What’s the greatest warming / most emissions we could produce if we really tried? Could we match the PETM? Re-crocodile the Arctic? Or is that pesky Antarctic circumpolar flow and Panama isthmus going to make if difficult to engineer an ice-free world with our finite supply of fossil fuels?
Under Bronco time pressure, I’m going to post two intolerably long comments. The first was developed on non science comment threads, over two weeks, and addresses Lynn’s comment last month about all of the “pause” deniers. The second gives my possibly differing take on the WSJ / Dr. Koonin editorial, But it requires the first one. (For the record, my real notion of a “5 standard deviation event” occurred last February).
Dave Peterssays
1996 – 2000: .. 32 ,,, 71 … 96 … 55 … 53
2009 – 2013: .. 89 … 98 … 73 … 81 … 88
Re: Lynn, UV 9/14; @ # 77 asking about responding to the “hiatus / pause” claim.
Why is it, that 97% of seven year olds have no difficulty identifying the bottom data string as “bigger,” while opinion and professional engineering journal comment threads are loaded with folks who made it over the hump of Methods of Integration, and profess advanced degrees in quantitative disciplines, yet have emotionally dug in on the notion that those data demonstrate the absence of warming for those intervening 15 years? (The “units” above, are akin to “cents”, as we depict the HadCRUT4 surface thermometer measurements in the degrees of Fahrenheit, for the same reason Honda salesmen don’t list their new cars in yen, and things will be more familiar to the common folk if we consider a single such F. degree as one buck,)
Now, you’ve got your Apple-lovers (aka: warmists or hysterics) who seek to discern the “signal” of combustion’s consequence in warming a planet between 2/3rds & 3/4ths covered by oceans whose mixed layer is some ten times as massive as its air. Because, a quarter millennium ago Watt gave its people steam power so that coal could be mined for warmth and wrangling iron, a century and a half ago Rockefeller standardized oil to give them lamp light and then mobility, and a century or so ago Edison gave them electricity. And the question is, do these fabulous gifts impose a burden upon our descendants, a century or more off into the future?
The Apple-lovers point out that that 32 cent value for 1996 measures the warmth signal, as an anomaly when compared with a 30 year interval which concluded only six years earlier. And that were one to slide this reference window backwards in time, so as to figure out just how much total warming we have already achieved to date, it would just attain equipoise, with mid-point in 1907. If one were to slide the reference window any further back in time, it stops getting cooler and in fact starts getting warmer again, maybe all the way back to when Plato communed with Socrates, and Jesus trod the route to Jerusalem. Or maybe half that long. In any case, most evidence we tease from paleo-inferences indicates that temperatures fluctuated between a tenth or twentieth as fast, in preceding centuries, as they do in that first Carbon Century, once fossil fed fire got roaring, big-time.. And warmists draw the inference that the obvious explanation for the great inflection that creates that transposed checkmark pattern in our millennium-scale thermal record, is this appearance of such consequential combustion, and attendant exhaust. Further, enough thermometers were around to confidently measure the moment when this iconic hockey stick’s handle-era is joined with its blade-era. And it measures 66 cents worth.
We now have the “signal” of the true Apple, in hand. Big Apples, from before the warming hiatus set in, are measured by the average from the first string above, which is 61.3 cents. The sum from 1907 is 61 + 66 = $1.27, and it took 91 years, so big ones are a penny and four tenths, per year. Little Apples are measured by including the pause, and are found to measure a penny and a half each year. Wait a minute. They got bigger during the pause? Well, no matter, an Apple is the signal, and it is near a penny and a half each year. Each year the people keep digging up coal and drilling up oil and gas and burning it, and each year, on average, the world, since 1907, has warmed by half more than a hundredth degree Fahrenheit.
Orange-lovers (aka minimalists, luke-warmers, & deniers) are an entirely different breed, obviously. They absolutely hate this “signal” and all it stands for. Hence, they delight in finding noise. You can tell this about the Orangers, because they all flutter about one particular bit of noise, moths about a flame style, but we’ll look at that up close in a minute. An obvious source of natural variation could come from our sun, since if it sneezed or snoozed, we’d either fry or freeze. But though it does vary across an eleven year cycle, it only dims by a tenth of a percent while cycling, so it’s signal in our thermal trace is lost in other noise. Not noise itself. Volcanoes are noisy, and the biggie in the instrumental era was 1883’s Krakatoah. By annual global averages, it cost forty cents for a few years, though Bradley (yep, the MBH one, about ten years before he teamed up with Dr. Mann) found that it depressed summer temps in our hemisphere by a whopping $2.20, one summer. Orange lovers however don’t seem much interested in nature cool—they favor natural warmth. So, the oceans, unless they practice cold fusion on the sly, can’t “make” energy. About the most they can do is store it up from somewhere, and selectively cycle it to the atmosphere, when they are so moved. And they are good at it and do so in sundry patterns. El Nino is one such rhythm, and we’ve had about twenty since 1950, mostly dime-ante stuff. Exclusive of the event registered as such a standout by that upper data string above, 17 Ninos have averaged a bit less than 17 cents each. The name derives from baby Christ, because Peruvian fishermen observed the oscillation to appear most frequently in late December. The late nineties event not only piled up nearly forty-cents worth of heat gain in late 1997, the carry over into the new year boosted the Earth’s temperature by an added quarter across 1998. Sixty-four cents. Half of all warming manifesting in the entire century, in one episodic leap. In its most powerful twelve months, running from September of ’97 thru August of ’08, El Nino Grande added, year over year, both a half dollar and a nickel to the Hadley trace.
Back to the big question: Is it fair to future generations, to look for, select, and stand upon that most extraordinary moment, Grande being about a Krakatoah and a half only reversed in sign, and to peer out towards posterity with the inevitable aftermath of such a fleeting, cyclical phenomenon occupying the foreground? For if Apple-lovers count their penny and a half each year, for some periods maybe 3 to 4 cents for decades, and for others near nothing for a few decades, but the Orange-lovers employ a heat spike nearly forty times as large, what can be expected other than that decades might elapse, before enough Apples can be accumulated to match their one Orange? Yet in seven of the most recent twelve months, that is precisely what the globe has done. True, the Earth has not warmed, relative to that absurdly placed challenge of a sudden, forty-fold spurt, but it HAS equaled that mark, and in only fifteen years. Far from a pause, this can only result from an acceleration of the annual heat gain, relative to that of our entire history with warming. Orange-lovers are quite correct, however, that relative to the final couple decades of Century Twenty, the heat gain has diminished—but that gets into cherries, and is a whole other fruit best left for another day.
There is one final comment that cannot wait. Many Orange-lovers have a keen comprehension of the implications for humanity, of attempting to turn its back upon the sundry gifts which are gained with combustion. The intensity of this conviction animates the search through which they found their Orange, their El Nino Grande. To assume that they participate in the dialogue with unfeeling hearts, with non-relevant experiences, or with corrupted minds, or to assume that their concern with humanity either now or in the deep future is in any way of a lesser nature, does both them and the dialogue itself great, great disservice
Dave Peterssays
In the land of the blind, one eye can spread considerable enlightenment. This is, after all, the WSJ opinion space. For those in doubt, the space tends to lean more WUWT than RC. Most typically, it serves as a fountainhead for minimalist and denier propaganda, stuff that is comprised often times, of the ripest, er…nonsense.
Thus, before each camp reflexively deploys its own worn linguistic interpretive conventions upon a new pronouncement from a new voice, in a process now tending ritual, perhaps we might first ask instead: What IS the WSJ doing, inviting a former Caltech provost to its Ed Page to opine on climate science?
