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Comments 40701 to 40750:
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Tom Curtis at 11:01 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
jzk @19, when you think about it, most of the data about peak intensity for cyclones since the 1970s will come from sattelite observations. That is because it is very rare for cyclones to strike land at their peak intensity, and even when they do strike land data will be distorted by the slowing of the winds due to friction, the location of the instruments relative to the eye, and the period over which the instruments survived. Thus, the Tacloban Airport anenometer only recorded gusts up to 23 km, but that is hardly relevant given that it was destroyed four hours before the nearest approach of the eye. As another illustration, here is a pressure record from Tacloban City (probably the closest surviving record):
It, however, was taken "a few miles north of the edge of the eye" and so certainly do not indicate directly the actual pressure at the center of the eye (estimated at 895 mb by the Japanese Meteorolical Agency from satellite).
The PAGASA record may in fact be derived from the JMA estimates which are based on satellites in the same way as the JTWC, although using a 10 minute time period for gusts.
If you wish to avoid comparing apples and oranges, I'm sorry. You are out of luck. All we have been served is fruit salad. All I know is that the JTWC data are typically used by researchers in preference to that of JMA/PAGASA; and that the JTWC long term record rates the Haiyan as the fourth most powerfull tropical cyclone in terms of wind speed, and the most powerful at the time of landfall, while the JMA ranks it as the second most powerfull, and the most powerfull at landfall; and that two lists for tropical cyclones making landfall in the Philippines purportedly from PAGASA disagree about the cyclones in the top five, their windspeeds, and their rank order.
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grindupBaker at 09:53 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
I think the comment "but most notably through rising sea levels" needs modification or clarification because I would think by general logic that the extra energy added significantly more to the energy that this typhoon delivered to land than the small sea level increase. Dr. Mann quotes Yeb Saño on this but I infer that his posting does not allow him realistically to delve into complexities without losing the focus on this particular disaster. That could be done in this posting. I infer that sea level rise is a longer term issue than current times (currently minor). If I am incorrect, somebody please educate me regarding the amplification of the small sea level increase as the surge pushes and squeezes water up the gradient (choke-point) to land.
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jzk at 09:48 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
Tom @ 18
"You may want to speculate about a fundamental disagreement between PAGASA and JWTC, but in the absence of specific information, that is all you are doing. Inexpert sepulation in the face of the better informed opinions of experst such as Jeff Masters."
Really, when I saw that ranking I wanted to understand the source of your data. I don't fault Jeff or the JWTC for making estimates at the time based on the best information that was available to them. But, if we are going to be comparing storms, we should compare apples to apples. Are the other storms on that list ranked by 1 minute sustained gust data estimated by satellites, or is it based on actual instrument readings on the ground over ten minutes? Even inexperts like me can ask questions like that to ascertain the vailidity of the comparison, no?
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Tom Curtis at 09:31 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
jzk @17, that is normally correct, although I did see one report that the JTWC had access to surface based observations at the time of the estimate. Unfortunately I cannot find that report, and hence cannot assess its accuracy. It should not be assumed, however, that land based reports from PAGASA are automatically more accurate. In particular, most of their observations are from far from the eye of the storm, and the one anenometer they had that was in the eye of the storm (at Tacloban Airport) was also destroyed by the storm. Further, once over land, winds are reduced by about 15% by friction (Jeff Masters) so that land based anenometers will record wind speeds about 15% below those at actual landfall. So, there are several reasons why hte PAGASA recorded speeds might be below the JTWC estimate, and/or the true wind speeds.
Having said that, I find the coincidence between the 10 minute sustained gust and the "sustained" speed from JWTC once factored for the difference between a 1 and 10 minute measurement period compelling. Absent evidence that the JWTC 195 mph estimate is supposed to be of the base level of the winds, the PAGASA and JWTC estimates in fact agree, once we allow for the difference in gust interval. Further, that appears to be the opinion of Jeff Masters on this, and he is definitely expert and reliable (while I am merely strive for the later).
You may want to speculate about a fundamental disagreement between PAGASA and JWTC, but in the absence of specific information, that is all you are doing. Inexpert sepulation in the face of the better informed opinions of experst such as Jeff Masters.
