms of geographical distance, the summit is hundreds of miles from the Arctic Ocean and only 2 miles from the stratosphere. Therefore, in summary of all 7 of my points, most of the snow in Greenland comes from water that arose in the tropics, and therefore is a global or hemispheric proxy, not a local. This applies to MOST of the water vapor during the Holocene, and ALL of it during an ice age. Sorry, I don't mean to shout, but I've had a lot of coffee this morning.
Moderator Response:[JH] There's no need for you to apologize for your tone. It is quite reasonable.
For future reference, it would be easier for people to follow your train of thought if you were to use (1), (2), (3), etc., rather than "firstly", "secondly", "thirdly", etc.
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steven foster at 23:00 PM on 24 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Fifthly, because the Arctic Ocean is always frigid and full of ice, it is always around the same temperature....that of ice water (ice seawater)....during the entire Holocene. Because of this, arctic easterlies would always be the same temperature every year and if the snow came from arctic seawater it would not show any difference in isotopes in the bands. But in both arctic and antarctic ice cores, we see similar bands, because the snow in Greenland all comes from the stratosphere, not the Arctic Ocean. Sixthly, during the ice age, which amounts to 80 or 90% of the time, there is no Arctic Ocean at all, the entire north pole covered in ice several miles thick. How do you explain Greenland ice cores from 30,000 years ago when there was no liquid water north of Chicago? (tongue in cheek on Chicago). Seventhly, next post.
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michael sweet at 22:28 PM on 24 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Arrhenius predicted over 100 years ago that the high latitude Arctic would warm faster than the Antarctic. Models and explainations of this asymmetry are not post hoc explainations after it was observed, they are 100+ years old. It seems to me that people who claim to be reading the science should be aware of this basic fact. Arrhenius also predicted winter warming faster than summer, night warming faster than day, land warming faster than ocean and Northern Hemisphere warming faster than Southern. For those who did not notice, all of these are falsifiable predictions, made long ago and confirmed by observation. Arrhenius missed the stratosphere cooling as the troposphere warms. That was because the stratosphere had not been discovered yet.
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steven foster at 22:15 PM on 24 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
You are confused on several points. First, the surface wind patterns you describe are tropospheric, and have little to do with the transfer of mosture from equator to poles. I could cite a reference but that would just clutter this blog because I can simply use the illustrations you already provided. See in your post 37, the first illustration. Look at the Hadley cells in the tropical bands, blowing equatorial moisture into the temperate bands, and from there into the polar cells. Secondly, you state that equatorial moisture only reaches the troposhere and precipitates out in that band. Water vapor at the equator goes far higher into the stratosphere than at any other place on earth. Thirdly, you seem confused about the concept of dry air in desert bands. Air that may seem dry in a warm desert would be extremely moist at the poles. Warm desert air might have a dew point of +40F while the air in Greenland has a dew point of maybe -40 (C or F same). The Rockey Mountains are covered in snow which came from desert air....just think of air in the Mohave Desert moving east and rising over Humphrey's Peak in Arizona. All the snow they get in Flagstaff comes from the desert air. Fourthly, you say snow in polar bands comes from moisture picked up by polar easterlies. This is impossible. In the antarctic polar band (60 and south) there is no ocean at all, all water vapor coming in from the stratospheric conveyor belt (Hadley cell to temperate cell to polar cell), and in the north, there is an icy ocean mostly covered with floes and fast ice. If you want to argue that an appreciable amount of water vapor comes from this icy northern ocean, you need to show that there's a difference in snow patterns between that pole and the other pole that doesn't have an ocean. There isn't. Fifthly, next post.
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william5331 at 20:22 PM on 24 November 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #17: Cowtan and Way (2013)
As the Arctic ocean warms, it heats the air above it. This leads to rising air more often than was previously the case or if you like, a reversal, or at least a weakening of the Polar Hadley cell. This has been shown by the weakening and wobbling of the Arctic jet stream as the Arctic Hadley cell slows down. The speed of the Jet stream is dependent on the speed of rotation of the Hadley cells on either side of it. A strong conventional Polar Hadley cell keeps weather patterns, where most thermometers are located, pushed southward, keeping the heat of souther regions in the south. As the cell weakens and reverses, more heat from the tropics shifts northward. The corollary of more heat shifting north is heat being removed from the south and thus, perhaps, the apparent stalling of the rise in temperature since most thermometers are located below the Arctic circle.