So, as to the notion that untrustworthy agenda-driven investigators have contrived to exploit UHI, and other station irregularities, so as to fabricate much of the canonical surface thermometer history? The WSJ now says: no way. This is, note, both McKitrick and Anthony Watt’s prime bugaboo. And, ought we prefer such highly challenged, and oh so human English and American surface assessments, over the unsullied, mechanical trace measuring the planet’s temperature from an uncorrupted mid-troposphere? The WSJ, in Koonin’s voice, is now dispositive: Earth has warmed by 1.4 Fahrenheit, during Century 20. So, there went Drs. Spencer and Christy, under the WSJ bus.
Now for Limbaugh, Senator Inhofe and the gas industry which so shamelessly funds him, asserting of the nation’s most scientifically distinguished minds, that our Academy of Sciences is a collection of morally bereft perpetrators of some insidious fraud. And an utterly mindless “hoax.” The Caltech guy says BS, and the WSJ agrees. And, about lifetime, where Heartland favorite Lord Monckton specifies a “first order” figure of 7, before tempering that to “40 years” (for the full carbon cycle), the WSJ is now yielding measurable ground here again, by permitting Dr, Koonin to assert through its megaphone, that the CO2 persistence is doubtlessly “several centuries.”
Wow. Before we warmists follow Archimedes inspiration, however, abandoning our clothes to run ecstatically naked through the streets shouting “Eureka!”—we perhaps ought contemplate that there might be some Faustian catch to all of this. So, exactly what price might Dr. Koonin have agreed to pay to, The Devil?
A first bit of novelty, is to me unclear. On the notion of uncertainty, it bothers me very much that the breadth of the spectrum of 55 climate models, outlier to outlier, might be utilized as a metric for ANYTHING. And, is the suggestion here, that the compound of multiple runs with 55 models, establishes this “spread”? Similarly, when Koonin asserts a “comparability” between “the impact today of human activity” and “intrinsic natural variability,” we should be careful with reading into these words, respective but vastly differing interpretations. Thus, we warmists might broadly cast an averaging interval, say between 1950 and 2010, so as to claim that cyclical variations might essentially naught-out (e.g., see graphic here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/97-v-3-how-much-global-warming-humans-causing.html ). I seriously doubt Dr. Koonin is denying this inference. But we don’t know. However, notionally, I not only accept his language on this one, but champion it, even if his reference to the ’98 inflection appalls me. By my method of assessment, El Nino Grande represented 1/2 of all warming manifest in the Hadley trace during the Twentieth Century. By his accounting, “0.9 F.” of warmth manifests from 1975 to 2000, of which Grande is 2/3rds. In this sense, this single, ultra-noisy specific example of a natural variation, has been, as Dr. Koonin asserts, fully equivalent to the anthro signal generated across 46 years between, say, 1942 and El Nino Grande. While the physical consequence of this event may have been vanishing within months, as the Pacific plummeted towards La Nina, it has evolved over a decade and two thirds, into the climatologically equivalent of a Mason-Dixon line. At least partially, the science has, to my lights, not invested a sufficient degree of attention to this, perhaps only mundane, but otherwise epic event. If we all got out our spotlights and magnifying glasses, and fastened them simply upon Grande alone, perhaps not only Dr. Koonin, but Misters Gigot, Krauthammer, Stossel, Barone, Kristol, and Will might be moved off of that amazing terrain it supplies them for erecting their “Hiatus/Pause” battlement.
Thus, I take some comfort from the ambiguities. Society faces difficult choices by virtue of the “unsettled” range of the sensitivity goal-posts: 2.7 F. to 8.1 F. Hardly news here, and hardly unsettling. Further, unlike Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Koonin is nowhere asserting, that while Science is uncertain between these limits, he stands apart and KNOWS that the true value is the low one. Thus, on balance, the thermosteric reference aside, the concessions towards minimalist sound bites of language, strike me as comparatively minor. Climate always changes. Antarctic sea ice grows. The Hot Spot evidence is weak. But, the Big Koonin Concession, that the science is insufficiently mature to “usefully” answer the questions being asked of it, far from contrarian claptrap, is straight out of the Standard Portrayal: it was 2.7 to 8.1 F. for 2X CO2 by Charney in 1979, and things are ever so steadily settled upon that state of unsettledness to this day. Thank you, WSJ. Finally, thank the Lord in the highest, Dr. Koonin has addressed a lay audience in Fahrenheit. Nothing to me screams minimalism more, than talking Warming in Kelvin, centigrade or Celsius.
AICsays
Copying (with editing) from the end of September Unforced Variations:
Since a picture can be worth a thousand words, can anybody point me toward a graphic showing night-time temperatures compared to daytime temperatures? Or even data?
Google Scholar did not seem to find much, except the effect of night-time temperatures on various crops.
Wessays
As I’ve recently read that Antarctic sea ice has set an all-time record for extent, I’m wondering if this is caused by an increase in precipitation (snow) falling in the region and creating more ice, or possibly squeezing land ice (through some sort of accumulated weight displacement)out into the surrounding ocean. I know a little science, but not enough to understand what is happening in the Antarctic exactly. While I believe this increase is caused by climate change, in my ignorance I struggle to understand how! Please help :)
Re:increased Antarctic ice efflux with increased snowfall
Winkelman(2012) doi:10.1038/nature11616 discusses this, but i do not think this is operating except perhaps spottily. I believe the place to look might be in Dronning Maud land which is one of the few areas where snowfall gain has outpaced mass waste.
Re:Antarctic sea ice growth
I have been mulling over this. The picture i have is that basal melt of Antarctic ice at ocean margins ice 1) creates fresh water which spreads north, refreezes and melts in later years 2)basal melt accelerates ice flow inland by thinning ice shelves.
So the ocean melts the base, sucks out ice from the interior by accelerating flow, moves the melted ice north where it refreezes but can be melted at leisure, in the process recapturing the heat donated to cause basal melt in the first place …
How certain are we about the longer-term (before 5kyr) proxy record for methane? I was browsing the peer-reviewed literature on the subject and what I have found so far does not seem very reassuring and (IMHO) still leaves huge questions unanswered.
Henk says: 6 Oct 2014 at 5:16 AM Vukcevic(#6), Could you explain what a 1ms oscillation in the lenght of the day has to do with climate science?
Greetings Henk
Thanks for the note.
Winds velocity is a factor of atmospheric pressure and surface (land and ocean) temperatures. Changes from zonal to merdional polar jet stream will directly affect ‘length-of-day’ – LOD.
Faster westerly winds will slow down the solid Earth rotation.
Some other climate causes:
– accumulation and melting of ice
– Equatorial sea level rise
– South east Asian monsoon decadal variability
etc
If the LOD changes are synchronised with the solar magnetic cycle, if not a simple coincidence, then there is strong likelihood that the solar activity modulates some of the above climate events, i.e. it is partial cause of their natural variability.
I hope that is of some help, however there are other online papers associating LOD with climate parameters.
regards, m.v.
Mike Roddysays
Gavin and David, you have damaged your reputations by continuing to attack Shakhova, Semilitov, and other Arctic researchers. As Shakhova says in this video
“They are talking about things they know nothing about”.
There is a firestorm on climate newsgroups that I frequent, and personal charges have been raised, which don’t need to be repeated here.
My puzzlement is that by presenting pie charts and models based on recent GHG emissions, you ignore feedbacks and exponential growth of methane emissions driven by Arctic melting. You defend these claims by stating that models should govern observations, while everything I learned in science classes said the precise opposite.
