Flxible #101, yeah, but only two thirds of Cambodians are above 14. It’s sort of a population pagoda, rather than a pyramid. Which may be part of the reason why Cambodia, incidentally, ranks 12th on a recently published (commercial) index of countries at risk from climate change.
Not really, but the Guardian says “Like other countries in the region, Cambodia has been hit by heavy monsoon rains that have overwhelmed swollen rivers, dams and canals, causing the worst flooding in decades.”
NB–Just to avoid a total non sequitur, the “not really” in my previous comment referred to DBB’s “does anybody have” request for precise information, found on the previous page.
Dan H.says
David,
There is little documentation about the extent of flooding in this area. However, I was able to uncover this report from Thailand. Drought and floodign in Thailand is highly tied to ENSO events (Droughts during EL Ninos and flooding during La Ninas), and experienced an increase in droughts and decrease in floods after the PDO shift in 1976.
Second highest november temperatures in Holland for at least a century. It proves to be cooling since 2005 (the record will hold out – just).
Guess we’ll have to become accustomed to the new monsoon climate btw. Floods incredible just ten years ago have already become the normal thing.
Paul Ssays
The recent kerfuffle about AMO somehow got me thinking about the small difference in trends between surface and TLT records. Since it appears to be a mainstream position that some of the recent warming may have been driven by multidecadal ocean circulation changes it occurred to me that there may be a spatial difference in response between the near-surface and lower troposphere.
To make it a more succint question: Has there been anything published on spatial atmospheric temperature responses to ocean circulation changes, such as the thermohaline circulation? I’m thinking something along the lines of Figure 9.1 in AR4.
Dan H.says
Wili,
You may want to this article regarding the null hypothesis
I’m confused as to what you think the alternatives are! If you can’t persuade people to change their behaviour, with perhaps some help from increasing fuel prices (demand destruction), what else is there? I see no public appetite for a ‘war footing’ response, virtually everyone I know drives and flies, their response to rising fuel prices is anger – not a feeling that it’s for the best.
FWIW I think that if we crack AGW it will be because of new technology, in particular, success at implementation of fusion.
adeladysays
Chris R “if we crack AGW it will be because of new technology…”
…… or maybe extensive deployment will make current technology really, seriously cheap.
Where I live, roof renovation companies are offering solar PV as giveaway incentives for clients replacing/ repairing roofs. (Not so long ago, they were offering big plasma screens. A vast improvement.)
David B. Bensonsays
How much more will it rain? A starter is to see mhow much more water vapor might be in the air. In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “Principles of Planetary Climate” wherein subsection 6.3.2 is an appropriate place to begin, let us first consider the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius%E2%80%93Clapeyron_relation
to use the August-Roche-Magnus approximation for the saturation pressure, sat(T), which is of the form
sat(T) = c.exp[-k(1/T – 1/T0)]
for constants c and k and where T0 is a convenient reference temperature. Think of T0 being about (273+15) kelvin. The temperature T is only slightly different from T0,
T = T0 + dT
for some increment in temperature on the order of 1–3 K. Then the exponent is
-k(-dT/[(T0+dT)T0]) ~ (k/T0^2)dT
demonstrating an (approximate) exponential increase with a dT increase in temperature; the various resulting constants are given explicitly by the August-Roche-Magnus approximation on the Wikipedia page for T0 = 273 K.
There certainly has been a great quantity of rain in the past couple of years; enough so that the sea level has detectably dropped. I read today with sadness about the flash flooding in Genova, Italy, of which I have fond memories from the previous century.
Ray Ladburysays
Chris R., you seem to think technology just “happens”. I can assure you from personal experience that this is not true. Humans have to make it happen. It takes investment and it takes time. Reduced consumption is not “the answer”. It is essential, but only because it buys time–time, I would note, that must be bought now because we did nothing for 20 years, despite the near certainty that such a new energy infrastructure would be essential for the continuance of human civilization.
Keep in mind that Clausius-Clapeyron gives only a constraint on the amount of water vapor that can build up in the atmosphere for a given temperature, before it begins to condense. It is a poor indicator of the way evaporation (and thus precipitation) changes in a warming climate, which depends primarily on constraints imposed by the energy balance at the surface (it can also be thought of in terms of the tropospheric energy budget, which is between latent heat release and net radiative cooling– there are some various camps of thought on this). Global precipitation actually goes up much slower than Clausius-Clapeyron, and is actually a rather useless variable due to the large spatial heterogeneity in where places get wetter/drier.
David B. Bensonsays
Chris Colose @114 — Thanks and I suppose I should have written more qualifications. Professor Pierrehumbert’s section 6.4 does well in explaining the total energy balance but its good to know there are ‘various camps’ on this. Later in “Principles of Planetary Climate” there is mention that GCMs don’t give water vapor increasing as fast as CC implies but Professor Pierrehumbert still uses a percentage increase, i.e., still exponential with temperature.
Now, of course, one has to go an actually measure the precipitation in each locality. Various studies have been performed, the satellite data being especially useful. The studies I located certainly indicate increased precipitation at mid and high latitudes over the periods of those studies; obviously total precipitation has gone way up in the last two years. What remains a puzzle for me is that the same satellite data, globally averaged up to about 2008 shows no statistically significant trend. Puttin these studies together ipso facto rain in the tropics, globally averaged, has declined.
Despite the imperfections of attempting to derive trendfs precipitation from first principles (and so leaving lots out), I still think it fair to state that in localities which are not in the process of drying up, precipitation will increase approximately exponentially with increasing temperature.
This has an important implication for the use of rain intensity statistics in forecasting extreme events in each separate catchment. If you have a suggestion which you think superior to an exponential growth in rain intensity please do make and defend it. To be as clear as possible, I am only interested in the shape of the function for temperature dependence with the thought of using the statistics for each rain gauge or catchment to determine the constants for that locality.
