An eclectic round-up of the week’s climate science happenings (and an effort to keep specific threads clear of clutter).
It’s the sun! (not)
As regular readers here will know, the big problem for blaming the sun for the recent global warming is that there hasn’t been a trend in any index of solar activity since about 1960, and that includes direct measurements of solar output by satellites since 1979. Well, another paper, has come out saying exactly the same thing. This is notable because the lead author Mike Lockwood has worked extensively on solar physics and effects on climate and certainly can’t be credibly accused of wanting to minimise the role of solar forcing for nefarious pro-CO2 reasons!
Stefan was quoted in Nature as saying this is the ‘last nail in the coffin’ for solar enthusiasts, but a better rejoinder is a statement from Ray P: “That’s a coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to hammer in a new one.”
TGGWS Redux
The still-excruciating ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ got another outing in Australia this week. The heavily edited ‘new’ version dumped some of the obviously fake stuff that was used the first time around, and edited out the misleading segment with Carl Wunsch. There is some amusing feedback in the post-show discussion panel and interview (via DeSmogBlog).
RC Wiki
As an aside, this is as good a time as any to point people to a new resource we are putting together: RC Wiki, which is an index to the various debunkings of the contrarian articles, TV programs, and internet pseudo-science that is out there. The idea is to have a one-stop shop so that anyone who comes across a piece and wants to know what the real story just has to start there. For instance, the page on TGGWS has a listing of many of the substantive criticisms from the time of the first showing.
Editing the wiki is by invitation only, but let us know if you want to help out, or if you have any suggestions or comments.
The sweet spot for climate predictability
Between the difficulty of long-term weather forecasts and the impossibility of accurate predictions for economic conditions a century hence, there is a sweet spot for climate forecasts. This spot, maybe between 20 and 50 years out, is where the emissions scenarios don’t matter too much (given the inertia of the system) and where the trends start to be discernible over the noise of year to year weather. Cox and Stephenson have a good discussion of the point in this week’s Science and a great conceptual graphic of the issues.
One could quibble with the details (we’d put the sweet spot a little earlier) but the underlying idea is sound, and in judging climate forecasts, it will be projections in that range that should be judged (i.e. the early Hansen projections).
Correction to post #250
The first sentence of #5 in the second set should read, “The effects of black carbon are not a mutually exclusive alternative to the greenhouse effect that is due to carbon dioxide – but something which works in conjunction with the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.”
Vernon, on black carbon, you might reread these:
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=458#comment-36826
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=458#comment-36832
Timothy, if I understand the grist of your argument, basically you’re saying that we do not have to know everything to know enough. While I sort of agree with this, the problem I addressed is not what your answered.
You have a great circular argument going. We know CO2 is having this effect because of the proxy evidence. We know the rate of change is unprecedented due to the proxy evidence. The climate must be as sensitive as we propose because of the proxy evidence. However, the proxy evidence shows that we are currently cooling. This does not agree with the instrumented readings. 1/6th off all US stations have been surveyed by surfacestations and just from the pictures it is easy to see that most stations are not installed with WMO guidelines, that most listed as rural but are actually in urbanized environments. You have to pick which is right the handle or the blade of the hockey stick because they do not agree with each other.
You a supposing that black carbon and carbon dioxide are not mutually exclusive due to a yet unknown aerosol that we do not understand (at least that is what Gavin indicated.) Why not just admit that with out knowing the other drivers; there is no way to determine the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 increases? The UC Irvine study suggests that sensitivity is not as high as presupposed in the GCMs.
The whole problem that is being expressed is that the climate is sensitive to change and that a little change will cause massive results. There is no proof of this, any where.
But back to my original argument, that we do not know the latency associated with many of the climate drivers and for Lockwood to not take the latency into account is a serious blow to his study. I still do not understand why the climatologist failed to point that out or why the peer review would ignore it. Secondly, we do not know enough about the mechanisms, per the IPCC, to make any conclusion on the impact of a given driver that is not a greenhouse gas. Please note I do not count clouds as a greenhouse gas even though they are made of H2O and are a driver unlike non-cloud water vapor.
Re #253 Vernon, can you give sources for your repeated statements that proxies show current cooling? I’ve used the search facility on the site to look for “proxies”, and you appear to have been asked what your sources for this belief are several times, but so far as I can discover, have never responded. Why not?
Re: #253 (Vernon)
What proxy evidence would that be? References, please.