We would give your refutations credibility, Gavin, if you visited the Arctic, and engaged the researchers personally with questions. Since neither of these actions is apparent, your stubborn stance here troubling, to say the least.
[Response: Oh please. I have not ‘attacked’ anybody. Nor have I excluded them from meetings, tweeted disrespectfully or in any other way behaved unprofessionally. Rather, I have examined the basis for a single scenario that they have put forward for future changes in methane emissions which I (and many others) do not find convincing. Misrepresentations, strawman arguments and false accusations should be playing no role in any of this, and the continued use of these tactics really only underlines the un-seriousness of this whole discussion. Please continue to be ‘troubled’ by my ‘stubborn’ insistence that people actual provide evidence for their extrapolations. – gavin]
Well, technically, yes–but they only cut the ribbon last Thursday, so I think Victor should get a little slack for not knowing the thing was actually online. So now there is exactly *1* scaled demo; according to the story, it is viable due in part to specific circumstances (local coal supply, fairly local oil field buying the CO2 they produce.)
Without having the background or motivation necessary to choose between all the estimates of TCR and ECS, nor the desire to delve into how a new estimate that falls entirely within the range of the old estimates can be a “game-changer”, I was most interested in the fact that the darling of the climate denier set, Judith Curry, obviously has to be counted among the famous 97% consensus. Whether the ECS is 1° or 4°, the climate will warm due to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Assuming that Curry does not deny that the CO2 level has climbed dramatically over the last 100+ years or that this is driven by human emissions, she must be advocating that human activity is warming the planet.
Whether the new work is sloppy or brilliant, this is just another paper published in a prestigious journal supporting the reality of AGW. The only thing really noteworthy here is the author.
Political Junkiesays
Racketeer,
Far be it from me to defend Dr. Curry – she can handle herself.
But let me point out that the globe has been warming since the Little Ice Age.
Significant increase in human emissions began circa 1950.
[Response: Not so. Emissions and deforestation have been significant since at least the late 19th C, maybe even much longer. – gavin]
Until we can figure out why the increase in the first half of the twentieth century (with little human input) was indistinguishable from the increase in the second half with major emissions your conclusion does not follow.
#23–Kemper, which I believe is the only other CCS plant that is close to completion, is an interesting case. It’s double the original budget, and way behind schedule (currently to open next May–we’ll see about that.) Not a happy experience so far, but maybe they will get it working.
[Response: I have no idea what he’s talking about. Neither the website nor the speaker are reliable sources. – gavin]
siddsays
Re: Mr. Mashey’s comment of 6th Oct 2014, 4:09 PM on the thread
“Climate-response estimates from Lewis and Curry”
Is it the case that img src tags are now allowed ?
[Response: No. But they can be edited in after a comment is posted if its useful. – gavin]
ifso i hope someone is scanning the images for malicious payload
sidd
Henksays
Vukcevic (#20)
A rough calculation of the change in the rotational energy of the atmosphere caused by this 1ms oscillation in 20 yrs gives an order of magnitude of 10^15 J/yr. The change in solar energy supply caused by the 11 jr solar cyclic change in TSI (1 in 1365 W/m2) is in the order of magnitude of 10^21 J/yr.
Comparing these two numbers shows that the effect of this LOD-oscillation on climate may be ignored compared to that of the TSI oscillation, which in turn is small compared to the radiative forcing of increasing amounts of CO2.
Henksays
Vukcevic (#20)
A rough calculation shows that the change of rotational energy of the atmosphere caused by a 1ms LOD-oscillation in 20 yrs is in the order of magnitude of 10^15 J/yr.
The change in solar energy input caused by the TSI oscillation in the solar cycle (about 1 in 1365 W/m2) is about 10^21 J/yr. The LOD-oscillation is thus negligible.
AICsays
Thank you, Hank.
vukcevicsays
Henk says: 7 Oct 2014 at 2:02 AM the effect of this LOD-oscillation on climate may be ignored compared to that of the TSI oscillation –
Hi Henk
Obviously you did not read the paper.
You got that wrong way around.
It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation !
You could start with the JPL-NASA article http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110309.html
Dr. Dickey (JPL-NASA) is the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics.
Regards
m.v.
Well this what Victor has to say at dotearth: ” In particular, these models love a technology called “bioenergy carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS)” because it has negative emissions—you grow biomass, harvest it and burn it for electricity, and then store the pollution underground. Voila. The models love this—especially when the models are told to meet a very aggressive and difficult constraint like stopping warming at a concentration such as 450 ppm which has a decent change of stopping warming at 2 degrees. Facing that constraint, the models pour money into BECCS on the assumption that costs will go down and then, as costs come down, the technology is assumed to spread rapidly and ubiquitously. Indeed, the models that are responsible for essentially all of the 450 ppm scenarios rely massively on BECCS.
Yet, in the real world, there are zero BECCS plants in existence today and no sane firm is planning any serious investment in the technology because of the terrifying costs and regulatory risks.”
So does that not feel like special pleading? Biomass already has substantial use in electricity generation http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01_a and CCS is certainly well enough underway that combining the two in 2060 does not seem like any kind of stretch. The DEMO fusion project is expected to have 20 years of operational experience by then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO And neither of those seem like the actual technology that will be in use considering how cheap wind and solar are becoming. Post AR5 studies such as the Deep Decarbonization Pathways are looking at electrically synthesized hydrocarbon fuels which skip the biomass step and have no competition at all with other agriculture. And, ultimately, with such cheap abundant energy, why even bother with CO2 sequestration? Synthesizing graphite blocks and leaving them lying around may be the way we go.
Everything seems to go the other way and it is much more likely that the IPCC has overestimated the cost of keeping below 2 C warming. Victor seems to be raving on this topic.
“The deep ocean may not be hiding heat after all, raising new questions about why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years, said the US space agency Monday.
Scientists have noticed that while greenhouse gases have continued to mount in the first part of the 21st century, global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising along with them, said NASA.”
vukcevic @32.
Why do you assert “It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation !” and then link to a reference that says “Since scientists know air temperature can’t affect movements of Earth’s core or Earth’s length of day to the extent observed…” as support for your assertion? That reference surelt does the exact opposite.
And I would add that while Dr Dickey whom you call “the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics,” is quoted in that reference saying ” for the past 160 years, decadal and longer-period changes in atmospheric temperature correspond to changes in Earth’s length of day if we remove the very significant effect of atmospheric warming attributed to the buildup of greenhouse gases due to mankind’s enterprise,” it is also true that the LOD-temperature correspondence does go a little awry prior to that 160 year period. Well, I assume it goes awry. If it is maintained, LOD back in the 1600s (here upside down to the Dickey graph in the reference) points to a ‘bumper hot age’ rather than a ‘little ice age.’
vukcevicsays
MARodger says: 7 Oct 2014 at 1:43 PM
….
Hi Mr. Rodger
Thanks for your astute observations. it is also true that the LOD-temperature correspondence does go a little awry prior to that 160 year period.
I doubt that 160 years ago global temperatures or clocks were accurate to the degree graph would suggest
That reference surelt does the exact opposite….while Dr Dickey whom you call “the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics,”
Indeed she is, but that doesn’t make her always correct, even less myself.
Paper, if you make an effort to read it, brings to your and others’ attention something that you may have not known before. For those interested in science, I have given an easy opportunity to reproduce the results, and learn more by studding the phenomenon themselves, expanding the knowledge horizons by doing so.