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Bert from Eltham at 09:30 AM on 18 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
adelady is quite correct. We all make the mistake of obsessing about the peripherals. This is where the deniers aim their missives.
As a simple first approximation our planet Earth is a simple sphere of solid rock with a layer of liquid water and then air.
If there is any imbalance of incoming radiation from the Sun compared to the blackbody radiation out to space of the whole Earth system, the air will heat up first. This is our early warning that something is wrong.
We know long term that more than 90% of the radiation heat imbalance ends up in the water. This is due to all sorts of complex mixings that is very difficult to model.
To then say that an 'hiatus' of air temperature increase indicates anything is absurd. It is even more absurd when you consider these air temperature measurements do not cover the full surface system.
This paper by Kevin Cowtan and Robert Way has shown how to measure the surface or 'air' temperature far better by filling in the important polar regions not well covered by surface measurements. This has shown there is no 'hiatus' in surface temperature rise.
The total ocean heat content increase is the final arbiter. By the time it is measured accurately and fully, it will be too late. Bert
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Paul Pukite at 09:10 AM on 18 November 2013The Other Bias
Kevin, My correction is that the GISS temperature anomaly is 0.1C too warm for the years 1941 up until the end of 1945. A more complete description here:
http://ContextEarth.com/2013/11/16/csalt-and-sst-corrections
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grindupBaker at 08:17 AM on 18 November 2013Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change
Vincentrj #28 you are unclear re the division of your opinions/inferences between the 3 basic sub-topics (1) heat is entering the oceans due to radiative imbalance due to humans burning carbon fuels (2) the heat rate coupled with its estimated duration (based on its cause) will make it within a few decades become unprecedented during the last several thousand years and same for the surface temperature rise that will be required to stop it (3) the effects on flora & fauna will be highly negative even within this century and more so for centuries and millenia thereafter, in particular the human species which has softened much and expects much more since the days when a mammoth tusk through the groin was met with "well Og's had it, press on". Do you strongly disgaree with the basic science of (1) based on the (suspicious?) lack of contradictory expert opinion, strongly disgaree with the science & projective simulation modelling of (2) based on the mysterious (to you) mechanics of modelling, the natural scientists' assessment of (3), or all three ?
I can discuss (1) a bit because I've heard several lecture videos on the cryosphere & crunched a few numbers. It all makes sense as near as one might reasonably care.
I can discuss (2) a little bit because I've written simulation modelling software and I understand its benefits when some chaos is involved in the system.
I can't discuss (3) at all, I know nothing about it.
The subject (except (3)) is not so complex to prevent a person with high school science & math (me) grasping the essence of it to the extent that matters. If the "whole" of it you mention includes each detail that fine-tunes conclusions then I expect it will be decades to wring out all the trivia.
Please deconstruct your grab-bag skepticism between the sub-topics so that others might debate and perhaps learn from your thoughts.
Moderator Response:[JH] Unnecessary white space deleted.
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jzk at 08:09 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
Tom @16
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the JTWC providing "estimates" based on satellite data, not real on the ground measurements?
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Kevin C at 07:35 AM on 18 November 2013The Other Bias
WHT: That looks very plaisible indeed. HadSST2 corrects up to the start of war discontinuity, but doesn't go deep enough and there are no corrections after that. So the features are exactly what I would expect with the exception of the 1950's feature that you've noted.
I presume you get an absolute magnitude out? If so I wonder if this is publishable as an independent test of the HadSST3 work.
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Tom Curtis at 07:33 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
jzk @14, the wind speeds I quote are for sustained one minute gusts. They were reported by Jeff Masters, and by the Gaurdian, to whom I have provided links. They were originally reported by the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The BBC reports:
"[Haiyan] brought sustained winds of 235km/h (147mph), with gusts of 275 km/h (170 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places."
Those figures are taken from the Phillipine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), which report ten minute sustained gusts. The difference between the agencies was noted by the Manila Times ten days ago. Jeff Masters believes the gusts speed reported by the JWTC = the sustained wind speed reported by PAGASA after multiplying by a standard factor of 1.14 to account for the difference in period of measurement. Presumably the higher measured "gusts" reported at 235 mph reported by the JWTC are then recorded gusts that were not sustained for a full minute. I have not seen confirmation of that, however.