I note you haven’t answered my question about your proposed solutions…
I work in electronics – I am all too aware that technology doesn’t just happen, as a metrology technician I support the people who make it happen. You may notice that in the Keystone XL thread I have linked to a paper by Armour & Roe about committed warming(which I have previously read) and some interesting slides by Roe (which I came across before posting) – I am all too aware of the time issue, but don’t see any easy answers to this.
Adelady,
Without long-distance transmission (e.g. from North Africa / Mediterranean) PV isn’t as attractive here in the UK and in the rest of Northern Europe. Local solutons are part of the answer, but I think if fusion can be cracked there is the prospect of undermining the cost benefits of fossil fuels.
David B. Benson,
I too watched the news footage of a square in Genoa (BBC) crammed with smashed vehicles. When I see such news I can’t help but wonder about AGW and if I’m seeing an AGW related disaster. But the sceptic in me demands more than suspicion before drawing a link I’ll argue for.
Assuming I can get past the evil ReCaptcha this time…
I could use help with a radiative-convective model. I keep getting a too-hot stratosphere. I’m using conventional composition for the stratosphere, plus the ozone profile from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere. I’m taking O3 absorption coefficients from Chou et al. and O2 from Ditchburn 1962 and Inn & Tanaka 1953. I don’t understand what I’m missing.
Figures for 20 levels of atmosphere and the ground follow. Top is layer 1, bottom (ground) is 21.
Chris R @116 — What is the recurrence time for such rainfall events in Ligure? Just in Genova? Has that recurrence time become less in the past 50 years? If the answer is yes, then one can fairly attribute the shorter recurrence time to global warming; no individual rain events can be so attributed, of course.
The amount of damage to lives and property is disproportionately large as people, almost everywhere, fail to give proper respect for rare extreme events and build in the flood plain. I beleive that is/was the case in Genova.
But, wili, that’s a headline. Headline writers, well, tsk. You know. I didn’t follow up that 2010 article to see if it got clarified; did you?
The article itself:
“… Dr. Rob Carver’s analysis of the statistical likelihood of the Moscow heatwave:
Now, let’s take a look at July 29, when it cracked 100 F at Moscow Shermetyevo. By our records, the reported high was 37.78 deg C and the normal high for that day is 20.0 deg C. According to GDAS, the maximum temperature for Moscow on July 29 was 35.85 deg C and the normal temperature according to CFSR is 20.6. Using the techniques of Hart and Grumm (2001), the climatological anomaly for maximum temperature is 3.9 deg C.
So, using the GDAS and CFSR data, the normalized anomaly of maximum temperature was +3.1. That’s near a recurrence interval of once per thousand years which matches the quotes I’ve heard from Russian met agencies. Now, if we assume the climatological anomaly derived from CFSR data is the same of the observations, the normalized anomaly jumps to +4.5, which translates into “less than once every 15,788″.
That however, is a tricky assumption to make. We know that the climatic properties of CFSR and GDAS data have to have some correspondence with what’s actually happens in the atmosphere, otherwise weather models wouldn’t work. What becomes difficult to quantify (in the time constraints of writing for the public) is how the statistics of the climate properties line up between observations and reanalysis. And at these extremes, it doesn’t take much change in the average and standard deviation of a property to dramatically change how unusual an event is. Another possible source of error is the assumption that the climatology of CFSR is the climatology of the operational GDAS. Which is not a slam-dunk since NCEP shifted to a higher-resolution model on July 28. Now, I don’t have any information to say the post July 28 GDAS data has different climatological characteristics, but it’s a possibility. Another big assumption I make is that daily maximum temperatures follow a Gaussian (normal) distribution and that from 30 years of CFSR data, I can adequately characterize such a distribution….”
—
end quote
More reasonable, eh? Because you can get more out of the text than the headline writer can put into the headline.
Ray Ladburysays
Chris R., There are no solutions at present. None. Merely reducing consumption, as I said, is not a solution, but merely an exercise in buying time. It is by no means certain that we can even find solutions in time to avert severe consequences. The fact that the problem is difficult makes it all the more criminal that fossil fuel interests have successfully prevented society from even acknowledging the problem, let alone working toward solutions.
David B. Bensonsays
Stuart Coles, Luis Raul Pericchi and Scott Sisson A Fully Probabilistic Approach to Extreme Rainfall Modeling
appears to provide the best account of rare rainfall events that I have found so far.
It is precisely factors such as building on flood plains and reporting issues that leave me with doubt about many such events.
There is other research for the UK (sorry but as my time is limited I tend to read locally on these issues). I read a paper from the Met Office (UK) last year on increasing contribution of heavy precipitation – which I can’t find at present. However there is another paper:
Evidence for trends in heavy rainfall events over the UK.
Osborn & Hulme. 2002. PDF
The sign of the change is consistent with the simulated
climate-change signal due to increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations, though the magnitude of the observed
change is greater than that expected from the model
simulations…
…We conclude, therefore, that there is some evidence
that the recent winter changes have some component of
a climate-change signal within them, but the evidence
is not sufficiently strong on its own to suggest that
the observed trends will continue with the same
magnitude into the future.
Ray Ladbury,
There may be no solutions at present, but we can still do the right thing: reducing our personal emissions, arguing in favour of what the science really shows. I can only think of one hopeful precedent: Slavery was once a major de-facto energy source, it was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, despite the cost implications to business. That was done because it became widely recognised that slavery was wrong.
David B. Bensonsays
Chris R @123 — Yes, finding statistical evidence for an increase in actual extreme rainfall events, as opposed to flood damage change, is quite difficult. However, the satellite evidence demonstrates increased (average) precipitation at mid and high latitudes; if the proportion which are extreme events does not change one suspects an increase in the occurance of rainfall events beyond design basis.