There I shall leave. With the best regards to all.
Rocketeersays
@Political Junkie #25:
I think you missed my point on Dr. Curry’s paper. Regardless of the recent history of Earth’s temperature, the values for ECS and TCR presented in her paper are decidedly positive. While other forcings no doubt influence the Earth’s temperature, if TCR and ECS for CO2 emissions is positive, then increasing CO2 in the atmosphere MUST warm the planet compared to what the average temperature would be in the absence of this increased CO2 level. Even using the lowest end of the ranges determined in this paper, the increase from 280 to 400ppm has to have caused some portion of the warming seen over the last century. I am not very familiar with Curry’s actual position with respect to AGW, but I know she is held up as a contrarian on the question of human influence on climate. Whatever nuances she might have on her position, her paper clearly shows that human GHG emissions are (must be) warming the planet.
siddsays
1)ocean heating papers: The Durack and Llovel cover different time periods and depth ranges, and are not directly comparable. There is no discrepancy between them.
2)Antarctic sea ice increase: this is worrying. A freshwater cap is forming above the warmer waters beneath. This cap freezes easier in winter with less brine production than previously generated, and the ice formed insulates the warmer layers beneath; the heat instead goes into basal melt of ice, which thickens the freshwater cap. Decreased brine production decreases bottom water production, increasing heat available to melt ice base. Golledge(2014) doi:10.1038/ncomms6107 finds similar behaviour during MWP1A, although estimated freshwater flux required to suppress bottom water formation is about tenfold the efflux estimated for today from Antarctic ice sheet. However, with the hefty increases observed in mass waste rate, i fear we are not too far away. I note that the agreement between Golledge(2014) and the icerafted debris results from Weber(2014) doi:10.1038/nature13397 is striking.
sidd
Pete Wsays
Miami Florida is investing a lot of tax payer dollars to mitigate damage caused by high tides. They plan to spend $500million over 5 years on massive pump systems.
Running since 2009, and “a commercial venture rather than a research project… operating on a long term, larger scale.” Of course, it’s profitable because it’s doing EOR (enhanced oil recovery), which I for one don’t regard as a Good Thing. And it’s not the only one:
I would agree that our ancestors were not blessed (or perhaps cursed) with time-pieces that measured milliseconds or even seconds with any accuracy, but they were blessed with a time-piece with excellent callibration – the sky. And, while you may “doubt that 160 years ago global temperatures or clocks were accurate to the degree graph would suggest,” those that created that graph obviously thought otherwise.
LOD may be measured in milliseconds but when this is converted into the accumulative time variation delta-T, just a single millisecond LOD becomes seconds within a decade and becomes greater than a minute in a couple of centuries.
That graph I linked @38 was provided by the Paris Observatory which sources their pre-1955 data from Stephenson & Morrison (1984) (prieview here & accessable in-full with free registration). Stephenson & Morrison examine available astronomical data BC700-AD1980 but the graph only goes back to the start of the telescope era.
You will note that the pre-1955 LOD data the graph plots has the same source as the data used in your thesis. Had I been using such data, I think I would have examined its provience and so would have read Stephenson & Mirrison (1994) to provide me with an understanding of the accuracy of the data I was using. And also the implications as well as the accuracy of the data I wasn’t using.
Rafael Molina Navas, Madridsays
#11 AIC
What follows may interest you:
Recent geographic convergence in diurnal and annual temperature cycling flattens global thermal profiles
An analysis of a high-resolution global temperature data set shows that temperate and polar regions are becoming more tropical in their temperature variation profiles, potentially affecting organisms and impacting human agriculture and health. http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2378.html
#32 vukcevic
“It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation ! ”
Not necesary to read any paper to know there is influence both ways.
F.e., Earth is slowing down because of tidal effects, mainly related to the Moon. That is changing climate too (very very slowly though)
And what a beautiful solution to capturing carbon dioxide in a pure stream. The carbon dioxide from fermentation only needs to be dried, no need to remove nitrogen. It costs hardly any energy at all. This should carry over to some cellulosic production as well.
It looks as though Victor is engaged in wishful thinking in support of a pet theory.
I’ve been wondering, as the electrically synthesized hydrocarbon fuel concept gains traction, what to do with the pure oxygen stream that is a byproduct of that method. Clearly, firing biomass electricity with that makes carbon capture easier. The atomic accounting goes like this: 1) 4H2O->4H2+2O2, 2) 4H2+CO2->2H2O+CH4 so we’ve got 2O2 and one CH4 to use. Use the CH4 in a fuel cell to get a pure stream of CO2 and 2H2O with the CO2 returned to reaction 2. But, we still have 2O2 left. If that is used for biomass combustion, then that leads to 2CO2 of sufficient purity for sequestration.
So, it looks like, over a century or so, any concentration target you like could be achieved. I vote for 240 ppm to bring new life to the Sahara and improve the Winter Olympics generally. Spain, for example, has never held a Winter Olympics.
What is the politically ideal target atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration? I want to suggest 240 ppm.
The benefits are: it rewards Spain for taking early action with a winter sports tourist industry. It punishes Russia and Canada for going rogue on climate commitments. It brings new glacial resources to China and India to bring them on board, and it fixes the North-South divide by bringing new arable lands to Africa. It creates a coastal real estate boom along the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Seaboard of the US, the taxes on which could probably pay for all the sequestration needed to achieve the target concentration. And, it brings peace to the Middle East.
World Peace while sticking a finger each in the eyes of the icy-hearted Putin and Harper…. What could be better?
Steve Koonin’s attempt to rewrite the history of the climate wars has not passed un-noticed.
What’s the greatest warming / most emissions we could produce if we really tried? Could we match the PETM? Re-crocodile the Arctic? Or is that pesky Antarctic circumpolar flow and Panama isthmus going to make if difficult to engineer an ice-free world with our finite supply of fossil fuels?
Thanks to Hank Roberts for all the useful links.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/01/canada-switches-on-worlds-first-carbon-capture-power-plant
OK, this is mitigation news, but I merely observe, I do not advocate!
Psychologists Are Learning How to Convince Conservatives to Take Climate Change Seriously
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/09/how-to-convince-conservatives-on-climate-change.html
A little more practical than some of the theoretical advice out there.
Effect of the solar activity on the blue planet, previously not considered by science:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/01/07/13/75/PDF/LOD-bidecadal-variability.pdf
Regarding Russel’s comment (#1) Steve Koonin’s screed has not escaped my attention either. See:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/the_wall_street_journal_and_steve_koonin_the_new_face_of_climate_change.html
Under Bronco time pressure, I’m going to post two intolerably long comments. The first was developed on non science comment threads, over two weeks, and addresses Lynn’s comment last month about all of the “pause” deniers. The second gives my possibly differing take on the WSJ / Dr. Koonin editorial, But it requires the first one. (For the record, my real notion of a “5 standard deviation event” occurred last February).
1996 – 2000: .. 32 ,,, 71 … 96 … 55 … 53
2009 – 2013: .. 89 … 98 … 73 … 81 … 88
Re: Lynn, UV 9/14; @ # 77 asking about responding to the “hiatus / pause” claim.