Finally, if you go to PAGASA, click on "climatology" in the side bar, then on "Climate Statistics" in the window that opens, then on "Tropcial Cyclone Statistics" in the side bar, then on "Important Facts about Tropical Cyclones", and then finally on "The five strongest tropical cyclones that made landfall in the Philippines" you will find a list of the five strongest such cyclones not including Haiyan. This is of interest because only two of the cyclones (Senning and Anding) make a similar list printed by the WSJ. For those two, Senning (Joan) is reported to have a peak gust of 275 kmh (172 mph) on the PAGASA website, but ten minute sustained gusts of 193 mph in the Wall Street Journal. Anding (Irma) is reported to have a peak gust of 260 kph (163 mph) on PAGASA and sustained gusts of 171 mph on the Wall Street Journal. This is difficult to comport with the accuracy of the WSJ report. As it happens, PAGASA also reports that Remming (Durian) had a peak gust of 320 kph (200 mph), but does not make the list. If peak gust as reported by PAGASA is simply the peak recorded speed without any time limit, that would partially explain the discrepancy between the WSJ and PAGASA. It would also give a comparitor to Haiyan's reported "gust" by the JTWC of 235 mph.
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kampmannpeine at 05:45 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
It might be interesting for didactical reasons to ahhere to the small video in New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/world/growing-clamor-about-inequities-of-climate-crisis.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131117&_r=0
about hurricane formation and the increasing energy within the hurricane due to rise of sea surface temperature. Nice viedeo!
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John Russell at 05:03 AM on 18 November 2013Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change
Vincentrj writes that because of the complexity... "the situation is ripe for continual differences of opinion among scientists working in the various disciplines." Seeing the consensus he therefore thinks... "alarm bells should be ringing". Although he then writes, "setting aside conspiracy theories..." , the remainder of his comment is one big conspiracy theory!
He is fundamentaly wrong. As someone who reads extensively on the subject of climate change I often come across a willingness to disagree between published climate scientists which is every bit as common as it is amongst all branches of science. But any differences in opinion are invariably with regard to minor details. This is because—as others have already mentioned—the basics of climate science are very well established. Indeed, even many 'contrarian' scientists whose work is mined for 'nuggets' by those in climate denial are, generally speaking, in agreement over the basics of climate change. Vincentrj's theory lacks supporting evidence.
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Timothy Chase at 04:06 AM on 18 November 2013The Other Bias
WebHub, my apologies. I misunderstood the nature of your comment.
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jzk at 04:02 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
Tom Curtis @ 3.
What is the source of that wind speed data? I am reading that the measured sustained winds at landfall were 147mph and gusts of 170mph.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24887337
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Terranova at 02:57 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
Mods can you correct the links in #12? Thanks.
Moderator Response:[JH] I was able to embed the link to the article, Global sea-level rise is recognised, but flooding from anthropogenic land subsidence is ignored around northern Manila Bay, Philippines, in your point #3.
I am not able to fix the link to the map in your point #2.
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Terranova at 02:56 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
I am working on a research paper and did not have a lot of time to devote to researching this event. However, I have a couple of statements and questions.
- What are the official storm surge figures? From the the Global Disaster and Alert Coordination (GDAC) website I found this which apparently shows the predicted storm surge at 1.87 m. I understand that these are predictions - I want to know the actual recorded data.
- What does the data show for SLR in that area of the world? It is easy to say that SLR contributed to the damage, but just how much more damage can a few mm of SLR cause?
- Other manmade factors are potentially much more important. From Global sea-level rise is recognised, but flooding from anthropogenic land subsidence is ignored around northern Manila Bay, Philippines by Rodolfo and Siringan (2006): "Land subsidence resulting from excessive extraction of groundwater is particularly acute in East Asian countries. Some Philippine government sectors have begun to recognise that the sea-level rise of one to three millimetres per year due to global warming is a cause of worsening floods around Manila Bay, but are oblivious to, or ignore, the principal reason: excessive groundwater extraction is lowering the land surface by several centimetres to more than a decimetre per year".