Well, there is Briffa, et al (2206) if you find a copy where he does not truncate his graphs. Moberg et al, (2005), Heqerl et al (2006) also show that the proxy and instrumented are diverging.
Maybe I did not respond because if I knew why they are not matching the instrumented readings, then I would not be asking for some one to explain it to me. That I am not hearing here.
> Briffa, et al (2206) if you find a copy where he does not truncate his graphs.
Vernon, don’t cut’n’paste these fragments from the non-science PR sites, give an actual citation to a real publication.
Give a proper source or a link. One of the hallmarks of the PR sites is these fragmentary and often incorrect fake cites.
Re #256
A bit more information please, just to be certain we’re all talking about the same papers.
Google Scholar doesn’t return anything for “Heqerl 2006”, so I guess you mean:
Gabriele C. Hegerl, Thomas J. Crowley, William T. Hyde and David J. Frame “Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries”
Nature 440, 1029-1032 (20 April 2006)
Google Scholar doesn’t seem to list anything that would be described as “Briffa et al 2006” under normal conventions. Do you mean Osborn, T.J. and Briffa, K.R. “The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years”
Science 10 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5762, pp. 841 – 844?
Can you point us to “a copy where he does not truncate his graphs” – and indeed, to one where he does, for comparison?
Moberg et al (2005) would presumably be:
Moberg A, Sonechkin DM, Holmgren K, Datsenko NM, Karlén W, Lauritzen SE. “Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data.” Nature. 2005 Feb 10;433(7026):587-8.
Vernon, the only place ‘Briffa” and “truncated” appear is in the climateaudit thread where McIntyre is accusing the IPCC of something.
Since you don’t yet know what Briffa article he’s upset about, so you can be upset about it, you could ask him for the full cite, and then look for it with Google Scholar or ask any reference librarian to get you a copy. Once you’ve read it, that will make it easier for you to quote it and cite it and ask questions about it.
Vernon (#253) wrote:
I notice that you are refering to the temperature measurements at the stations as “proxy evidence.” This is incorrect as they are direct measurements. Additionally there is nothing particularly circular about the data that we are using – and I indicated as much in point 5 of the first set when I stated:
… as well as touching on it in at a number of different points.
However, permit me to expand.
1. We have atmospheric measurements in the lower troposphere, the upper troposphere and the stratosphere.
2. These are measurements being taken by planes and satellites. The troposphere is warming – just as we would expect.
3. The stratosphere is cooling – just as is predicted by the anthropogenic global warming theory. (Incidently, the latter of these is something which cannot be explained by any theory based upon solar variability.)
4. We are taking measurements of temperatures in the oceans both at the surface and at various depths. These are showing warming as far down as 1500 meters.
5. We are performing measurements of sea level – which has been rising as the result of thermal expansion. Sea level is however a proxy for temperature.
6. We are performing gravitometric measurements of Greenland and Antarctica which are showing net ice loss in both cases. This is however a proxy. But I would suspect that it is a fairly good proxy as ice will tend not to melt unless it gets warm.
7. We can witness sea-ice loss in the Arctic which is dramatically accelerating. Proxy. This is partly the result of pollution in the form of black carbon. However, black carbon would not have the accelerating effect that we are witnessing.
8. We are seeing the acceleration of glaciers in both Greenland and Antarctica, particularly within the last few years. Greenland is no doubt affected by black carbon, but Antarctica is much more isolated.
9. We are witnessing the rise of the troposphere. This is a proxy, but another good one.
10. We are witnessing the poleward migration of species. Proxy.
11. We are witnessing the increased intensity of hurricanes due to the rise in sea temperatures. Proxy.
12. We are witnessing the accelerating decline of glaciers throughout the world except in a few rare cases. Proxy.
14. We are measuring the rise in temperatures at greater depths in the permafrost. Proxy.
15. We are seeing the rapid expansion in the last few years of thermokarst lakes. Proxy.
16. We are witnessing changes in ocean circulation. Proxy.
17 We are seeing the disintegration of permafrost coastlines in the arctic. Proxy.
18. We are witnessing changes in the altitude of the stratosphere. Proxy.
19. We are getting temperature measurements from countries throughout the world which show the same trends.
20. When we perform measurements using only rural stations, we see almost identical trends.
21. We are witnessing changes in wind circulation patterns around Antarctica. Proxy.
Now with regard to climate sensitivity, it is independent of anthropogenic aerosols as it is based upon paleoclimate records, 400,000 years worth – which I mentioned in point 5 of the second set. (I did say to read carefully, didn’t I?) This is of course something that we know only by means of proxies, but they are a wide variety of proxies.