Why is it, that 97% of seven year olds have no difficulty identifying the bottom data string as “bigger,” while opinion and professional engineering journal comment threads are loaded with folks who made it over the hump of Methods of Integration, and profess advanced degrees in quantitative disciplines, yet have emotionally dug in on the notion that those data demonstrate the absence of warming for those intervening 15 years? (The “units” above, are akin to “cents”, as we depict the HadCRUT4 surface thermometer measurements in the degrees of Fahrenheit, for the same reason Honda salesmen don’t list their new cars in yen, and things will be more familiar to the common folk if we consider a single such F. degree as one buck,)
Now, you’ve got your Apple-lovers (aka: warmists or hysterics) who seek to discern the “signal” of combustion’s consequence in warming a planet between 2/3rds & 3/4ths covered by oceans whose mixed layer is some ten times as massive as its air. Because, a quarter millennium ago Watt gave its people steam power so that coal could be mined for warmth and wrangling iron, a century and a half ago Rockefeller standardized oil to give them lamp light and then mobility, and a century or so ago Edison gave them electricity. And the question is, do these fabulous gifts impose a burden upon our descendants, a century or more off into the future?
The Apple-lovers point out that that 32 cent value for 1996 measures the warmth signal, as an anomaly when compared with a 30 year interval which concluded only six years earlier. And that were one to slide this reference window backwards in time, so as to figure out just how much total warming we have already achieved to date, it would just attain equipoise, with mid-point in 1907. If one were to slide the reference window any further back in time, it stops getting cooler and in fact starts getting warmer again, maybe all the way back to when Plato communed with Socrates, and Jesus trod the route to Jerusalem. Or maybe half that long. In any case, most evidence we tease from paleo-inferences indicates that temperatures fluctuated between a tenth or twentieth as fast, in preceding centuries, as they do in that first Carbon Century, once fossil fed fire got roaring, big-time.. And warmists draw the inference that the obvious explanation for the great inflection that creates that transposed checkmark pattern in our millennium-scale thermal record, is this appearance of such consequential combustion, and attendant exhaust. Further, enough thermometers were around to confidently measure the moment when this iconic hockey stick’s handle-era is joined with its blade-era. And it measures 66 cents worth.
We now have the “signal” of the true Apple, in hand. Big Apples, from before the warming hiatus set in, are measured by the average from the first string above, which is 61.3 cents. The sum from 1907 is 61 + 66 = $1.27, and it took 91 years, so big ones are a penny and four tenths, per year. Little Apples are measured by including the pause, and are found to measure a penny and a half each year. Wait a minute. They got bigger during the pause? Well, no matter, an Apple is the signal, and it is near a penny and a half each year. Each year the people keep digging up coal and drilling up oil and gas and burning it, and each year, on average, the world, since 1907, has warmed by half more than a hundredth degree Fahrenheit.
Orange-lovers (aka minimalists, luke-warmers, & deniers) are an entirely different breed, obviously. They absolutely hate this “signal” and all it stands for. Hence, they delight in finding noise. You can tell this about the Orangers, because they all flutter about one particular bit of noise, moths about a flame style, but we’ll look at that up close in a minute. An obvious source of natural variation could come from our sun, since if it sneezed or snoozed, we’d either fry or freeze. But though it does vary across an eleven year cycle, it only dims by a tenth of a percent while cycling, so it’s signal in our thermal trace is lost in other noise. Not noise itself. Volcanoes are noisy, and the biggie in the instrumental era was 1883’s Krakatoah. By annual global averages, it cost forty cents for a few years, though Bradley (yep, the MBH one, about ten years before he teamed up with Dr. Mann) found that it depressed summer temps in our hemisphere by a whopping $2.20, one summer. Orange lovers however don’t seem much interested in nature cool—they favor natural warmth. So, the oceans, unless they practice cold fusion on the sly, can’t “make” energy. About the most they can do is store it up from somewhere, and selectively cycle it to the atmosphere, when they are so moved. And they are good at it and do so in sundry patterns. El Nino is one such rhythm, and we’ve had about twenty since 1950, mostly dime-ante stuff. Exclusive of the event registered as such a standout by that upper data string above, 17 Ninos have averaged a bit less than 17 cents each. The name derives from baby Christ, because Peruvian fishermen observed the oscillation to appear most frequently in late December. The late nineties event not only piled up nearly forty-cents worth of heat gain in late 1997, the carry over into the new year boosted the Earth’s temperature by an added quarter across 1998. Sixty-four cents. Half of all warming manifesting in the entire century, in one episodic leap. In its most powerful twelve months, running from September of ’97 thru August of ’08, El Nino Grande added, year over year, both a half dollar and a nickel to the Hadley trace.
Back to the big question: Is it fair to future generations, to look for, select, and stand upon that most extraordinary moment, Grande being about a Krakatoah and a half only reversed in sign, and to peer out towards posterity with the inevitable aftermath of such a fleeting, cyclical phenomenon occupying the foreground? For if Apple-lovers count their penny and a half each year, for some periods maybe 3 to 4 cents for decades, and for others near nothing for a few decades, but the Orange-lovers employ a heat spike nearly forty times as large, what can be expected other than that decades might elapse, before enough Apples can be accumulated to match their one Orange? Yet in seven of the most recent twelve months, that is precisely what the globe has done. True, the Earth has not warmed, relative to that absurdly placed challenge of a sudden, forty-fold spurt, but it HAS equaled that mark, and in only fifteen years. Far from a pause, this can only result from an acceleration of the annual heat gain, relative to that of our entire history with warming. Orange-lovers are quite correct, however, that relative to the final couple decades of Century Twenty, the heat gain has diminished—but that gets into cherries, and is a whole other fruit best left for another day.
There is one final comment that cannot wait. Many Orange-lovers have a keen comprehension of the implications for humanity, of attempting to turn its back upon the sundry gifts which are gained with combustion. The intensity of this conviction animates the search through which they found their Orange, their El Nino Grande. To assume that they participate in the dialogue with unfeeling hearts, with non-relevant experiences, or with corrupted minds, or to assume that their concern with humanity either now or in the deep future is in any way of a lesser nature, does both them and the dialogue itself great, great disservice
In the land of the blind, one eye can spread considerable enlightenment. This is, after all, the WSJ opinion space. For those in doubt, the space tends to lean more WUWT than RC. Most typically, it serves as a fountainhead for minimalist and denier propaganda, stuff that is comprised often times, of the ripest, er…nonsense.
Thus, before each camp reflexively deploys its own worn linguistic interpretive conventions upon a new pronouncement from a new voice, in a process now tending ritual, perhaps we might first ask instead: What IS the WSJ doing, inviting a former Caltech provost to its Ed Page to opine on climate science?
So, as to the notion that untrustworthy agenda-driven investigators have contrived to exploit UHI, and other station irregularities, so as to fabricate much of the canonical surface thermometer history? The WSJ now says: no way. This is, note, both McKitrick and Anthony Watt’s prime bugaboo. And, ought we prefer such highly challenged, and oh so human English and American surface assessments, over the unsullied, mechanical trace measuring the planet’s temperature from an uncorrupted mid-troposphere? The WSJ, in Koonin’s voice, is now dispositive: Earth has warmed by 1.4 Fahrenheit, during Century 20. So, there went Drs. Spencer and Christy, under the WSJ bus.
Now for Limbaugh, Senator Inhofe and the gas industry which so shamelessly funds him, asserting of the nation’s most scientifically distinguished minds, that our Academy of Sciences is a collection of morally bereft perpetrators of some insidious fraud. And an utterly mindless “hoax.” The Caltech guy says BS, and the WSJ agrees. And, about lifetime, where Heartland favorite Lord Monckton specifies a “first order” figure of 7, before tempering that to “40 years” (for the full carbon cycle), the WSJ is now yielding measurable ground here again, by permitting Dr, Koonin to assert through its megaphone, that the CO2 persistence is doubtlessly “several centuries.”