Moderator Response:[DB] Embedded pdf image of map as a jpg in Point 1.
- What are the official storm surge figures? From the the Global Disaster and Alert Coordination (GDAC) website I found this which apparently shows the predicted storm surge at 1.87 m. I understand that these are predictions - I want to know the actual recorded data.
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Paul Pukite at 02:30 AM on 18 November 2013The Other Bias
KC,
I assume the HadSST2 is the time series with the least amount of corrections.
This is what my inverted model residual looks like when compared to your fractional contribution measurement profile. Note that the Korean War was between 1950 and 1953 which might have been a time when not to use trailing buckets.
And then the issue of insulated vs uninsulated buckets....
Moderator Response:[RH] Modified image width to 550px.
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PhilBMorris at 02:28 AM on 18 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #46B
Nothing short of a tsunami washing over our political institutions is going to change our business as usual approach.
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Kevin C at 01:42 AM on 18 November 2013Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access
We're currently at £1400, which is almost enough to cover open access if I qualify for RMS discount. I'll contact the journal on Monday.
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michael sweet at 01:32 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
Chriskoz,
Since Michael Mann was the lead author for this study:
Mann, M.E., Woodruff, J.D., Donnelly, J.P., Zhang, Z., Atlantic hurricanes and climate over the past 1,500 years, Nature, 460, 880-883, 2009.
as well as numerous other studies of ocean atmosphere interactions, I would presume he has "broader background/own expertise".
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kmalpede at 01:21 AM on 18 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
I am an artist, not a scientist. But, I've read a great deal of climate science as I researched and wrote my new play "Extreme Whether" and I continue to read the science. My question is this: why when an esteemed scientist, Michael Mann, in this case, writes a cogent and moral essay, based upon observable fact, that is also a plea for action, do scientists then begin to parse and shred and take us back to questions about "this particular storm" and whether we are facing increased frequency or, only, increased severity. Dr. Mann's essay, like Dr. Sano's emotional and compelling remarks in Warsaw, are calls for public policy action in the face what is most surely an increasing disaster area called our planet. Can we not act together, even as we continue to pursue our scientific research or our artistic explorations; can we not call for and support public policies to limit climate change?
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michael sweet at 22:30 PM on 17 November 2013Antarctica is gaining ice
Morgan,
This is a scientific board. You must refer to the scientific literature or no one will bother with your posts. You have linked to several blog posts, including an unlabeled graph from a frisbie golf site (this one: http://www.hyzercreek.com/nasa2005.jpg). At the same time Tom has linked to a number of peer reviewed publications. Please bring your posts up to the standard used here or stop posting.
You will not convince anyone here with a frisbie golf graph with 2005 in the link. No one cares what your interpretation of the data is. Link to peer reviewed papers that support your view.
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chriskoz at 20:24 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
barry@8,
Thanks for the extra info, your explained query makes sense now.
I don't know if Mann is biased by this single outlier study or if he has some broader background/own expertise to subscribe to it. I don't know enough about the subject to have an opinion.
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barry1487 at 19:37 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
chriskoz,
I clicked on the link and read before I posted.
Hitherto, I had understood that projections had generally been that tropical storms frequency would not change under a warming climate, but that it was likely that storm intensity, particularly severe storms, would increase. This is how it is put in AR4 and most studies I have read. This from an article I read just now;
The best evidence scientists have at the moment suggests tropical cyclones may become more intense under climate change, but are unlikely to increase in number.
But a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges the status quo, suggesting tropical cyclones will become more intense, and occur more frequently.
I am used to Mann and other serious scientists taking a conservative approach to new work and climate science in general. I did not know if there had been a solid evolution in thinking on tropical storm frequency commensurate with Mann's comment, hence my query.
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Philippe Chantreau at 18:58 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
I'm not sure where to find the data but what I would be interested in knowing would be whether there has been before a typhoon of this size keeping winds as fast. Normally these storms see a decreased wind speed when reaching the kind of size that Haiyan showed, yet the winds remained very strong, in the Camille range, a much smaller storm. Anyone has light to shed on this?