Ray Ladburysays
Chris R., There are interesting parallels to your arguments regarding abolition. Slavery was as wrong in the mid 18th century as it was in the 19th, and there was no shortage of decent people arguing against it either. One of the things that made it possible to abolish slavery was the fact that technology advanced to the point where it was not economical. It was mainly in the American South, where wealth was concentrated in slaves where abolition was seen as economic suicide.
I suspect that were we to develop a new infrastructure capable of perpetuating human civilization without fossil fuels that suddenly you’d find a lot more people who would identify minimizing climate change as a moral issue. It is an unfortunate characteristic of human beings that economics often subverts our moral sense.
Pete Dunkelbergsays
A recent paper for you:
Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes
Seung-Ki Min, Xuebin Zhang, Francis W. Zwiers & Gabriele C. Hegerl 2011
Abstract
Extremes of weather and climate can have devastating effects on human society and the environment1,2. Understanding past changes in the characteristics of such events, including recent increases in the intensity of heavy precipitation events over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere land area3–5, is critical for reliable projections of future changes. Given that atmospheric water-holding capacity is expected to increase roughly exponentially with temperature—and that atmospheric water content is increasing in accord with this theoretical expectation6–11—it has been suggested that human influenced global warming may be partly responsible for increases in heavy precipitation3,5,7. Because of the limited availability of daily observations, however, most previous studies have examined only the potential detectability of changes in extreme precipitation through model–model comparisons12–15. Here we show that
human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to
the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found
over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern
Hemisphere land areas. These results are based on a comparison of
observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analysed with an optimal fingerprinting technique. Changes in extreme precipitation projected by models, and thus the impacts of future changes in extreme precipitation, may be underestimated because models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming 16.
wilisays
Hank, few can match your web search skills. I was just attempting to answer ChrisR at #97 “Can you cite research that shows the 2003 or 2010 European Heatwaves were outside of the envelope of natural variability?”
I’m not sure “envelope of natural variability” is really well defined enough to warrant an answer, but are you saying these events were well within the range of what would be expected without climate change?
David B. Bensonsays
wili @127 — I better understand (although not well) the Eastern Europe/Central Asia heat wave of 2010. That event, barring any climate change, appears to have a return time (period, recurrance interval) in excess of 1000 years; a purely statistical concept. So it might have happened anyway, just quite rare on statistical grounds. But with global warming? Well, Stfan has provided not one but two recent threads here on Real Climate to aid us in understanding that, yes, with climate change it is/was more likely (although still quite rare).
Cross posted to WUWT tips, 12:36 am EST Nov 7, 2011.
I need some help here. In particular, I’m looking for people who have at least an undergraduate level of training in thermodynamics generally and energy flow specifically, or self taught equivalent. (I have studied energy transfer in a number of university courses, but that was many years ago now. My work often involves heat transfer calculations. That is I get paid to get this stuff right (and sued if I get it wrong). I’m pretty confident in my ability to perform an energy balance, but I’m stumped by this one).
Here, in a nutshell, is my conundrum:
Why is the ocean so cold?
Our friends at BEST, CRU, GISS, etc. going all the way back to Fourier, all agree that the “surface temperature” of the earth is more than 10 celcius or 283 kelvin. Further, it is hypothesized that the “surface temperature” of the earth has always been at least 10 celcius and often more.
So how is it that the temperature of the ocean, which is in direct contact with this “surface” is at least 6 degrees colder than the “surface temperature”? Not only is the ocean in direct contact with this “surface”, but the earth itself is constantly shedding thermal energy into the ocean from the crust.
If someone can show me a complete energy balance that allows the ocean to be at a steady state temperature that is lower than the “surface temperature”, I would be grateful. If there isn’t such a balance, one of two things must be true. The “surface temperature” is colder than estimated or the laws of thermodynamics don’t apply to the oceans.
Just to be clear, it is an absolute certainty that the laws of thermodynamics apply to the oceans.
No hand waving allowed. I’ve seen a number of debating point style arguments. I would like to see some math on this. I’m working on my math on this. My first run approximation has the oceans boiling away a few billion years ago, so something is not right. If you are not sure how the oceans should have boiled away billions of years ago, add 0.1 W/m² of energy to a 4 km column of water for 1 billion years and determine what the temperature of the water should be. The 0.1 is lower than the approximation of the rate of energy transfer from the crust to the bottom of the ocean.
TIA
JE
[Response: The answer can be found in any basic text book in oceanography and has been known since the days of Challenger expedition – the ocean is stratified by density. Colder water at a fixed salinity is more dense than warmer water. Therefore cooling of the surface (during winter, in high latitudes) is far more effective at producing denser water than warming the surface (at least at surface salinities experienced today). – gavin]
David B. Bensonsays
Pete Dunkelberg @126 — Most useful. Thank you for noticing that paper from Nature.
Your response amounts to hand waving. Can you provide a reference to one of these texts on oceanography that shows the energy balance with completed math?
[Response: The only to have ‘complete math’ is to use a full ocean model with high resolution inputs of atmospheric forcing fields and time and space resolution to calculate the seasonality, ocean surface mixing, advection etc. Your best bet would be something like the ECCO project results. If you want something less than the ‘completed math’, you need to be more specific about the level of approximation required. Perhaps if you could specify what you find unsatisfying in the basic explanation, that would help. – gavin]
CMsays
ChrisR, wili, re: “envelope of natural variability”
Until the end of the 20th century (20C), maximum seasonal temperatures across Europe mostly ranged 2 to 3 SDs of their 1970–1999 climatology, with regional extreme summers clustering in a few decades of the last five centuries. During the 2001–2010 decade, 500-year-long records were likely broken over ~65% of Europe, including eastern Europe (2010), southwestern-central Europe (2003), the Balkans (2007), and Turkey (2001). These summers have considerably contributed to the upper tail of the European distribution of summer maxima (…). Thus, the percentage of European regions with seasonal maxima above 3 SDs (>99th percentile of the 1970–1999 distribution) has doubled within one decade.