Wow. Before we warmists follow Archimedes inspiration, however, abandoning our clothes to run ecstatically naked through the streets shouting “Eureka!”—we perhaps ought contemplate that there might be some Faustian catch to all of this. So, exactly what price might Dr. Koonin have agreed to pay to, The Devil?
A first bit of novelty, is to me unclear. On the notion of uncertainty, it bothers me very much that the breadth of the spectrum of 55 climate models, outlier to outlier, might be utilized as a metric for ANYTHING. And, is the suggestion here, that the compound of multiple runs with 55 models, establishes this “spread”? Similarly, when Koonin asserts a “comparability” between “the impact today of human activity” and “intrinsic natural variability,” we should be careful with reading into these words, respective but vastly differing interpretations. Thus, we warmists might broadly cast an averaging interval, say between 1950 and 2010, so as to claim that cyclical variations might essentially naught-out (e.g., see graphic here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/97-v-3-how-much-global-warming-humans-causing.html ). I seriously doubt Dr. Koonin is denying this inference. But we don’t know. However, notionally, I not only accept his language on this one, but champion it, even if his reference to the ’98 inflection appalls me. By my method of assessment, El Nino Grande represented 1/2 of all warming manifest in the Hadley trace during the Twentieth Century. By his accounting, “0.9 F.” of warmth manifests from 1975 to 2000, of which Grande is 2/3rds. In this sense, this single, ultra-noisy specific example of a natural variation, has been, as Dr. Koonin asserts, fully equivalent to the anthro signal generated across 46 years between, say, 1942 and El Nino Grande. While the physical consequence of this event may have been vanishing within months, as the Pacific plummeted towards La Nina, it has evolved over a decade and two thirds, into the climatologically equivalent of a Mason-Dixon line. At least partially, the science has, to my lights, not invested a sufficient degree of attention to this, perhaps only mundane, but otherwise epic event. If we all got out our spotlights and magnifying glasses, and fastened them simply upon Grande alone, perhaps not only Dr. Koonin, but Misters Gigot, Krauthammer, Stossel, Barone, Kristol, and Will might be moved off of that amazing terrain it supplies them for erecting their “Hiatus/Pause” battlement.
Thus, I take some comfort from the ambiguities. Society faces difficult choices by virtue of the “unsettled” range of the sensitivity goal-posts: 2.7 F. to 8.1 F. Hardly news here, and hardly unsettling. Further, unlike Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Koonin is nowhere asserting, that while Science is uncertain between these limits, he stands apart and KNOWS that the true value is the low one. Thus, on balance, the thermosteric reference aside, the concessions towards minimalist sound bites of language, strike me as comparatively minor. Climate always changes. Antarctic sea ice grows. The Hot Spot evidence is weak. But, the Big Koonin Concession, that the science is insufficiently mature to “usefully” answer the questions being asked of it, far from contrarian claptrap, is straight out of the Standard Portrayal: it was 2.7 to 8.1 F. for 2X CO2 by Charney in 1979, and things are ever so steadily settled upon that state of unsettledness to this day. Thank you, WSJ. Finally, thank the Lord in the highest, Dr. Koonin has addressed a lay audience in Fahrenheit. Nothing to me screams minimalism more, than talking Warming in Kelvin, centigrade or Celsius.
Copying (with editing) from the end of September Unforced Variations:
Since a picture can be worth a thousand words, can anybody point me toward a graphic showing night-time temperatures compared to daytime temperatures? Or even data?
Google Scholar did not seem to find much, except the effect of night-time temperatures on various crops.
As I’ve recently read that Antarctic sea ice has set an all-time record for extent, I’m wondering if this is caused by an increase in precipitation (snow) falling in the region and creating more ice, or possibly squeezing land ice (through some sort of accumulated weight displacement)out into the surrounding ocean. I know a little science, but not enough to understand what is happening in the Antarctic exactly. While I believe this increase is caused by climate change, in my ignorance I struggle to understand how! Please help :)
for AIC, a place to start:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Science%2C+V.+277%2C+July+18%2C+1998+Maximum+and+Minimum+Temperature+Trends+for+the+Globe+
Follow the citing papers forward to see how the science developed over time.
For AIC:
more generally: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=climate+%22nighttime%22+%22daytime%22+temperature
and do the same in ordinary ‘oogle for images
This sums up several papers and data sets:
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/record-warm-nighttime-temperatures-a-closer-look
Re:increased Antarctic ice efflux with increased snowfall
Winkelman(2012) doi:10.1038/nature11616 discusses this, but i do not think this is operating except perhaps spottily. I believe the place to look might be in Dronning Maud land which is one of the few areas where snowfall gain has outpaced mass waste.
Re:Antarctic sea ice growth
I have been mulling over this. The picture i have is that basal melt of Antarctic ice at ocean margins ice 1) creates fresh water which spreads north, refreezes and melts in later years 2)basal melt accelerates ice flow inland by thinning ice shelves.
So the ocean melts the base, sucks out ice from the interior by accelerating flow, moves the melted ice north where it refreezes but can be melted at leisure, in the process recapturing the heat donated to cause basal melt in the first place …
sidd
Kevin (#4),
Doesn’t that put the lie to Victor’s claim that no CCS scaled demos exist? Seems like he is a little out of touch in that other thread.
Vukcevic(#6),
Could you explain what a 1ms oscillation in the lenght of the day has to do with climate science?
How certain are we about the longer-term (before 5kyr) proxy record for methane? I was browsing the peer-reviewed literature on the subject and what I have found so far does not seem very reassuring and (IMHO) still leaves huge questions unanswered.
The Climategate website is up for sale!
Henk says: 6 Oct 2014 at 5:16 AM
Vukcevic(#6), Could you explain what a 1ms oscillation in the lenght of the day has to do with climate science?
Greetings Henk
Thanks for the note.
Winds velocity is a factor of atmospheric pressure and surface (land and ocean) temperatures. Changes from zonal to merdional polar jet stream will directly affect ‘length-of-day’ – LOD.
Faster westerly winds will slow down the solid Earth rotation.
Some other climate causes:
– accumulation and melting of ice
– Equatorial sea level rise
– South east Asian monsoon decadal variability
etc
If the LOD changes are synchronised with the solar magnetic cycle, if not a simple coincidence, then there is strong likelihood that the solar activity modulates some of the above climate events, i.e. it is partial cause of their natural variability.
I hope that is of some help, however there are other online papers associating LOD with climate parameters.
regards, m.v.
Gavin and David, you have damaged your reputations by continuing to attack Shakhova, Semilitov, and other Arctic researchers. As Shakhova says in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVi1lotRLRU&feature=youtu.be
“They are talking about things they know nothing about”.
There is a firestorm on climate newsgroups that I frequent, and personal charges have been raised, which don’t need to be repeated here.
My puzzlement is that by presenting pie charts and models based on recent GHG emissions, you ignore feedbacks and exponential growth of methane emissions driven by Arctic melting. You defend these claims by stating that models should govern observations, while everything I learned in science classes said the precise opposite.
We would give your refutations credibility, Gavin, if you visited the Arctic, and engaged the researchers personally with questions. Since neither of these actions is apparent, your stubborn stance here troubling, to say the least.