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chriskoz at 18:57 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
barry@1,
If you cared to click on the link pointed by the statement you question, you'd discovered that it leads to Emanuel 2013, which states in their abstract:
Tropical cyclones downscaled from the climate of the period 1950–2005 are compared with those of the 21st century in simulations that stipulate that the radiative forcing from greenhouse gases increases by over preindustrial values. In contrast to storms that appear explicitly in most global models, the frequency of downscaled tropical cyclones increases during the 21st century in most locations
(my emphasis)
Therefore you would know that Mike Mann's claim comes from Emanuel 2013, and not from AR5 (14.6.3) as you chose to cite. In that context, the original statement is correct and you're wrong criticising it.
You would be right by saying, "according to some other sources, i.e. AR5, the frequency of the storms will not increase". Then the reader would decide which source is more reliable: Kerry Emanuel, the leading world expert in tropical cyclones, or IPCC who took the average literature on the subject and draw more conservative conclusions, as expected per my emphasis.
But the way you phased your comment, you suggest as if Mike Mann was somehow misinterpreting the evidence, which is not the case, therefore you're wrong.
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Kevin C at 17:32 PM on 17 November 2013The Other Bias
Penchant: The numbers are right. In our paper we also look at the effect of bias on the significance of the trends, which is maximised for 1997/1998. The suggestion that trends starting in 1997/1998 are most misleading is based on this result.
Lay people do seem to have an instinctive grasp of the idea that longer term trends carry more information, and so 'misleadingness' needs to be evaluated against this. Lacking a cognitive model of how people evaluate trend claims the 'impact on significance' metric was the best we could do.
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Kevin C at 17:27 PM on 17 November 2013The Other Bias
WebHubbleTelescope:
There are two impacts of the HadSST3 corrections compared to earlier versions which only handled the 1942 discontinuity - the sharp correction in 1945, and the more gradual recent bias. In this article I mainly focus on the second.
I also managed to identify the post-war spike by the trivial method of comparing colocated coastal land and SST measurements. The results give a surprisingly good fit to the HadSST3 adjustments, barring a scale factor. The gradual change over the past couple of decades is far harder to check, although I may have picked up a weak echo of the signal in the constrast between sea-lane and non-sea-lane temperatures.
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chriskoz at 17:20 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
hank_@2,
You are wrong. The factual reality is that, no one has shown that model's predictions about future storms are accurate or wrong because no statistically signifficant data exists. In other words, the factual reality is: "we don't know". That's quite different to your SkS comment policy violating answer "NO".
Application of simple boolean logic in both statistics as in this example, as well as in everyday life, usually leads to illogical conclusions. In order to say "no" to any theory or claim, you have to present a proof that the claim is false. The fact that we cannot measure some claim (like in case of cyclones, we don't have enough data to show any statistically significant trend - the trend could be positive AWA negative with data we have), means that "we don't know".
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barry1487 at 17:10 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
A quick review of recent papers and AR5 suggests that storms of this intensity have very likely increased in the North Atlantic and other ocean areas, except for the North West Pacific (the Philippines is in the western Pacific Ocean).
Eg,
This additional homogenization step is found to measurably reduce LMI trends, but the global trends in the LMI of the strongest storms remain positive, with amplitudes of around +1 m s−1 decade−1 and p-value = 0.1. Regional trends, in m s−1 decade−1, vary from −2 (p-value = 0.03) in the western North Pacific, +1.7 (p-value = 0.06) in the South Indian, +2.5 (p-value = 0.09) in the South Pacific, to +8 (p-value < 0.001) in the North Atlantic.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00262.1
While there is much uncertainty outside the North Atlantic, there is some confidence that Major Cyclone intensity has increased over the last 50 years or so globally, even while the total number of storms has not changed or decreased.
Why is it important to determine if this storm was 'unprecedented'?
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Tom Curtis at 16:43 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
hank_, with regard to (1), the intensity of a storm can be measured in various ways. As measured by central pressure, Haiyan was exceptional but not unprecedented, being equal 21st of Western North Pacific cyclones (typhoons). That is with an estimated low pressure of 895 hPa. However, one storm chaser in Tacloban measured pressures as low as 972 hPa before his barometer was destroyed.