(Barriopedro et al., 2011)
Excellent, thanks. The paper makes a good case that taken together the 2003/10 heatwaves in Europe were highly anomalous and outside the envelope of natural variability. Figure 3 is staggering.
I’ve given up on weather disaster stats as the best source seems to be EMDAT and that’s too subject to reporting bias to be highly persuasive, although it remains intriguing.
One minor issue – your link dead-ends anyone without a Nature subscription. The paper is Barriopedro 2011, “The Hot Summer of 2010: Redrawing the Temperature Record Map of Europe.” And a paywall free copy is available here.
Gergsays
Against organised and strident opposition, the Australian parliament enacted a basic carbon emission pricing mechanism today: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-08/carbon-tax-passes-senate/3652438 The political debate has spanned five years and three prime ministers, each of whom at some stage claimed to be a strong supporter of emissions pricing.
Marcussays
Re John Eggert:
I suspect it is nearly impossible to have a simple, not computer aided model for a temperature stratified water volume cooled by atmosphere so that the stratification is broken.
But it is easy to imagine that this mechanism is more efficient than atmospheric heating, which does not destroy but strengthen stratification. With no violation of the 2nd law whatsoever.
The world is likely to build so many new fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
Anything built from now on that produces carbon will continue to do so for decades to come, and this “lock-in” effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world’s foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this infrastructure is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.
“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
CM, Chris, thanks–that sounds like a very interesting paper.
On another topic, a milestone: my precis of Gwynne Dyer’s “Climate Wars” is just hitting its 1000th page view (thanks to a sudden surge of interest of unknown origin.) Thanks to RC readers for past support. . .
What about this? Nicola Scafetta 2011: A shared frequency set between the historical mid-latitude aurora records and the global surface temperature. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics In Press doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2011.10.013 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611002872
[Response: More nonsense. Mis-application of spectral calculations, post-hoc justifications for ridiculous physical mechanisms, huge overstatements of their importance: JASTP takes another step towards astrology. – gavin]
SteveFsays
More nonsense. Mis-application of spectral calculations, post-hoc justifications for ridiculous physical mechanisms, huge overstatements of their importance: JASTP takes another step towards astrology.
I’m wondering if Roger actually reads the stuff that he cites these days, or just sees stuff that “enlarges the debate” (i.e. differs from the mainstream, no matter how crazy) and instantly posts it to his blog. His fawning over a crappy blog post by Bob Tisdale is further evidence of his descent into irrelevancy:
Snorbert,
Scafetta might as well be doing astrology.
Ray Ladburysays
John Eggert,
Think about the basic methods of heat transfer–conduction, convection and radiation. Convection is the most efficient, but requires actual physical mixing–and that ain’t happening. Conduction requires contact. Again, contrary to your assertion, there is no contact betweenthe deep oceans and the “surface”. Rather, there is a temperature gradient and limited heat diffusion–just as across an insulator. And there is no radiation between the deep oceans and the surface.
Radiation is also one of the reasons why the surface is warmer–just as a thermometer in the sun registers warmer than one in the shade nearby. I wouldn’t give up on thermo just yet.
from “The King of Human Error | Business | Vanity Fair”
—-excerpt follows—-
The human mind is so wedded to stereotypes and so distracted by vivid descriptions that it will seize upon them, even when they defy logic, rather than upon truly relevant facts. Kahneman and Tversky called this logical error the “conjunction fallacy.”
Their work intersected with economics in the early 1970s when Tversky handed Kahneman a paper on the psychological assumptions of economic theory. As Kahneman recalled:
> I can still recite its first sentence: “The agent of economic theory
> is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.”
>
> I was astonished. My economic colleagues worked in the building
> next door, but I had not appreciated the profound difference between
> our intellectual worlds. To a psychologist, it is self-evident that
> people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that
> their tastes are anything but stable.
The paper that resulted five years later, the abovementioned “Prospect Theory,” not only proved that one of the central premises of economics was seriously flawed—-the so-called utility theory, “based on elementary rules (axioms) of rationality”—-but also spawned a sub-field of economics known as behavioral economics.
Mis-application of spectral calculations……another step towards astrology. – gavin
I am too doubtful about Scafetta’s results. I have reconstructed natural oscillations superimposed on the 350 year long CET trend of 0.25C/century. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
There is no 60 year periodicity.
Brian Dodgesays
“If you are not sure how the oceans should have boiled away billions of years ago, add 0.1 W/m² of energy to a 4 km column of water for 1 billion years and determine what the temperature of the water should be.” John Eggert — 7 Nov 2011 @ 12:36 AM
You didn’t include the W/m^2 radiated away in the polar regions, and the global THC that moves heat from the tropics(where the energy balance between insolation and infrared radiation is positive) to the poles(where the outbound IR carries away more energy than the incoming solar energy)
Radge Haverssays
Hank @ 144
“The human mind is so wedded to stereotypes and so distracted by vivid descriptions that it will seize upon them, even when they defy logic, rather than upon truly relevant facts. Kahneman and Tversky called this logical error the “conjunction fallacy.”
A flaw taken advantage of by the fields of advertising, propaganda, infotainment, and some religion; facilitated no doubt by repetition and availability heuristics. So the human mind, social and physical, is apparently prone to entropy and intractable messes, another reminder of how critical it is to communicate effectively, continuously, and energetically.
David – Surely there are Cambodians older than 11 years. ;)
flxible @101 — Thanks.
Flxible #101, yeah, but only two thirds of Cambodians are above 14. It’s sort of a population pagoda, rather than a pyramid. Which may be part of the reason why Cambodia, incidentally, ranks 12th on a recently published (commercial) index of countries at risk from climate change.
Not really, but the Guardian says “Like other countries in the region, Cambodia has been hit by heavy monsoon rains that have overwhelmed swollen rivers, dams and canals, causing the worst flooding in decades.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/nov/01/cambodia-floods-disease-toll
NB–Just to avoid a total non sequitur, the “not really” in my previous comment referred to DBB’s “does anybody have” request for precise information, found on the previous page.