[Response: Oh please. I have not ‘attacked’ anybody. Nor have I excluded them from meetings, tweeted disrespectfully or in any other way behaved unprofessionally. Rather, I have examined the basis for a single scenario that they have put forward for future changes in methane emissions which I (and many others) do not find convincing. Misrepresentations, strawman arguments and false accusations should be playing no role in any of this, and the continued use of these tactics really only underlines the un-seriousness of this whole discussion. Please continue to be ‘troubled’ by my ‘stubborn’ insistence that people actual provide evidence for their extrapolations. – gavin]
“Doesn’t that put the lie to Victor’s claim that no CCS scaled demos exist? Seems like he is a little out of touch in that other thread.”
– See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/10/unforced-variations-oct-2014/comment-page-1/#comment-606658
Well, technically, yes–but they only cut the ribbon last Thursday, so I think Victor should get a little slack for not knowing the thing was actually online. So now there is exactly *1* scaled demo; according to the story, it is viable due in part to specific circumstances (local coal supply, fairly local oil field buying the CO2 they produce.)
Kevin (#22),
With over a dozen operational pilot plants http://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/index_pilots.html and a couple more full scale plants already under construction, http://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/index_capture.html it seems as though Victor is just squirming. That tech does not come into play for negative emissions until 2060 or so in the RCP he is complaining about so it just seems like he is blowing smoke to me.
Without having the background or motivation necessary to choose between all the estimates of TCR and ECS, nor the desire to delve into how a new estimate that falls entirely within the range of the old estimates can be a “game-changer”, I was most interested in the fact that the darling of the climate denier set, Judith Curry, obviously has to be counted among the famous 97% consensus. Whether the ECS is 1° or 4°, the climate will warm due to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Assuming that Curry does not deny that the CO2 level has climbed dramatically over the last 100+ years or that this is driven by human emissions, she must be advocating that human activity is warming the planet.
Whether the new work is sloppy or brilliant, this is just another paper published in a prestigious journal supporting the reality of AGW. The only thing really noteworthy here is the author.
Racketeer,
Far be it from me to defend Dr. Curry – she can handle herself.
But let me point out that the globe has been warming since the Little Ice Age.
Significant increase in human emissions began circa 1950.
[Response: Not so. Emissions and deforestation have been significant since at least the late 19th C, maybe even much longer. – gavin]
Until we can figure out why the increase in the first half of the twentieth century (with little human input) was indistinguishable from the increase in the second half with major emissions your conclusion does not follow.
#23–Kemper, which I believe is the only other CCS plant that is close to completion, is an interesting case. It’s double the original budget, and way behind schedule (currently to open next May–we’ll see about that.) Not a happy experience so far, but maybe they will get it working.
https://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/kemper.html
The recent articals about how we underestimated the amount of warming that was held by the oceans dose that mean the oceans will shut down like what this climatolist says or is he uncreditable: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/09/24/MSNBC-Guest-Global-Warming-to-Cause-the-Oceans-to-Shut-Down-in-20-Years
[Response: I have no idea what he’s talking about. Neither the website nor the speaker are reliable sources. – gavin]
Re: Mr. Mashey’s comment of 6th Oct 2014, 4:09 PM on the thread
“Climate-response estimates from Lewis and Curry”
Is it the case that img src tags are now allowed ?
[Response: No. But they can be edited in after a comment is posted if its useful. – gavin]
ifso i hope someone is scanning the images for malicious payload
sidd
Vukcevic (#20)
A rough calculation of the change in the rotational energy of the atmosphere caused by this 1ms oscillation in 20 yrs gives an order of magnitude of 10^15 J/yr. The change in solar energy supply caused by the 11 jr solar cyclic change in TSI (1 in 1365 W/m2) is in the order of magnitude of 10^21 J/yr.
Comparing these two numbers shows that the effect of this LOD-oscillation on climate may be ignored compared to that of the TSI oscillation, which in turn is small compared to the radiative forcing of increasing amounts of CO2.
Vukcevic (#20)
A rough calculation shows that the change of rotational energy of the atmosphere caused by a 1ms LOD-oscillation in 20 yrs is in the order of magnitude of 10^15 J/yr.
The change in solar energy input caused by the TSI oscillation in the solar cycle (about 1 in 1365 W/m2) is about 10^21 J/yr. The LOD-oscillation is thus negligible.
Thank you, Hank.
Henk says: 7 Oct 2014 at 2:02 AM
the effect of this LOD-oscillation on climate may be ignored compared to that of the TSI oscillation –
Hi Henk
Obviously you did not read the paper.
You got that wrong way around.
It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation !
You could start with the JPL-NASA article
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110309.html
Dr. Dickey (JPL-NASA) is the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics.
Regards
m.v.
Kevin (#26),
Well this what Victor has to say at dotearth: ” In particular, these models love a technology called “bioenergy carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS)” because it has negative emissions—you grow biomass, harvest it and burn it for electricity, and then store the pollution underground. Voila. The models love this—especially when the models are told to meet a very aggressive and difficult constraint like stopping warming at a concentration such as 450 ppm which has a decent change of stopping warming at 2 degrees. Facing that constraint, the models pour money into BECCS on the assumption that costs will go down and then, as costs come down, the technology is assumed to spread rapidly and ubiquitously. Indeed, the models that are responsible for essentially all of the 450 ppm scenarios rely massively on BECCS.
Yet, in the real world, there are zero BECCS plants in existence today and no sane firm is planning any serious investment in the technology because of the terrifying costs and regulatory risks.”
So does that not feel like special pleading? Biomass already has substantial use in electricity generation http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01_a and CCS is certainly well enough underway that combining the two in 2060 does not seem like any kind of stretch. The DEMO fusion project is expected to have 20 years of operational experience by then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO And neither of those seem like the actual technology that will be in use considering how cheap wind and solar are becoming. Post AR5 studies such as the Deep Decarbonization Pathways are looking at electrically synthesized hydrocarbon fuels which skip the biomass step and have no competition at all with other agriculture. And, ultimately, with such cheap abundant energy, why even bother with CO2 sequestration? Synthesizing graphite blocks and leaving them lying around may be the way we go.
Everything seems to go the other way and it is much more likely that the IPCC has overestimated the cost of keeping below 2 C warming. Victor seems to be raving on this topic.
How they’re reporting it:
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Science-US-climate-oceans/2014/10/06/id/598864/
“The deep ocean may not be hiding heat after all, raising new questions about why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years, said the US space agency Monday.
Scientists have noticed that while greenhouse gases have continued to mount in the first part of the 21st century, global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising along with them, said NASA.”
Re Wes, regarding Antarctic sea ice extent,
Why is Antarctic sea ice expanding? http://climatestate.com/2014/07/08/why-is-antarctic-sea-ice-expanding/
Hi I have one more question, with the ocean heating I’m see 2 different contradicting reports (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006094511.htm) and (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006101043.htm) which is the correct report and can we expect a response about this on this website?
Can we expect a response to this on the website. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html#.VDQatni9LCS
vukcevic @32.
Why do you assert “It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation !” and then link to a reference that says “Since scientists know air temperature can’t affect movements of Earth’s core or Earth’s length of day to the extent observed…” as support for your assertion? That reference surelt does the exact opposite.
And I would add that while Dr Dickey whom you call “the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics,” is quoted in that reference saying ” for the past 160 years, decadal and longer-period changes in atmospheric temperature correspond to changes in Earth’s length of day if we remove the very significant effect of atmospheric warming attributed to the buildup of greenhouse gases due to mankind’s enterprise,” it is also true that the LOD-temperature correspondence does go a little awry prior to that 160 year period. Well, I assume it goes awry. If it is maintained, LOD back in the 1600s (here upside down to the Dickey graph in the reference) points to a ‘bumper hot age’ rather than a ‘little ice age.’