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scaddenp at 16:54 PM on 24 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Maybe against my better judgement, but I will answer why C&W use satellite despite the issues.(which of course SASM could have found by reading the paper).
They use satellite only to fill the gaps - they are proposing a way to avoid the problems with coverage bias. They dont use the satellite temperature directly (how would combine an average over 4000m with surface temp?) but instead posit that the temperatures are related. The infill temperature is an estimate of surface temperature. They avoid the many problems with stability and drift in the satellite trends by recomputing the relationship monthly. ie no stability in satellite measurements is assumed.
As to north/south assymetry, spot the big geographical differences between north and south. To substantiate a claim of "unexplained" assymetry, then you would need to show that such assymetry is not present in the models.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:56 PM on 24 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Only accounting the CO2 emissions per nation is very misleading. And things like changing the accounting method, as the Conservatives in Canada did to try to claim they have reduced emissions (all they did was change the accounting method without going back and applying the revised accounting to previous years), is also mis-leading (deliberately).
The benefit a nation's population receives from external CO2 emissions needs to be included in a nation's accounted impact. However, governments of nations that 'outsource their impacts' are not likely to 'be interested' in calculating and reporting things that way. With that type of calculation the US, Canada, Australia and even places like Germany would be shown to be far larger beneficiaries of (far more responsible for), the impacts than they wish to be able to claim. A lot of 'production that western investors and consumers benefit from' occurs in less developed nations that get tagged with the impacts.
The simple truth is that the powers with the most wealth are not willing to give up any of the best present they can get for themselves just to develop a sustainable better future for all life on this one and only amazing planet we are sure can support life as we know it.
If the US, Canada, and Australia actually cared about reduced global emissions they would not sell their coal or oil, and they would not consume it either. And they would only sell some of their natural gas.
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scaddenp at 14:52 PM on 24 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
SASM. Suggest you stick to one point at a time. Acknowledge responses and stick to the science. Above all moderators here apparently can stand only so much comment policy violation. Trolls are two a penny and totally unwelcome. If you want to discuss the science fine. If you are mostly interested in trolling and no data or argument could change your mind then perhaps another forum is more suited to you. (eg WUWT or CA).
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Tom Curtis at 12:11 PM on 24 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
steven foster @36, the low resolution thumbnail you linked to certainly is superior to the image from post 15. I look forward to seeing the completed high resolution version.
With regard to icecore temperature proxies, yes the temperature of the water from which the water in the snow originates does influence the isotope ratios, as also does the air temperature and distance travelled as the water vapour is transported to the site. Lower air temperatures and longer travel distances resulting in a lower proportion of heavy isotopes. As a result, ice cores are a regional (not hemispheric, and certainly not global) temperature proxy.
The reason they are neither hemispheric nor global proxies relates to the pattern of wind circulation:
As you can see, air near the equator is lifted high into the troposphere, effectively drying it by precipitating out nearly all of the water vapour. The return to the surface of this very dry air is the cause of the bands of deserts at certain latitudes. Air from the mid latitude cell, on the other hand procedes north at the surface (in the NH) before again rising to great altitude, drying it. That air column allows mixture with air from the polar cell, but the water picked up will be precipitated out before the polar cell can cause it to circulate over greenland. Consequently, the water vapour in air over Greenland predominantly is picked up from polar easterlies as they travel south. This overall pattern means very little water vapour will reach Greenland from mid-latitude or tropical oceans. At best Greenland ice cores would be an Arctic proxy.
