Absolutely nothing of consequence happening today in climate news. Can’t think of what people could discuss…
Reader Interactions
251 Responses to "Unforced Variations: June 2017"
Thomassays
88 B Paul L: “Seriously, how naive are you?”
Compared to who? What’s the yardstick? What’s the Baseline?
Vendicar Decariansays
“what’s the probability that the US goods and services will be subject to boycotts” – KS
100%. I am boycotting all American made goods, and services.
Thomassays
86 Hmm
Lastly, Edenhofer says this, “The book contains a parable: A group of hikers, who represent the world community, walks through a desert. The industrialized nations drink half of the water and then say generously: ‘Let us share the rest.’ The others reply: ‘This is not possible; you have already drunk half of the water. Let us talk first about your historical responsibility.’ I think if we are arguing about the water supply because we cannot agree on the ethical principles, then we will die of thirst. What we need to look for is an oasis that is the non-carbon global economy. It’s about the common departure for this oasis.”
I love ethical parables.
200 begin a 100 day walk towards the Nirvana Oasis.
After 90 days the 200 discover that 20+ of that 200 are fit and healthy. Most are over weight and fat while the rest are weary and very thin.
That 20+ had help all the weapons and had been controlling 90% of all the water and food on the sole self-declared basis they were more powerful, more intelligent, more ethical, and morally far superior to the other 180.
But that 20+ in the last 90 days have in fact eaten all the best food every day, slept in the very best tents, and have drunk or irresponsibly wasted 90% of all the Water all by themselves.
That 20+ are obese with a high bodily water nutrient rich content and posses all the benefits of their over irresponsible careless over-indulgence.
The 180 have been living very frugally and have no bodily reserves.
The only fair, equitable, and ethical for the 20+ to keep walking the next 10 days with no food and no water until such times that they loose their excess weight (and thus their own bodily water reserves) and until any of them become so weak that death is imminent before they are given a minimum supply of food or water.
The is only fair, equitable, and ethical for the 180 to be able to have total access and use the remaining 10% of the food and water and technology owned by the 20+ in order to sustain them until all the 200 reach the Nirvana Oasis.
People that are irresponsible, wasteful, greedy, selfish and stolen the Water from others should never benefit nor be advantaged by their immorality over those who have NOT been unethical, immoral or self-indulgent.
Maybe it’s time to stop moralizing and falling into the trap the other guys keep setting, and acknowledge that the existing “world economic order” is what we have to work with. We can exert leverage to steer it in the best direction for future generations, which is what the “evil moderates” keep trying to do, with no help from the neo-hippie wing. There is no Nirvana Solution; that’s why we call it a fallacy.
“we investigate the dynamics between gas hydrate stability and environmental changes from the height of the last glaciation through to the present day…
we find that incursions of warm Atlantic bottom water forced rapid gas hydrate dissociation and enhanced methane emissions during the penultimate Heinrich event, the Bølling and Allerød interstadials, and the Holocene optimum. Our results highlight the complex interplay between the cryosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere over the last 30,000 y that led to extensive changes in subseafloor carbon storage that forced distinct episodes of methane release due to natural climate variability well before recent anthropogenic warming.”
Some will point out (correctly, I think) that a lot of sub-Arctic methane release may get broken down in the water column. But it is important to remember that breakdown of methane in water column will release carbon dioxide into the oceans and atmosphere.
May CO2
May 2017: 409.65 ppm
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
Dr. Mann said in 2014 that we need to keep the CO2 under 405 ppm. Uh-oh.
Warm regards
Mike
generic commentersays
I want to revisit communicating to the public about how thick the atmosphere is. But it gets sparse, at the top. So, is there some single metric for atmospheric thickness, that atmospheric scientists use, or could use, that would give a rough impression to an audience, so they don’t go away from you still holding the assumption that it’s 1000 times thicker than that?
For example – at what height would 90% of the atmospheric molecules be below you? Which gas molecule would you choose to use, for this “x% will be at this height or below” metric? And am I making any sense in my effort to ask about this?
We can re-plot the graph with different datasets, and all the global surface data show the same pattern to some extent. IN particular the HADCRUT4 global mean shows close concordance of the global and sea surface temps, with a divergence again beginning in 1980, and showing clearly in the sawtooth period 2000-2008. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/mean:12/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:12/from:1880
What is the explanation for this pattern? Is the land heating more quickly than the sea surface for some reason, or is the transfer of warm water to deeper layers speeding up?