David,
There is little documentation about the extent of flooding in this area. However, I was able to uncover this report from Thailand. Drought and floodign in Thailand is highly tied to ENSO events (Droughts during EL Ninos and flooding during La Ninas), and experienced an increase in droughts and decrease in floods after the PDO shift in 1976.
http://www.tshe.org/ea/pdf/vol4%20no1%20p12-20.pdf
Second highest november temperatures in Holland for at least a century. It proves to be cooling since 2005 (the record will hold out – just).
Guess we’ll have to become accustomed to the new monsoon climate btw. Floods incredible just ten years ago have already become the normal thing.
The recent kerfuffle about AMO somehow got me thinking about the small difference in trends between surface and TLT records. Since it appears to be a mainstream position that some of the recent warming may have been driven by multidecadal ocean circulation changes it occurred to me that there may be a spatial difference in response between the near-surface and lower troposphere.
To make it a more succint question: Has there been anything published on spatial atmospheric temperature responses to ocean circulation changes, such as the thermohaline circulation? I’m thinking something along the lines of Figure 9.1 in AR4.
Wili,
You may want to this article regarding the null hypothesis
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.145/pdf
#99 Ray Ladbury,
I’m confused as to what you think the alternatives are! If you can’t persuade people to change their behaviour, with perhaps some help from increasing fuel prices (demand destruction), what else is there? I see no public appetite for a ‘war footing’ response, virtually everyone I know drives and flies, their response to rising fuel prices is anger – not a feeling that it’s for the best.
FWIW I think that if we crack AGW it will be because of new technology, in particular, success at implementation of fusion.
Chris R “if we crack AGW it will be because of new technology…”
…… or maybe extensive deployment will make current technology really, seriously cheap.
Where I live, roof renovation companies are offering solar PV as giveaway incentives for clients replacing/ repairing roofs. (Not so long ago, they were offering big plasma screens. A vast improvement.)
How much more will it rain? A starter is to see mhow much more water vapor might be in the air. In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “Principles of Planetary Climate” wherein subsection 6.3.2 is an appropriate place to begin, let us first consider the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius%E2%80%93Clapeyron_relation
to use the August-Roche-Magnus approximation for the saturation pressure, sat(T), which is of the form
sat(T) = c.exp[-k(1/T – 1/T0)]
for constants c and k and where T0 is a convenient reference temperature. Think of T0 being about (273+15) kelvin. The temperature T is only slightly different from T0,
T = T0 + dT
for some increment in temperature on the order of 1–3 K. Then the exponent is
-k(-dT/[(T0+dT)T0]) ~ (k/T0^2)dT
demonstrating an (approximate) exponential increase with a dT increase in temperature; the various resulting constants are given explicitly by the August-Roche-Magnus approximation on the Wikipedia page for T0 = 273 K.
There certainly has been a great quantity of rain in the past couple of years; enough so that the sea level has detectably dropped. I read today with sadness about the flash flooding in Genova, Italy, of which I have fond memories from the previous century.
Chris R., you seem to think technology just “happens”. I can assure you from personal experience that this is not true. Humans have to make it happen. It takes investment and it takes time. Reduced consumption is not “the answer”. It is essential, but only because it buys time–time, I would note, that must be bought now because we did nothing for 20 years, despite the near certainty that such a new energy infrastructure would be essential for the continuance of human civilization.
David Benson,
Keep in mind that Clausius-Clapeyron gives only a constraint on the amount of water vapor that can build up in the atmosphere for a given temperature, before it begins to condense. It is a poor indicator of the way evaporation (and thus precipitation) changes in a warming climate, which depends primarily on constraints imposed by the energy balance at the surface (it can also be thought of in terms of the tropospheric energy budget, which is between latent heat release and net radiative cooling– there are some various camps of thought on this). Global precipitation actually goes up much slower than Clausius-Clapeyron, and is actually a rather useless variable due to the large spatial heterogeneity in where places get wetter/drier.
Chris Colose @114 — Thanks and I suppose I should have written more qualifications. Professor Pierrehumbert’s section 6.4 does well in explaining the total energy balance but its good to know there are ‘various camps’ on this. Later in “Principles of Planetary Climate” there is mention that GCMs don’t give water vapor increasing as fast as CC implies but Professor Pierrehumbert still uses a percentage increase, i.e., still exponential with temperature.
Now, of course, one has to go an actually measure the precipitation in each locality. Various studies have been performed, the satellite data being especially useful. The studies I located certainly indicate increased precipitation at mid and high latitudes over the periods of those studies; obviously total precipitation has gone way up in the last two years. What remains a puzzle for me is that the same satellite data, globally averaged up to about 2008 shows no statistically significant trend. Puttin these studies together ipso facto rain in the tropics, globally averaged, has declined.
Despite the imperfections of attempting to derive trendfs precipitation from first principles (and so leaving lots out), I still think it fair to state that in localities which are not in the process of drying up, precipitation will increase approximately exponentially with increasing temperature.
This has an important implication for the use of rain intensity statistics in forecasting extreme events in each separate catchment. If you have a suggestion which you think superior to an exponential growth in rain intensity please do make and defend it. To be as clear as possible, I am only interested in the shape of the function for temperature dependence with the thought of using the statistics for each rain gauge or catchment to determine the constants for that locality.
#113 Ray Ladbury,
I note you haven’t answered my question about your proposed solutions…
I work in electronics – I am all too aware that technology doesn’t just happen, as a metrology technician I support the people who make it happen. You may notice that in the Keystone XL thread I have linked to a paper by Armour & Roe about committed warming(which I have previously read) and some interesting slides by Roe (which I came across before posting) – I am all too aware of the time issue, but don’t see any easy answers to this.