It is not even that, however, during the Holocene. The local pattern of circulation means the watervapour precipitated out over Greenland comes almost entirely from the Atlantic north of Iceland and the Barents Sea:
(Red arrow indicates wind pattern, red dots the location of Greenland ice cores)
You will notice the large difference in circulation patterns between "Present day" and "Last Glacial Maximum". That difference means that Greenland ice core data are not even proxies of the same region at different points of time. It further means that they are far closer to Arctic proxies rather than Atlantic Arctic proxies durring glacials. It should be noted that the AO and the AMO will also shift the winds over Greenland, slightly changing the region for which the ice core is a proxy over time. That, however, does not make those ice cores proxies for a larger region. Rather, it merely introduces noise, making the record more erratic and amplifying warming or cooling trends in the proxy record. We have to accept that for Greenland, for we have no better proxies for Greenland temperatures. But it is further reason to not treat the Greenland record as a global or hemispheric proxy.
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steven foster at 10:07 AM on 24 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Thank you. I'm going to use the NOAA GISP2 data which has a resolution of 40 data points for every 1000 years for the whole Holocene. It looks like (so far) that the GRIP data has a lower resolution. I will look into the Kobashi suggestion. I did a quick low resolution thumbnail of what it will look like:
https://imageshack.com/i/5bv42dj
I differ with you about Greenand ice core data being a local proxy only. The H and O isotopes in the water represent temperatures of the water from around the world that winds up in Greenland, and don't represent the temperatures on Greenland itself. Water in the oceans has H and O isotopes of a known concentration. But the boiling point of heavy water, as well as heavy oxygen water (H2O^18 rather than H2O^16) are higher than that of normal water, and are found in water vapor in the atmosphere at lower concentrations when the global temperature is low. When the global temperature is high, more heavy water evaporates around the world than when it's cold. But when the water vapor travels to Greenland, it is assumed that it all freezes, regardless of the temperature in Greenland. So the higher the temperatures around the world, the more O^18 and H^2 we find in the ice. So, it's a global proxy, more suggestive of northern hemisphere temperatures, of course, but water vapor doesn't always commit to one hemisphere. The other argument might be that the FREEZING point of heavy water is also higher than regular water, so more of it would snow out of the air before it gets to Greenland, so the temperature of Greenland matters. But snow crystals don't care what isotope of water....actually I need to think about this. Ok I thought about it. None of the water freezes in Greenland. It all freezes long before it gets there, probably as cirrus clouds in the stratosphere, which are already frozen long before. I don't know.
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StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 08:55 AM on 24 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Why do you all keep deleting my questions? Do you think you've answered them, or do you not like them?
Moderator Response:[DB] Comments not adhering to the Comments Policy were removed due to sloganeering and trolling on your part.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:56 AM on 24 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #47B
Will,
I believe the main reason 'diplomatic' solutions for this challenge fail to have 'imagination' is that many of the people doing the talking are mainly concerned about pursuing more for 'their population' so they can get re-election of leaders by showing what they got away with. That pursuit of re-election is particularly damaging when the ones wanting election can easily promote the 'popularity of getting away with unsustainable and damaging activities'.
It is easy to understand why a person would chose unsustainable and damaging pursuits when they do not expect to be suffering any of the consequences. This issue, like so many others, pits "short term gains of employment, profit, convenience and comfort by getting away with benefiting from unsustainable and damaging pursuits' against 'less of that easy to get short-term stuff for yourself out of consideration for others and the future generations'
One side is a really easy sell. The popularity of benefiting from the burning of fossil fuels is enormous. That activity clearly cannot be continued forever. The entire population can't even develop to live like the most fortunate. Yet, such clearly unacceptable unsustainable activity is 'very popular'.
Almost all the troubles and challenges we face today, including conflicts and wars, are the result of our predecessors allowing people with that selfish attitude to be successful. Our global economy is now highly dependent on unsustainable activity with the most powerful people battling to get the most for themselves for as long as they can get away with.
One way for 'diplomatic or democratic' solutions to have the required 'imagination' is for the majority of all the populations around the world to clearly understand what has been going on and refuse to participate in or promote the 'selfish pursuit of more for themselves any way they can get away with'. Unless that happens there really is no future for humanity, but even somethig as obvious as that may not be enough to get people to accept less benefit for themselves in their moment. It is possible that the promotion of the pursuit of 'a selfish good time' and 'freedom to do as you please' will mean there will be no Earth left for the meek to inherit.
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