MARodger says: 7 Oct 2014 at 1:43 PM
….
Hi Mr. Rodger
Thanks for your astute observations.
it is also true that the LOD-temperature correspondence does go a little awry prior to that 160 year period.
I doubt that 160 years ago global temperatures or clocks were accurate to the degree graph would suggest
That reference surelt does the exact opposite….while Dr Dickey whom you call “the world’s foremost expert on the geo-dynamics,”
Indeed she is, but that doesn’t make her always correct, even less myself.
Paper, if you make an effort to read it, brings to your and others’ attention something that you may have not known before. For those interested in science, I have given an easy opportunity to reproduce the results, and learn more by studding the phenomenon themselves, expanding the knowledge horizons by doing so.
There I shall leave. With the best regards to all.
@Political Junkie #25:
I think you missed my point on Dr. Curry’s paper. Regardless of the recent history of Earth’s temperature, the values for ECS and TCR presented in her paper are decidedly positive. While other forcings no doubt influence the Earth’s temperature, if TCR and ECS for CO2 emissions is positive, then increasing CO2 in the atmosphere MUST warm the planet compared to what the average temperature would be in the absence of this increased CO2 level. Even using the lowest end of the ranges determined in this paper, the increase from 280 to 400ppm has to have caused some portion of the warming seen over the last century. I am not very familiar with Curry’s actual position with respect to AGW, but I know she is held up as a contrarian on the question of human influence on climate. Whatever nuances she might have on her position, her paper clearly shows that human GHG emissions are (must be) warming the planet.
1)ocean heating papers: The Durack and Llovel cover different time periods and depth ranges, and are not directly comparable. There is no discrepancy between them.
2)Antarctic sea ice increase: this is worrying. A freshwater cap is forming above the warmer waters beneath. This cap freezes easier in winter with less brine production than previously generated, and the ice formed insulates the warmer layers beneath; the heat instead goes into basal melt of ice, which thickens the freshwater cap. Decreased brine production decreases bottom water production, increasing heat available to melt ice base. Golledge(2014) doi:10.1038/ncomms6107 finds similar behaviour during MWP1A, although estimated freshwater flux required to suppress bottom water formation is about tenfold the efflux estimated for today from Antarctic ice sheet. However, with the hefty increases observed in mass waste rate, i fear we are not too far away. I note that the agreement between Golledge(2014) and the icerafted debris results from Weber(2014) doi:10.1038/nature13397 is striking.
sidd
Miami Florida is investing a lot of tax payer dollars to mitigate damage caused by high tides. They plan to spend $500million over 5 years on massive pump systems.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article2541332.html
#33–Well, with a little more digging, I have to say that I think you are right. For instance, this BECSS venture in Kansas:
http://decarboni.se/publications/global-status-beccs-projects-2010/2-liberal-kansas-booker-area-texas-united-states
Running since 2009, and “a commercial venture rather than a research project… operating on a long term, larger scale.” Of course, it’s profitable because it’s doing EOR (enhanced oil recovery), which I for one don’t regard as a Good Thing. And it’s not the only one:
http://decarboni.se/publications/global-status-beccs-projects-2010/4-beccs-projects
http://biorecro.com/?page=beccs_projects
raypierre @ 7:
It would be a disservice to quote any of your article in Slate without all of it:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/the_wall_street_journal_and_steve_koonin_the_new_face_of_climate_change.html
Thank you for posting these paleo graphics:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/PrinciplesPlanetaryClimate/LectureGraphics/Ch1/ColorPaleomaps.pdf
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/PrinciplesPlanetaryClimate/LectureGraphics/Ch1/Li2008Fig9.pdf
I think they are memes whose time has come, for this era and these times.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/PrinciplesPlanetaryClimate/LectureGraphics/LectureGraphics.html
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/PrinciplesPlanetaryClimate/index.html
Oh, and one more: “Settled Enough.”
vukcevic @39.
I would agree that our ancestors were not blessed (or perhaps cursed) with time-pieces that measured milliseconds or even seconds with any accuracy, but they were blessed with a time-piece with excellent callibration – the sky. And, while you may “doubt that 160 years ago global temperatures or clocks were accurate to the degree graph would suggest,” those that created that graph obviously thought otherwise.
LOD may be measured in milliseconds but when this is converted into the accumulative time variation delta-T, just a single millisecond LOD becomes seconds within a decade and becomes greater than a minute in a couple of centuries.
That graph I linked @38 was provided by the Paris Observatory which sources their pre-1955 data from Stephenson & Morrison (1984) (prieview here & accessable in-full with free registration). Stephenson & Morrison examine available astronomical data BC700-AD1980 but the graph only goes back to the start of the telescope era.
You will note that the pre-1955 LOD data the graph plots has the same source as the data used in your thesis. Had I been using such data, I think I would have examined its provience and so would have read Stephenson & Mirrison (1994) to provide me with an understanding of the accuracy of the data I was using. And also the implications as well as the accuracy of the data I wasn’t using.
#11 AIC
What follows may interest you:
Recent geographic convergence in diurnal and annual temperature cycling flattens global thermal profiles
An analysis of a high-resolution global temperature data set shows that temperate and polar regions are becoming more tropical in their temperature variation profiles, potentially affecting organisms and impacting human agriculture and health.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2378.html
#12 Wes
Have you seen:
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/qa-what-is-happening-with-antarctic-sea-ice/#.VDUdJhy7KjQ ?
#32 vukcevic
“It is the change in the climate parameters (driven by the incoming solar energy) that causes change in the rate of rotation ! ”
Not necesary to read any paper to know there is influence both ways.
F.e., Earth is slowing down because of tidal effects, mainly related to the Moon. That is changing climate too (very very slowly though)
Kevin (#43),
Nice work. The one in Decatur should please you better. http://decarboni.se/publications/global-status-beccs-projects-2010/5-decatur-illinois-united-states
And what a beautiful solution to capturing carbon dioxide in a pure stream. The carbon dioxide from fermentation only needs to be dried, no need to remove nitrogen. It costs hardly any energy at all. This should carry over to some cellulosic production as well.
It looks as though Victor is engaged in wishful thinking in support of a pet theory.
I’ve been wondering, as the electrically synthesized hydrocarbon fuel concept gains traction, what to do with the pure oxygen stream that is a byproduct of that method. Clearly, firing biomass electricity with that makes carbon capture easier. The atomic accounting goes like this: 1) 4H2O->4H2+2O2, 2) 4H2+CO2->2H2O+CH4 so we’ve got 2O2 and one CH4 to use. Use the CH4 in a fuel cell to get a pure stream of CO2 and 2H2O with the CO2 returned to reaction 2. But, we still have 2O2 left. If that is used for biomass combustion, then that leads to 2CO2 of sufficient purity for sequestration.
So, it looks like, over a century or so, any concentration target you like could be achieved. I vote for 240 ppm to bring new life to the Sahara and improve the Winter Olympics generally. Spain, for example, has never held a Winter Olympics.
What is the politically ideal target atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration? I want to suggest 240 ppm.
The benefits are: it rewards Spain for taking early action with a winter sports tourist industry. It punishes Russia and Canada for going rogue on climate commitments. It brings new glacial resources to China and India to bring them on board, and it fixes the North-South divide by bringing new arable lands to Africa. It creates a coastal real estate boom along the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Seaboard of the US, the taxes on which could probably pay for all the sequestration needed to achieve the target concentration. And, it brings peace to the Middle East.
World Peace while sticking a finger each in the eyes of the icy-hearted Putin and Harper…. What could be better?