Adelady,
Without long-distance transmission (e.g. from North Africa / Mediterranean) PV isn’t as attractive here in the UK and in the rest of Northern Europe. Local solutons are part of the answer, but I think if fusion can be cracked there is the prospect of undermining the cost benefits of fossil fuels.
David B. Benson,
I too watched the news footage of a square in Genoa (BBC) crammed with smashed vehicles. When I see such news I can’t help but wonder about AGW and if I’m seeing an AGW related disaster. But the sceptic in me demands more than suspicion before drawing a link I’ll argue for.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4195561
“A new study in the journal Nature finds that global warming probably contributed to Europe’s killer heat wave of 2003”
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-12-climate-experts-agree-global-warming-caused-russian-heat-wave
“Climate experts agree: Global warming caused Russian heat wave”
Assuming I can get past the evil ReCaptcha this time…
I could use help with a radiative-convective model. I keep getting a too-hot stratosphere. I’m using conventional composition for the stratosphere, plus the ozone profile from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere. I’m taking O3 absorption coefficients from Chou et al. and O2 from Ditchburn 1962 and Inn & Tanaka 1953. I don’t understand what I’m missing.
Figures for 20 levels of atmosphere and the ground follow. Top is layer 1, bottom (ground) is 21.
L# Model USSA
1 325.1 259.3
2 254.6 224.5
3 227.6 218.1
4 220.9 216.7
5 219.8 216.7
6 220.2 216.7
7 225.4 221.0
8 233.4 231.5
9 242.5 240.7
10 250.5 248.8
11 257.5 256.0
12 263.7 262.4
13 269.2 268.0
14 274.0 272.9
15 278.1 277.1
16 281.5 280.7
17 284.3 283.6
18 286.5 285.8
19 287.9 287.3
20 288.7 288.1
21 288.9 288.2
r^2 = 74%
Chris R @116 — What is the recurrence time for such rainfall events in Ligure? Just in Genova? Has that recurrence time become less in the past 50 years? If the answer is yes, then one can fairly attribute the shorter recurrence time to global warming; no individual rain events can be so attributed, of course.
The amount of damage to lives and property is disproportionately large as people, almost everywhere, fail to give proper respect for rare extreme events and build in the flood plain. I beleive that is/was the case in Genova.
But, wili, that’s a headline. Headline writers, well, tsk. You know. I didn’t follow up that 2010 article to see if it got clarified; did you?
The article itself:
“… Dr. Rob Carver’s analysis of the statistical likelihood of the Moscow heatwave:
Now, let’s take a look at July 29, when it cracked 100 F at Moscow Shermetyevo. By our records, the reported high was 37.78 deg C and the normal high for that day is 20.0 deg C. According to GDAS, the maximum temperature for Moscow on July 29 was 35.85 deg C and the normal temperature according to CFSR is 20.6. Using the techniques of Hart and Grumm (2001), the climatological anomaly for maximum temperature is 3.9 deg C.
So, using the GDAS and CFSR data, the normalized anomaly of maximum temperature was +3.1. That’s near a recurrence interval of once per thousand years which matches the quotes I’ve heard from Russian met agencies. Now, if we assume the climatological anomaly derived from CFSR data is the same of the observations, the normalized anomaly jumps to +4.5, which translates into “less than once every 15,788″.
That however, is a tricky assumption to make. We know that the climatic properties of CFSR and GDAS data have to have some correspondence with what’s actually happens in the atmosphere, otherwise weather models wouldn’t work. What becomes difficult to quantify (in the time constraints of writing for the public) is how the statistics of the climate properties line up between observations and reanalysis. And at these extremes, it doesn’t take much change in the average and standard deviation of a property to dramatically change how unusual an event is. Another possible source of error is the assumption that the climatology of CFSR is the climatology of the operational GDAS. Which is not a slam-dunk since NCEP shifted to a higher-resolution model on July 28. Now, I don’t have any information to say the post July 28 GDAS data has different climatological characteristics, but it’s a possibility. Another big assumption I make is that daily maximum temperatures follow a Gaussian (normal) distribution and that from 30 years of CFSR data, I can adequately characterize such a distribution….”
—
end quote
More reasonable, eh? Because you can get more out of the text than the headline writer can put into the headline.
Chris R., There are no solutions at present. None. Merely reducing consumption, as I said, is not a solution, but merely an exercise in buying time. It is by no means certain that we can even find solutions in time to avert severe consequences. The fact that the problem is difficult makes it all the more criminal that fossil fuel interests have successfully prevented society from even acknowledging the problem, let alone working toward solutions.
Stuart Coles, Luis Raul Pericchi and Scott Sisson
A Fully Probabilistic Approach to Extreme Rainfall Modeling
appears to provide the best account of rare rainfall events that I have found so far.
David B Benson,
It is precisely factors such as building on flood plains and reporting issues that leave me with doubt about many such events.
There is other research for the UK (sorry but as my time is limited I tend to read locally on these issues). I read a paper from the Met Office (UK) last year on increasing contribution of heavy precipitation – which I can’t find at present. However there is another paper:
Evidence for trends in heavy rainfall events over the UK.
Osborn & Hulme. 2002.
PDF
The sign of the change is consistent with the simulated
climate-change signal due to increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations, though the magnitude of the observed
change is greater than that expected from the model
simulations…
…We conclude, therefore, that there is some evidence
that the recent winter changes have some component of
a climate-change signal within them, but the evidence
is not sufficiently strong on its own to suggest that
the observed trends will continue with the same
magnitude into the future.
Ray Ladbury,
There may be no solutions at present, but we can still do the right thing: reducing our personal emissions, arguing in favour of what the science really shows. I can only think of one hopeful precedent: Slavery was once a major de-facto energy source, it was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, despite the cost implications to business. That was done because it became widely recognised that slavery was wrong.