Given the residence time of aerosols, we would have to put in larger and larger amounts of them to keep up with the effects of carbon dioxide with its far greater residence time. We know the forcing due to various gases quite independently of any proxies. This is in very large part the result of extensive, systematic measurements performed in the laboratories and the distribution of the gases in the atmosphere – which are known as the result of other systematic studies. Oh, and aerosols do not result in a lag – they mask, but they do not work as by means of feedback. As for your alternative to the greenhouse gas of water vapor for creating a lag without buying into greenhouse gas theory, I am still waiting. And at no point did I count clouds as a greenhouse gas.
Finally, three last points:
1. When you refer to the UC Irvine study as suggesting that climate sensitivity is not as high as we think, you are mistaken: they are worried about what temperatures will do as we accumulate more carbon dioxide and aerosols become less and less effective at masking the effects of carbon dioxide. However, this is in the latter part of the paper, and as such it comes as no surprise that you didn’t read that far.
2. Global Climate Models do not presuppose a given climate sensitivity. As they are based upon the principles of physics and systematic laboratory experiments – as I indicated above. But I guess it comes as no surprise that you continue to think that they are based upon a climate sensitivity and that this climate sensitivity is something that is based upon surface station measurements – despite the fact that Gavin and others have told you otherwise on numerous occasions.
3. We are not experiencing cooling. The trend since 1998 has been accelerating. 2005 I believe nearly matched it despite the fact that 1998 had an especially strong El Nino and 2005 did not – and was a cool solar year. You would be able to see this if you had payed any attention whatsoever when the fundamentals of statistical analysis had been explained on numerous other occasions.
I believe I have addressed every one of your points – in excruciating detail.
RE:260 Since I do not think this will be posted.
The recent studies of the Antarctic show that ice mass is building and that the Antarctic is having a negative impact on sea level rise.
Since the discovery that the floats were giving faulty readings, the sea temp is actually static or down.
The proxy temperature sources show that temperatures have not been rising and according to some, have dropped at the end of the 20th century.
The data collected by the surface stations appears to be in doubt because the stations are not sited IAW WMO standards.
The satellite data keeps being modified – one example is the sea level trend which the satellite data shows no increasing trend but one is added from the tidal gauge measurements for example.
The statement that glaciers are melting down to unseen levels from the past but as they melt reveal past human activities – mines in the Alps anyone?
The fact remains that since the temperature proxies do not show the current warming, then sciences understanding of using those proxies is faulty. If the proxies are wrong, then where is the supporting data that shows the warming now is has never happened before.
If CO2 increases always cause warming then how do you explain the cooling from the 1940-1970s?
Now Timothy, I am not going to argue a model that is designed on ‘know physical processes’ when most of the science is listed by IPCC as low to very low scientific understanding and what is put into the model for those unknowns is a best fit for past (based on proxy temperatures that are now in dispute since they do not match the instrumented readings).
The sad fact is that the error range on the models out put is so wide that the low end for temperature change is within the noise for no change… which means that the IPCC sees sea levels going up about 1 foot in the next century and temps may go up 1 degree.
What did I miss and how does that address my argument that Lockwood did not address the thermal latency for solar drivers?
> if you can find a copy …
Took about 48 seconds. I’m just another amateur reader, not an expert at anything related to climatology. You can look this stuff up for yourself, once you get the actual citation. Guessing this is the right paper (you’ll have to ask climateaudit what they’re talking about, to know for sure).
Here ya go, Vernon, download the data yourself.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/osborn2006/osborn2006.html
Always glad to help someone who really wants to read the original material.
Note as before, to see the full article you’ll want to ask help from your local library reference desk, assuming they don’t have Science on the shelves where you can just pick it up.
I found the link from an archived page of this site, which will teach you a _lot_ about proxies, if you read a few years’ worth:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/whatsnew.html
> what did I miss
Cites, Vernon. Sources. Where you get your beliefs.
It seems more and more likely that you don’t know how to look up the papers, so you’re just pasting in beliefs that you find on so-called skeptic websites without being able to find the sources or read them skeptically yourself.
Let us help you. Tell us where you are getting what you believe to be true, and then we can help you find the actual papers so you can read them for yourself, test what people claim they say, and look at what the authors actually said.