As measured by windspeed, Haiyan had the highest windspeeds at landfall of any tropical cyclone. Jeff Masters shows this chart of windspeeds at landfall:
However, Tropical Cyclone Haiyan was not the strongest cyclone measured. Unfortunately lists as to which were stronger vary, and measurements prior to 1970 are known to be biased high, so it is unclear whether Haiyan was the second strongest measured, or only the fourth. So, again, exceptional but not unprecedented.
However, on (2) you are simply wrong. Elsner et al (2008) show a trend to increasing frequency of the 95 percentile of storms with increasing SST which is statistically significant (see table 1). More recent studies have been a little ambiguous, but it is evident that the answer to your question, is either "yes", or (at best for you) "it is not yet clear".
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chriskoz at 16:27 PM on 17 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #46B
"Majority of red-state Americans believe climate change is real", even in "red" states like TX & OK.
That's very interesting news. Apart from being an indicator of a success in climate science communication (of which we at SkS play proud role), it may herald the change of mind in some politicians there. I predict that many hardcore flat-earth denialists will start to convert to at least "lukewarmemrs", as their political expedience dictates. Just like Tony Abbott in Australia converted recently, as described in "Abbott's response to the climate challenge". And, like Tony's predecessor John Howard has been converting, according to his own admission recently, that only his "gut feeling" and "political climate" drive his knowledge about the world.
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chriskoz at 16:11 PM on 17 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #46B
hank_@1,
It'd be far more beneficial if you, instead of comlaining that "something obvious" was not mentioned, you'd actually explained what it was exactly, and even better provided the link, yourself.
I, for example, don't know what you talk about from your description, but I'd like to know that news. -
Morgan Wright at 16:06 PM on 17 November 2013Antarctica is gaining ice
Thanks for the graph showing that ozone has not lowered since around 1988, backing up my argument, that it cant be the cause of south pole cooling.
I also read the Lazarra paper you cited, in which he shows that the south pole winter temperatures are decreasing slightly as the south pole summer temperatures increase slightly, but that neither of which is statistically significant. So let's just say the south pole is staying the same, i.e. not warming.
Now, let's iron this whole thing out. South pole, not warming. Rest of earth, warming. The earth is a heat engine where most solar forcing is in the tropics, heated tropical air moving toward the poles, cold air returning toward the tropics to be heated again. So the earth is a heat engine, like a Sterling Engine, and it operates on the difference in forcing at the equator vs the poles.
So, the south pole is not changing, the equator is getting warmer, so the heat engine is getting stronger. That's why there is more polar easterly wind around Antarctica. That's why there is more antarctic sea ice. Has nothing to do with ozone which is just a stupid theory. Drop it. Let's never mention the word ozone again. There is no UV in Antarctica in the winter, almost none in the spring or fall. I'll give you the summer, which is when no sea ice forms. So, ozone has nothing to do with it. Time to burn the straw man.
OK I'm done with this. Case closed. Forget ozone forever, ok?
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robert_13 at 15:59 PM on 17 November 2013CO2 lags temperature
Isn't CO(2) currently leading temperature and doesn't this reversal of temperature leading CO(2) to CO(2) leading temperature a strong indicator that current global warming is human-caused? If this is true, why do we need such complicated explanations of past natural changes to justify current conclusions about AGW? Why isn't this reversal of which initiates the feedback loop a major indicator that the current situation contrasts with natural climate change because it is human-caused?
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adelady at 14:42 PM on 17 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Great work, guys. Made me think.
We're perfectly OK acknowledging the differences in tables and graphs when someone asks directly why there is any difference at all between temperature measurements and trends from different organisations. See, look here, this crowd do it one way and these people do it another way and it's all perfectly reasonable that they come up with differing results. And everybody nods wisely.
As soon as this question is no longer front and centre, we blithely discuss "slowdowns" and "pauses" and heat sinks and various climate mechanisms as though the measurements and trends are entirely reliable, a mere background for other discussions. We should remind ourselves constantly that knowing about these features of the records is not like knowing times table or basic algebra as the unerringly solid foundation for simple calculations. We learn those things so that we don't have to think about them. These things do have to be thought about.