Chris R @123 — Yes, finding statistical evidence for an increase in actual extreme rainfall events, as opposed to flood damage change, is quite difficult. However, the satellite evidence demonstrates increased (average) precipitation at mid and high latitudes; if the proportion which are extreme events does not change one suspects an increase in the occurance of rainfall events beyond design basis.
Chris R., There are interesting parallels to your arguments regarding abolition. Slavery was as wrong in the mid 18th century as it was in the 19th, and there was no shortage of decent people arguing against it either. One of the things that made it possible to abolish slavery was the fact that technology advanced to the point where it was not economical. It was mainly in the American South, where wealth was concentrated in slaves where abolition was seen as economic suicide.
I suspect that were we to develop a new infrastructure capable of perpetuating human civilization without fossil fuels that suddenly you’d find a lot more people who would identify minimizing climate change as a moral issue. It is an unfortunate characteristic of human beings that economics often subverts our moral sense.
A recent paper for you:
Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes
Seung-Ki Min, Xuebin Zhang, Francis W. Zwiers & Gabriele C. Hegerl 2011
Abstract
Extremes of weather and climate can have devastating effects on human society and the environment1,2. Understanding past changes in the characteristics of such events, including recent increases in the intensity of heavy precipitation events over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere land area3–5, is critical for reliable projections of future changes. Given that atmospheric water-holding capacity is expected to increase roughly exponentially with temperature—and that atmospheric water content is increasing in accord with this theoretical expectation6–11—it has been suggested that human influenced global warming may be partly responsible for increases in heavy precipitation3,5,7. Because of the limited availability of daily observations, however, most previous studies have examined only the potential detectability of changes in extreme precipitation through model–model comparisons12–15. Here we show that
human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to
the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found
over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern
Hemisphere land areas. These results are based on a comparison of
observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analysed with an optimal fingerprinting technique. Changes in extreme precipitation projected by models, and thus the impacts of future changes in extreme precipitation, may be underestimated because models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming 16.
Hank, few can match your web search skills. I was just attempting to answer ChrisR at #97 “Can you cite research that shows the 2003 or 2010 European Heatwaves were outside of the envelope of natural variability?”
I’m not sure “envelope of natural variability” is really well defined enough to warrant an answer, but are you saying these events were well within the range of what would be expected without climate change?
wili @127 — I better understand (although not well) the Eastern Europe/Central Asia heat wave of 2010. That event, barring any climate change, appears to have a return time (period, recurrance interval) in excess of 1000 years; a purely statistical concept. So it might have happened anyway, just quite rare on statistical grounds. But with global warming? Well, Stfan has provided not one but two recent threads here on Real Climate to aid us in understanding that, yes, with climate change it is/was more likely (although still quite rare).
Cross posted to WUWT tips, 12:36 am EST Nov 7, 2011.
I need some help here. In particular, I’m looking for people who have at least an undergraduate level of training in thermodynamics generally and energy flow specifically, or self taught equivalent. (I have studied energy transfer in a number of university courses, but that was many years ago now. My work often involves heat transfer calculations. That is I get paid to get this stuff right (and sued if I get it wrong). I’m pretty confident in my ability to perform an energy balance, but I’m stumped by this one).
Here, in a nutshell, is my conundrum:
Why is the ocean so cold?
Our friends at BEST, CRU, GISS, etc. going all the way back to Fourier, all agree that the “surface temperature” of the earth is more than 10 celcius or 283 kelvin. Further, it is hypothesized that the “surface temperature” of the earth has always been at least 10 celcius and often more.
So how is it that the temperature of the ocean, which is in direct contact with this “surface” is at least 6 degrees colder than the “surface temperature”? Not only is the ocean in direct contact with this “surface”, but the earth itself is constantly shedding thermal energy into the ocean from the crust.
If someone can show me a complete energy balance that allows the ocean to be at a steady state temperature that is lower than the “surface temperature”, I would be grateful. If there isn’t such a balance, one of two things must be true. The “surface temperature” is colder than estimated or the laws of thermodynamics don’t apply to the oceans.
Just to be clear, it is an absolute certainty that the laws of thermodynamics apply to the oceans.
No hand waving allowed. I’ve seen a number of debating point style arguments. I would like to see some math on this. I’m working on my math on this. My first run approximation has the oceans boiling away a few billion years ago, so something is not right. If you are not sure how the oceans should have boiled away billions of years ago, add 0.1 W/m² of energy to a 4 km column of water for 1 billion years and determine what the temperature of the water should be. The 0.1 is lower than the approximation of the rate of energy transfer from the crust to the bottom of the ocean.
TIA
JE
[Response: The answer can be found in any basic text book in oceanography and has been known since the days of Challenger expedition – the ocean is stratified by density. Colder water at a fixed salinity is more dense than warmer water. Therefore cooling of the surface (during winter, in high latitudes) is far more effective at producing denser water than warming the surface (at least at surface salinities experienced today). – gavin]
Pete Dunkelberg @126 — Most useful. Thank you for noticing that paper from Nature.
Gavin:
Your response amounts to hand waving. Can you provide a reference to one of these texts on oceanography that shows the energy balance with completed math?
[Response: The only to have ‘complete math’ is to use a full ocean model with high resolution inputs of atmospheric forcing fields and time and space resolution to calculate the seasonality, ocean surface mixing, advection etc. Your best bet would be something like the ECCO project results. If you want something less than the ‘completed math’, you need to be more specific about the level of approximation required. Perhaps if you could specify what you find unsatisfying in the basic explanation, that would help. – gavin]
ChrisR, wili, re: “envelope of natural variability”
Better get a big envelope…
CM,
Excellent, thanks. The paper makes a good case that taken together the 2003/10 heatwaves in Europe were highly anomalous and outside the envelope of natural variability. Figure 3 is staggering.
I’ve given up on weather disaster stats as the best source seems to be EMDAT and that’s too subject to reporting bias to be highly persuasive, although it remains intriguing.