After that, next lesson is how to look forward in time _from_ any given paper, see which other scientific articles cited that and follow the development of the ideas.
It’s not belief that’s at issue here. You have your beliefs.
What’s questionable is the facts. You don’t have them yet.
Really, people here can help you learn how to find facts for yourself.
It starts with citing your sources. Always.
A) Damped Response of Cloud Cover Change & B) Damped Response of Solar Wind Change:
A) Damped Response of Cloud Cover Change
Nir Shaviv has written a response to Lockwood’s paper. An excerpt:
L & F assume (like many others before) that there should be a one-to-one correspondence between the temperature variations and solar activity. However, there are two important effects which should be considered and which arise because of the climate’s heat capacity (predominantly the oceans). First, the response to short term variations in the radiative forcings are damped.
B) Damped Response of Solar Magnetosphere to Solar Wind Changes
Svensmark claims in his book “The Chilling Stars, a new theory of Climate Change” that the Solar Magnetosphere takes roughly 2 years to reach equilibrium after a change in the average solar wind speed.
Lockwood appears to have not read Svensmark & Nigel Calder’s book, which includes a description of Sevensmark’s experiments, analysis, and hypothesis.
As I have noted, the sun appears to be entering a period of very low activity, so there should be data to determine which hypothesis is or is not correct.
> proxy, current warming
I look for your source, all I find is to the contrary as long as I limit my search to published science journal articles. I can only find support for your belief in the blogs that don’t have footnotes.
Trust the footnotes, Vernon.
http://www.bioone.org/archive/1523-0430/38/3/pdf/i1523-0430-38-3-465.pdf
P.S., Vernon, someone using the same name as you is saying similar things here: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/31/how-to-talk-to-a-global-warming-skeptic/
Re 256 “Briffa et al 2206 [sic]”
Here is the concluding paragraph from:
Timothy J. Osborn* and Keith R. Briffa
The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years
Science 10 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5762, pp. 841 – 844
“On this basis it is reasonable to conclude that this study provides evidence for intervals of significant warmth in the NH within the so-called Medieval Warm Period and for significantly colder intervals during the so-called Little Ice Age period. The most widespread and thus strongest evidence indicative of a significantly warm period occurs during the twentieth century [see also Supporting Online Material (SOM) Text], when greenhouse gas concentrations were at their highest during the analysis period. The proxy records indicate that the most widespread warmth occurred in either the mid- or late-twentieth century, but instrumental temperatures provide unequivocal evidence for continuing geographic expansion of anomalous warmth through to the present time.”
Now, what is this about truncated graphs and proxy records showing cooling?
Re 266 Hank Roberts: “P.S., Vernon, someone using the same name as you is saying similar things here: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/31/how-to-talk-to-a-global-warming-skeptic/
Consider yourself busted, Vernon.
On that site it is perfectly clear that the posts read like “articles” lifted from skeptic/denier sites, maybe rephrased a bit to make them shorter or to sound a bit more coherent.
For example, Vernon’s June 11 post listing scientists who have switched from being supporters of AGW theory to skeptics is all too obviously condensed from the list posted on Inhofe’s US Senate blog at http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12 as the opening sentences were copied verbatim.
As usual no citation is provided, but then I can understand not wanting to provide one in that case.
> when I cite my sources, you don’t seem to be able to find them
Whose fault is that? Yours, Vernon. A cite _allows_finding_the_source_.
What you give are vague references, that match those from co2science and junkscience and climateaudit, and lead only to pages like those when searched on.
Look — these are cites, which any librarian can check:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/friday-roundup/#comment-40821
Answer: These are the papers you’ve read? Can you cite your sources?
Vernon (#261) wrote:
Which studies?
I will give you one:
Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets
Andrew Shepherd, et al
Science 315, 1529 (2007)
Here is Hadley Centre UK Met up to 2005:
Temperature
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Northern hemisphere, southern and global.
Got something more recent?
Vernon wrote:
“The proxy temperature sources…”
Which proxies?
I at least named mine. If you would like, I could even get you a paper on the increased prevailence of forest fires due to earlier snow melts and more infrequent rain.
Do you have studies to show this? Or am I simply to take your say-so?
And since you seem to have confused the issue in your most recent earlier post, are we talking temperatures or proxies for temperatures?
When we speak of “proxies,” we mean something that stands in for something else. A proxy temperature would be some indirect method of identifying the temperature, not the actual temperature measurement.