Keeping this work in the foreground for the next while should force us to keep the whole picture more comprehensively in mind.
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chriskoz at 14:33 PM on 17 November 2013Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change
I just want to make a note how valuable is a contribution to this discussion by Tom Curtis. To those who know Tom, my remark may sound trivial, however in this case Tom's posts made a particularly big, positive difference. His training in in ethics, logic and epistemology really paid off: we now have the factual standard of the article lifted and the reality of Howard's double standard & hypocrisy explained. (Not that I disregard other commenters but Tom realy stands out here).
Now compare the logical standard above with that of Vincentrj, who is trying to make Argument from ignorance in order to confuse us, and he didn't even explain how his troll relates to the topic at hand. The difference in standard of discussion is so enormous that there simply cannot be any rational discussion, as Tom rightly asserts @30.
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hank_ at 14:31 PM on 17 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #46B
No mention of the major 'about face' by the Japansese in regards to their CO2 reduction commitments? That was more of a shock than either the Canadien or Aussi stories.
Moderator Response:[JH] The news about the Japanese decision will appear in the next issue of the Roundup.
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Andrew B at 14:30 PM on 17 November 2013Free computer game - World at the Crossroads
This game should allow you to decomission power plants ahead of schedule when you're playing as leader of the world. This will allow you to adjust your energy portfolio as soon as it is economically possible to do so.
There should also be thorium-based molten salt nuclear reactor technology available, since in reality it represents a fairly inexpensive path to abundant, cheap power that doesn't come with the risk meltdowns. It should be available as early as the 1980s, depending on your research priorities.
In general, the game seems to overstate the risk associated with nuclear power. To date, in the entire history of commercial nuclear power, there have been three notable nuclear accidents, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Of those three, only Chernobyl resulted in fatalities. The fatalities that accident produced, according to best estimates, numbers in the tens (I think the figure is between 40 and 70). This comes to .7-1.2 deaths per year worldwide for the entire nuclear industry. That's better than just about any other form of energy produciton.
It would also help if the game writers cleaned up their economics a little bit. A few things I noticed:
- I think what they're calling "income" is actually tax revenue.
- A trade surplus when you play as an individual nation is shown as slows GDP growth GDP/capita growth. This is backwards. What would actually slows economic growth is saving unspent tax revenue.
- The game makes dubious assumptions about what precipitates a financial crisis. The model they use assumes that negative GDP growth causes a financial crisis when in fact negative GDP growth is the result of financial crisis. As we recently witnessed, a financial crisis is perfectly capable of taking place during periods of economic growth (and subsequently bringing them to an end).
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hank_ at 14:27 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
The two things we have to ask ourselves about this storm are;
1)"Was the intensity of this storm in the area in question 'unprecedented'?"
and 2) Has the frequency of storms of this magnitude increased over the past 60 or so years?"
At this point the answer to both questions is clearly "NO" "no".
Moderator Response:[JH] The use of "all caps" is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Please read the policy and adhere to it.
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Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial
Ironbark - My apologies, I may have in haste misread your post. Regarding the details of attribution, there is a lot of work ongoing, see here.
Regarding the basics of human influence being the dominant factor in warming, no, there isn't much research going on - as that's been very well established.
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Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial
Ironbark - As the paper itself clearly states:
This result is expected in consensus situations where scientists '...generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees'
It's been researched for over 150 years, and as per the observed consensus, the basic outline of AGW is no longer a question that requires discussion.
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John Hartz at 14:12 PM on 17 November 2013Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change
Vincentrj:
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John Hartz at 14:08 PM on 17 November 2013Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change
All:
Vincentrj's most recent comment was off-topic and was therefore deleted. DSL's response to it was also deleted.
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Ironbark at 12:48 PM on 17 November 2013Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial
Given the low number of articles found which express the IPCC position (i.e. that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming), does this paper support the proposition that the extent of attribution is not a widely researched question?