One minor issue – your link dead-ends anyone without a Nature subscription. The paper is Barriopedro 2011, “The Hot Summer of 2010: Redrawing the Temperature Record Map of Europe.” And a paywall free copy is available here.
Against organised and strident opposition, the Australian parliament enacted a basic carbon emission pricing mechanism today: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-08/carbon-tax-passes-senate/3652438 The political debate has spanned five years and three prime ministers, each of whom at some stage claimed to be a strong supporter of emissions pricing.
Re John Eggert:
I suspect it is nearly impossible to have a simple, not computer aided model for a temperature stratified water volume cooled by atmosphere so that the stratification is broken.
But it is easy to imagine that this mechanism is more efficient than atmospheric heating, which does not destroy but strengthen stratification. With no violation of the 2nd law whatsoever.
World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
Mainly for the Brits here.
* The vast, shocking hole in BBC Panorama’s analysis of rising energy bills
* BBC Complaints
CM, Chris, thanks–that sounds like a very interesting paper.
On another topic, a milestone: my precis of Gwynne Dyer’s “Climate Wars” is just hitting its 1000th page view (thanks to a sudden surge of interest of unknown origin.) Thanks to RC readers for past support. . .
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Climate-Wars-A-Review
What about this? Nicola Scafetta 2011: A shared frequency set between the historical mid-latitude aurora records and the global surface temperature. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics In Press doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2011.10.013 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611002872
[Response: More nonsense. Mis-application of spectral calculations, post-hoc justifications for ridiculous physical mechanisms, huge overstatements of their importance: JASTP takes another step towards astrology. – gavin]
But but but, Roger Sr thinks that it’s great:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/new-paper-a-shared-frequency-set-between-the-historical-mid-latitude-aurora-records-and-the-global-surface-temperature-by-n-scafetta-2011/
I’m wondering if Roger actually reads the stuff that he cites these days, or just sees stuff that “enlarges the debate” (i.e. differs from the mainstream, no matter how crazy) and instantly posts it to his blog. His fawning over a crappy blog post by Bob Tisdale is further evidence of his descent into irrelevancy:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/highly-recommended-weblog-post-by-bob-tisdale-titled-an-initial-look-at-the-hindcasts-of-the-ncar-ccsm4-coupled-climate-model/
It’s a shame as he used to post some though provoking stuff, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with it.
Here’s a “short” I just published online–a fictional response to the big issue that I suspect some here may enjoy:
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Responsibility-or-Driver-Boy-and-Girl
Snorbert,
Scafetta might as well be doing astrology.
John Eggert,
Think about the basic methods of heat transfer–conduction, convection and radiation. Convection is the most efficient, but requires actual physical mixing–and that ain’t happening. Conduction requires contact. Again, contrary to your assertion, there is no contact betweenthe deep oceans and the “surface”. Rather, there is a temperature gradient and limited heat diffusion–just as across an insulator. And there is no radiation between the deep oceans and the surface.
Radiation is also one of the reasons why the surface is warmer–just as a thermometer in the sun registers warmer than one in the shade nearby. I wouldn’t give up on thermo just yet.
from “The King of Human Error | Business | Vanity Fair”
—-excerpt follows—-
The human mind is so wedded to stereotypes and so distracted by vivid descriptions that it will seize upon them, even when they defy logic, rather than upon truly relevant facts. Kahneman and Tversky called this logical error the “conjunction fallacy.”
Their work intersected with economics in the early 1970s when Tversky handed Kahneman a paper on the psychological assumptions of economic theory. As Kahneman recalled:
> I can still recite its first sentence: “The agent of economic theory
> is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.”
>
> I was astonished. My economic colleagues worked in the building
> next door, but I had not appreciated the profound difference between
> our intellectual worlds. To a psychologist, it is self-evident that
> people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that
> their tastes are anything but stable.
The paper that resulted five years later, the abovementioned “Prospect Theory,” not only proved that one of the central premises of economics was seriously flawed—-the so-called utility theory, “based on elementary rules (axioms) of rationality”—-but also spawned a sub-field of economics known as behavioral economics.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/12/michael-lewis-201112?currentPage=all
Mis-application of spectral calculations……another step towards astrology. – gavin
I am too doubtful about Scafetta’s results. I have reconstructed natural oscillations superimposed on the 350 year long CET trend of 0.25C/century. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
There is no 60 year periodicity.
“If you are not sure how the oceans should have boiled away billions of years ago, add 0.1 W/m² of energy to a 4 km column of water for 1 billion years and determine what the temperature of the water should be.” John Eggert — 7 Nov 2011 @ 12:36 AM
You didn’t include the W/m^2 radiated away in the polar regions, and the global THC that moves heat from the tropics(where the energy balance between insolation and infrared radiation is positive) to the poles(where the outbound IR carries away more energy than the incoming solar energy)
Hank @ 144
A flaw taken advantage of by the fields of advertising, propaganda, infotainment, and some religion; facilitated no doubt by repetition and availability heuristics. So the human mind, social and physical, is apparently prone to entropy and intractable messes, another reminder of how critical it is to communicate effectively, continuously, and energetically.
Excellent programs:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/11/online-hacker-group-crowdsources-radiation-data-for-japanese-public.html
Some suggestions for other kinds of measurements and problem solving at end.
Ocean acidification and consequences, hour, current and information rich, but especially recommend last bit, first policy suggestion that looked doable to me:
KUOW Seattle:
http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/m3u/WeekdayB/WeekdayB20111108.m3u
apologies if this is a duplicate, earlier entry fail?
A little recreational typing:
An engineer might believe a decade enough, for that data set?
“I think you need 20-30 years of global mean temperature data to be talking about climate rather than weather” http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/03/misleading-yourself-with-graphs.html
I understand there is a mercury signature from coal burning in every lake in North America. I expect this will
Will an enhanced concentration of mercury be visible in varves, o, say over the next 10 kiloyear ?
sidd