Vernon wrote:
Which stations? The rural stations?
As I (#260) stated:
Here are my cites:
That was from “No man is an (Urban Heat) Island” post number 393.
Who says? Have cites?
And remember: to produce a trend year after year, decade after decade, they would have to keep manipulating the data, and the manipulation would have to be progressively worse. Sounds like a conspiracy to me!
Here are a couple of local results worth checking out, the first from a technical paper using data that was gathered independently of an meteorological outfit, the second from a center which isn’t even associated with some devious meteorology organization participating in the great climatological conspiracy.
I cite from France:
I cite from Great Britain:
Ah, but you the latter as they have “environment” in their name. I suppose they might be part of the great conspiracy.
But lets get a broader picture:
Instrumental Temperature Record
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png
Global temperatures. Provided by the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteological Office.
Notice the acceleration towards the end. And that is getting into the first few years after 2000. More recent figures? I am sure we can dig them up for you if you wish.
Vernon wrote:
Are we mining all of the glaciers, Vernon?
Even in the Western Antarctic Peninusla?
Over a hundred there are picking up speed and heading for the coasts. Do you have any idea how large a glacier is? I would suggest you hurry if you haven’t seen one as of yet.
Vernon wrote:
Which proxies?
We keep asking you – but you keep them to yourself. This has been going on for weeks now, if not longer.
Which proxies? Where are your cites?
Vernon wrote:
Aerosols.
But they have a short residence time compared to carbon dioxide which will stay in the atmosphere for decades, centuries, and at 20%, millenia. Aerosols win early on, bute carbon dioxide wins in the long-run – because it keeps accumulating.
Vernon wrote:
Aerosols? We are working on them. Clouds? Those too.
Gases? Clear shot. We’ve got those nailed in the labs and atmospheric measurements of concentrations.
“… into the model for those unknowns is a best fit for past…”
What past?
Are you speaking climate sensitivity?
We’ve got that from paleoclimate temperature proxies. But they don’t go into the models. And they aren’t hotly disputed topics, not in peer-reviewed literature at least. But maybe if you try the guy shouting at the corner of Broadway and 5th….?
“… (based on proxy temperatures that are now in dispute since they do not match the instrumented readings).”
What proxies? Where’s your cites?
Vernon, let me remind you of point 6 of the first set of the last post of mine you “responded” to (post 250):
I am beginning to get the impression that you think that if you repeat something often enough, it will suddenly become true…
re: #270 Vernon
Vernon: do you understand the nature of a real citation?
If you want people to spend time trying to give you real answers, how about giving author, title, date, or even better, a URL … like everybody else does. Even if the URL points to only an abstract, that’s at least useful.
In this thread, you posted 8 times (240,243,244,248,253,256,261,270) without giving a single clear cite. The closest you got was in #256, which has:
– a typo in one date
– a typo in an author’s name (Heqerl, rather than Hegerl)
– a reference to an author (Moberg) with multiple papers that year
Is there some reason you *want* people to waste their time rummaging around GoogleScholar trying to guess what you meant?
You’ve come full circle, Vernon, without getting anywhere.
You say that you believe there is some latency not covered in Lockwood’s paper, and that something is missing from the drivers.
And your source for this belief is?
That’s your job. Provide some basis for your belief. Cite a source.
Re: #270 (vernon)
This has been pointed out before, but I’ll give it another try.
Latent warming necessarily decelerates, eventually approaching a new equilibrium level assymptotically. But if you study the global temperature from 1978 to the present (the time period covered by satellite measurements, and studied by Lockwood & Frohlich), you’ll find that global warming has accelerated. Gotten faster. Hence it’s impossible that this is due to “latency.”
Last for now: Vernon, the other reason to give cites is so _you_ can look them up _here_ (you can’t look them up if you don’t have the right words to put in the search box).
This may answer some questions you haven’t asked yet: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/#comment-20103
“Latent warming”?
I understand that this term can be applied to greenhouse gases, but does it even make sense to try and apply it in the case of solar energy?
Just trying to fill in a few more holes whenever possible…
Re #258 Vernon, in #258 I did my best to identify the papers your vague and in some cases inaccurate “cites2 referred to. I asked whether these were the papers you meant. I repeat the question. Here are my candidates again, to save you searching back:
Gabriele C. Hegerl, Thomas J. Crowley, William T. Hyde and David J. Frame “Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries”
Nature 440, 1029-1032 (20 April 2006)
Osborn, T.J. and Briffa, K.R. “The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years”
Science 10 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5762, pp. 841 – 844?