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grindupBaker at 12:42 PM on 17 November 2013Southern sea ice is increasing
For anybody who likes a relaxing assimilation of some information there's a lecture by Dr. Sarah Gille on the Antartctic ocean, apparently her specialty, on the web at time of my comment. Discusses the contraction that's happened causing cooler oceans near South Pole but warmer at slightly higher lataitudes. Also, a polar atmosphere lecture by Dr. Dan Lubin.
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barry1487 at 12:15 PM on 17 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
"However, models suggest more frequent and intense storms in a warmed world."
Is that right? I have often corrected 'skeptics' when they announce that more frequent storms is a climate prediction under a warm world, linking them to RealClimate, here and the IPCC reports, saying that storm intensity is predicted to increase, not frequency.
AR5 (14.6.3)says:
While projections under 21st century greenhouse warming indicate that it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in both global mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed and rainfall rates, there is lower confidence in region-specific projections of frequency and intensity. Still, based on high-resolution modelling studies, the frequency of the most intense storms, which are associated with particularly extensive physical effects, willmore likely than not increase substantially in some basins under projected 21st century warming.
As far as I understand the matter, the sentece would be more accurate if it had gone thus; "...models suggest more frequent intense storms in a warmed world."
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Tom Curtis at 12:05 PM on 17 November 2013Antarctica is gaining ice
Morgan Wright @204:
1) Of recent papers on Antarctic temperatures all that I have checked show warming. These include not only Steig et al, and O'Donnell et al, but also:
Muto et al (2011), which shows warming of 1 - 1.5 C in East Antarctica, most of which has been in the last two decades.
Bromwich et al (2013), which shows "Central West Antarctica [to be] among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth".
Screen and Simmonds (2012), which shows mid tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling over all of Antarctica, with the stratospheric cooling being concentrated in Spring and Summer.
Schneider et al (2010), which shows a 0.1 C per decade trend averaged over all of Antarctica, with warming strongest in the pensinsular, and second strongest in the West Anarctic spring.
And finally, because your initial comments regarded the South Pole, we have Lazzara et al (2012), who show a cooling trend at the South Pole till about 2000, and a rapid warming trend thereafter:
It should be noted that when the data is extended to include 2012, the trend of the full data sets becomes positive (as previously noted).
So, there is little doubt from recent literature that Antarctica is warming, with most of the warming being in the last two decades, and in West Antarctica. If you have a paper published in the last 5 years that disputes that, I would be interested to see it - but I see no reason to reject recent studies in prefference to older studies, particularly given that the older studies are now obsolete due to the recent rapid warming trend.
2) You are simply wrong about ozone. Ozone has never fallen noticably below 100 Dobson Units in the period of observations:
Your repeated errors on simple matters of fact are very damaging to your case.
You are also wrong to claim the effect cannot occur because it happens in winter when the sun does not reach the pole. That is first, because the effect occurs in the Autumn when sea ice is growing, but when the sun can still reach the pole. It is also because the ozone hole often extends beyond the Antarctic Circle, which together with its high altitude ensures sunlight reaches regions of depleted ozone long after the pole falls into shadow at the surface.
I will respond to your other points later.
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LuisC at 10:48 AM on 17 November 2013Free computer game - World at the Crossroads
Meh, I guess I can just play it in Safe Mode. No big deal. Great game, by the way!
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grindupBaker at 09:59 AM on 17 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Passing ironic that my simple-minded note that OHC is the future and my lukewarm kudo for the sterling poster (actual posters) historical GMST (a "global warming" proxy) work drew only #39 Poster with an even more nebulous proxy that assumes I'm so ignorant that I think oceans at 0-4 Celsius will expand hugely if warmed a tad. I've done the simple math in the first few hours I first looked at this topic in spring. My moderation-resistant on-topic asides are Prof Muller BerkeleyEarth shows a smoother increasing temperature & derivative land-only data mean (? I've no time to study his available RMS? software) and that I disagree with Bert #43 about "venomous response" because I can only see this brilliant satellite infill analysis to correct (and warm-up) the data in recent years as increased polar warming renders simple interpolation (even modelled type) imprecise as being a much more accurate multi-sensor trick to hide the decline in polar GMST measuring quality that has evidently been happening with interpolation, so I see no basis for attack on the work or on my comment here for that matter.
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