(In this case, can you point us to “a copy where he does not truncate his graphs” – and indeed, to one where he does, for comparison?)
Moberg A, Sonechkin DM, Holmgren K, Datsenko NM, Karlén W, Lauritzen SE. “Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data.” Nature. 2005 Feb 10;433(7026):587-8.
If you don’t either confirm that these are the papers concerned, or specify exactly which other papers you did mean (and in the case of the second paper, point to copies where graphs were and were not truncated), I don’t see how to avoid the conclusion that you haven’t actually read the papers, but are simply repeating what someone has told you is said in some inadequately specified papers. If this is so, maybe you should ask yourself why your sources would choose give inadequate citations for the papers they are talking about.
[[The recent studies of the Antarctic show that ice mass is building and that the Antarctic is having a negative impact on sea level rise.]]
That’s not what the GRACE satellite says. It says Antarctica is losing ice.
[[If CO2 increases always cause warming then how do you explain the cooling from the 1940-1970s?]]
That one’s easy. CO2 does not always cause warming! Increased CO2 by itself always causes warming, but in the real world it’s not by itself. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 was caused by aerosols as world industry ramped up in the absence of pollution laws. When the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, along with similar laws in other countries, the relative importance of aerosols began to decline.
That one’s easy. CO2 does not always cause warming! Increased CO2 by itself always causes warming, but in the real world it’s not by itself. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 was caused by aerosols as world industry ramped up in the absence of pollution laws.
Presumably yuo have some data to support this. By which I mean some aerosol data from 1920-1930, say, and some from 1945-ish which shows that the Aersosol thickness in the late 1940s was sufficient to not only negate the cumulative effect of CO2 for the previous several decades but also sufficient to induce a substantial cooling effect.
[Response: Boucher and Phan (2002) (sulphates), Tami Bond (black carbon and organic carbon), discussion. – gavin]
More cites for Vernon:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5833/1844b
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5762/841?ijkey=3b78f09c2721a90ee808e69ae1de33a6adfbd126&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5762/841?ijkey=3b78f09c2721a90ee808e69ae1de33a6adfbd126
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5762/841/DC1
Re #278,279
Actually, the temperature graph can also be explained by natural variability.
I “cooked up” a data set (for a class) consisting of a rising trend with superimposed random noise.
Portions of the graph looked quite similar to the 20th-century global temperature record.
Jerry, “cooked up” is correct: “looked quite similar” is not “explained”
[Response: Be a little careful here. There is enough randomness in the interannual temperatures to conceivably make the 1940s bump be related to internal variability and for any short time period our ability to do a clear attribution solely to the forcings is limited. Within the IPCC runs, the ensemble means do not approach the 1940s peak, but individual simulations do encompass the observations. That superficially implies that both factors are important. – gavin]
Thanks for the reminder, Gavin. Always appreciated.
For John Finn — Boucher abstract, if you don’t subscribe for AGU full text: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2001GL014048.shtml
Uh, oh.
“The CATO Charitable Foundation, funding KQED’s year long program on Climate Change …”
The local SF Bay Area NPR station just read that sponsor info over the air.
Google doesn’t identify it, but CATO is one of the Koch family operations. What kind of year long climate change program are these folks funding, for National Public Radio? Anyone know?
Just out in Nature:
“Brown Cloud” Particulate Pollution Amplifies Global Warming
August 1, 2007
Scientists have concluded that the global warming trend caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases is a major contributor to the melting of Himalayan and other tropical glaciers. Now, a new analysis of pollution-filled “brown clouds” over south Asia by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., offers hope that the region may be able to arrest some of the alarming retreat of such glaciers by reducing its air pollution.
The team, led by atmospheric chemist V. Ramanathan of Scripps, found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced solar heating of the lower atmosphere by about 50 percent. The results are in a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.
The combined heating effect of greenhouse gases and brown clouds, which contain soot, trace metals and other particles from urban, industrial and agricultural sources, is enough to account for the retreat of Himalayan glaciers in the past half century, the researchers concluded. …
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=109712
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007…/2006JF000597.shtml
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, F03S29, doi:10.1029/2006JF000597, 2007
Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula
“… We present repeated flow rate measurements from over 300 glaciers on the AP west coast through nine summers from 1992 to 2005. We show that the flow rate increased by ∼12% on average and that this trend is greater than the seasonal variability… We estimate that as a result, the annual sea level contribution from this region … is probably large enough to outweigh mass gains in East Antarctica and to make the total Antarctic sea level contribution positive.”
Sea level:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L14608, doi:10.1029/2007GL030002, 2007
A reassessment of global and regional mean sea level trends from TOPEX and Jason-1 altimetry based on revised reference frame and orbits
“… Mean sea level trends from TOPEX and Jason-1 altimeter data are recomputed … We obtain a global rate of 3.36 ± 0.41 mm/yr over the 14 year period from 1993 to 2007. … a relative increase in the global mean sea level trend of 1.5 ± 0.7 mm/yr in the latter seven years.
published 28 July 2007.
Hank,
(Re 284)
Good news: I think that’s actually the CATTO charitable foundation.
re: #288 Paulina
Yes, that seems far more likely …
but actually, I’m slightly disappointed, since my initial reaction was:
a) Wow! CATO has changed! or
b) Wow! even if it hasn’t, KQED should take all the money CATO would give them.
[As a gedanken experiment, I’d rank the radio stations in the world, starting at those least likely to be damaged with regard to *climate* issues by CATO funding, and KQED would have to rank near the top :-). Really, there are fierce Libertarians around here, who might strongly agree with CATO views on some topics, but would completely ignore them on climate science.
Thanks Paulina, that makes a lot more sense. Whew.
Jim Eager (#285) wrote:
It isn’t just the pollution which you have to worry about. The drier the land gets, the more likely you will see dust, and dust gets carried for hundreds of miles. Such dust has also been implicated in glacial melt.
Paulina (#288) wrote:
John Mashey (#289) wrote:
As I keep saying, those who value the free market have good reason to get on the bandwagon sooner rather than later. The worse the climate crisis gets and the more various feedbacks kick in, the more draconian the measures that may have to be taken to arrest it. And if someone values freedom, they have even better reason to see it not get especially bad – given the water shortages, food shortages which are likely to result – and how deeply these may affect the economy. Desperate people are more likely to take desperate measures – including giving up their freedom to anyone who promises a “solution.” And yet free societies are actually better able to respond to crises.
But John, you are right – the CATO Institute and the like are very unlikely to see this any time soon, if ever.
Re #289 [Really, there are fierce Libertarians around here, who might strongly agree with CATO views on some topics, but would completely ignore them on climate science.]
Although they might care to reflect that if CATO come out with such ludicrous and dishonest bilge on climate issues, maybe what they say on other issues might also be ludicrous and dishonest bilge?
Presumably yuo have some data to support this. By which I mean some aerosol data from 1920-1930, say, and some from 1945-ish which shows that the Aersosol thickness in the late 1940s was sufficient to not only negate the cumulative effect of CO2 for the previous several decades but also sufficient to induce a substantial cooling effect.
[Response: Boucher and Phan (2002) (sulphates), Tami Bond (black carbon and organic carbon), discussion. – gavin]
Gavin
Before I go looking through these papers what are they going to say. That emissions increased during the 1940s or similar? That is not the issue – the issue is what was the forcing effect?
The following is from a paper (“Climate Over Past Millennia”) by Mike Mann and Phil Jones
“Compared to ghg forcing, sulphate aerosol forcing is far more uncertain, principally because of limited understanding of the radiative properties of the aerosols and their effects on clouds. This forcing is also regionally specific and must be estimated from past fossil fuel use.”
Apart from the lack of certainty of the aerosol effect, there are 2 other points here
1. Sulphate aerosols are produced by burning fossil fuels – as is carbon dioxide. Now if the effect of burning fossil fuels up to 1940 was one of warming then we must assume that the CO2 forcing was greater than the aerosol forcing. So what changed? Any increase in fossil fuel use would result in a corresponding increase in both CO2 and aerosols – and in much the same ratio as before, i.e. global temperatures should have continued to rise. The fact that they didn’t suggests that either aerosols were not responsible for the mid-century dip or that CO2 made no contribution to the pre-1940 warming.
2. Aerosol forcing is “regionally specific”. The aerosol-free Southern Hemisphere also cooled in the post-1940 period.
Aerosols are relatively short-lived in the atmosphere. The aerosol cooling theory requires that a sudden, sharp increase in aerosols over a relatively small region of the world was of sufficient magnitude that it completely overwhelmed the cumulative world-wide increase in CO2 forcing and/or any increased solar forcing.
As i posted earlier , it might be woth a discussion on the Lockwood and Frohlich paper (the one which claims to debunk the role of the sun since the mid-1980s). Look at Fig 4d, the graph of Beryllium 10 production (a ‘proxy’ for cosmic rays) and note the timing of it’s rise and fall in the 20th century.
I will, though, look at the papers you cited.
[Response: The SH did not cool during this period, it was predominantly a NH affair. The difference between aerosols and CO2 is that the latter accumulates, aerosols don’t. Finally, the problem with 10Be is that there are two good, but conflicting, records for the 20th C – one from Dye3, the other from the South Pole. Dye3 has a trend, SP doesn’t – thus both cannot be good proxies. – gavin]
Hank
Re: #283
Your link does not support the view that there was a substantial aerosol effect between say 1935 and 1945.
In fact the uncertainties are such that it’s impossible to quantify anything on a global scale. Apart from that the study deals with simulations – NOT measurements.
Re# 293:
You might very well think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Re #294 [Sulphate aerosols are produced by burning fossil fuels – as is carbon dioxide. Now if the effect of burning fossil fuels up to 1940 was one of warming then we must assume that the CO2 forcing was greater than the aerosol forcing. So what changed? Any increase in fossil fuel use would result in a corresponding increase in both CO2 and aerosols – and in much the same ratio as before, i.e. global temperatures should have continued to rise. The fact that they didn’t suggests that either aerosols were not responsible for the mid-century dip or that CO2 made no contribution to the pre-1940 warming.]
CO2 stays in the atmosphere orders of magnitude longer than sulphate aerosols. Consider a sudden rise (from zero, for clarity) in fossil fuel use, with stability in use thereafter. Suppose initially the cooling effects of the aerosols are considerably greater than the warming effects of CO2. After the first few weeks at most, the level of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere will reach an equilibrium, while that of CO2 will go on rising for decades, and hence the balance of effects can easily reverse. This has been discussed at length on this site.
In addition, the 1970s and 1980s saw “clean air” legislation in Western Europe and North America, then the major sources of sulphate aerosols. This legislation forced a drastic cut in sulphate-generating emissions, but if anything will have raised the rate at which CO2 emissions increased, as energy is needed to take the sulphur compounds out of power-station and factory waste gases. This also has been discussed at length on this site.
re: #294
“Any increase in fossil fuel use would result in a corresponding increase in both CO2 and aerosols – and in much the same ratio as before,”
Gavin has already pointed out one key issue. Here’s another.
I don’t know the ratio history offhand, but
the “same ratio” is a *totally* unwarranted assumption:
a) Fossil fuels vary widely in their sulfur content, not only between types (coal vs oil vs gas) but within (low-sulfur “sweet” oil vs high-sulfur.)
b) SO2 gets produced by other processes than just burning fossil fuels, like metal smelting.
c) Finally, scrubbers change the amount of SO2, etc emitted without changing the CO2.
I again reference:
http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/publications/113/, Fig 3.
It’s not my link, John Finn, I was just giving you a link to the abstract of the article Gavin suggested. You will need to go to a public library and ask a reference librarian to get you the full article. I was just guessing you probably aren’t an AGU member so couldn’t read the full article online so trying to help.
> Before I go looking through these papers what are they going to say.
If you read them you can understand the science, or enough to ask questions. Ask questions that show how much you have read and how much of that you’ve understood. You don’t want someone to just tell you what you’d learn if you read the papers, eh?
Oh, and also for John Finn, you wrote:
“Any increase in fossil fuel use would result in a corresponding increase in both CO2 and aerosols – and in much the same ratio as before,”
Another reason this is wrong, besides those already given you: latitude.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028668.shtml
Again, this is a pointer to an abstract; your local librarian can help you get the actual article.
John, as always, I’m curious where people get beliefs they come to RC and state as though they were facts. Were you using your own knowledge and logic to conclude that it makes no difference when and where (and how) fossil fuel gets burned, that the outcome is always the same? If so we can point you to ways to look these things up that will help avoid jumping to conclusions.
If you didn’t jump to the conclusion, perhaps you were pushed — you may have read that statement somewhere and taken it as plausible and believed it because you trusted the source. If the source was naive, you can help them learn to think this stuff through. If the source was one of the PR sites out there that are pretending to tell the truth, learn from their behavior, eh?
Where _did_ you get that notion, if you’ll tell us?