You may be wanting to say that there are other options, which I don’t think is true in the real world, but you are choosing the wrong claim of a fallacy.
The distinction is clear between inefficient, polluting, extractivism, and relying on technology in which the use of natural resources is optimized (because batteries and wind turbines and so on can be recycled with relatively low loss rates.)
No contest.
Killiansays
Re #53 Ideology Driveler said Share? Cooperate? I’d burn it all down first! Let them eat cake! Jeeves, open the bunker – and keep the cake-eaters out!
The jokes on Driveler (or who.ever they are quoting): A welfare state would be as co sumptive as the current form of Capitalism, or enough so that it’s irrelevant which you choose. Simplicity has no state nor State. It can’t because top-down management cannot allocate resources rationally because.it cannot adequately track what need lies where.
Toddler dies from possible tick bite: ‘It happened so fast and we couldn’t do anything about it’
Relevant paragraph.
“The Indiana Department of Health says only five cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever have been reported in the state over the past five years, but because of the warm winter, experts are warning Hoosiers that this year could be an especially bad year for ticks.”
Killiansays
Re #105 zebra said It’s the Koch boys or Elon Musk. Your choice. AKA I give up! We’re all gonna die!
At 16 km, 90% of the mass of the atmosphere is below you. Pressure is 10% of sea-level.
Digby Scorgiesays
I have been puzzled for some time by one aspect of sea-level rise. I know that meltwater from glaciers and ice caps on land contribute to SLR, whereas melting sea ice and floating ice shelves do not. But what is the case regarding ice shelves grounded on the sea bed? Can anyone help?
But if CO2 levels were driving BOTH atmospheric AND oceanic temps, we would not expect such close coordination between the two. We’d be seeing a significant delay as the increased CO2 levels gradually made their way from the air to the sea. Must be some other driver, I’d imagine. :-)
Thomassays
115 zebra: which I don’t (think) BELIEVE is true in the real world”
Why do you BELIEVE that you’re world view/knowledge base is the one connected to the “real world”?
Richard Lawson @111,
If you plot out the difference between HadSST3 and HadCRUT4, you see that prior to 1895 the SST anomaly was tracking at an almost constant difference from the global figure, being roughly 0.04ºC cooler. At this point the SST anomaly quickly begins to track warmer than Global, roughly +0.02ºC warmer but from 1900 to 1940 this difference drops back and 1950-70 the SST anomaly is again tracking roughly 0.04ºC cooler. It is from 1970 that the land and ocean temperatures begin to warm at different rates, with the Global anomaly rising roughly 0.05ºC/decade quicker than the SST anomaly.
You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.
Attributing the 1900-1940 changes in this SST/Global anomaly difference, you need to be wary of the increasing uncertainty in the SST & Global temperature anomalies for earlier parts of the temperature record.
If you are asking about the interannual wobbles in temperature (for instance 2000-08), the big factor behind these wobbles is ENSO with volcanoes also bringing the occasional cooler period. This graphic (usually 2 cicks to ‘download your attachment’) attempts to illustrate these wobbles and their causes.
Chris Ho-Stuartsays
Richard #111: My understanding on the difference between land and sea is that water (deep water in particular) has a massive capacity to absorb heat energy.
Water takes a long time to heat up. The land has a much smaller capacity, and so heats up (or cools down) quite quickly. (This is why you get much smaller day/night temperature differences at sea than inland.) This means that while Earth is heating up from an enhanced greenhouse effect, we should expect the land to heat up faster than the ocean. I would expect this to reverse in time, when we (eventually) come to energy balance again (time scale probably in centuries). Eventually I would expect a time when Earth is an approximate energy balance again as the greenhouse effect stabilizes and CO2 (in particular) is slowly flushing out of the atmosphere again. I expect this period to be marked by the ocean continuing to heat up slowly, as the land reverses again and starts to cool down slowly. (Though I’ll defer to more knowledgeable comments or good numeric modeling of the heat flows involved.)
Victor #121: CO2 is certainly driving both atmospheric and ocean temperatures; by virtue of atmospheric CO2 levels. CO2 in the ocean has no effect for heating. The difference in rate is simply to do with the physics of heat capacity and heat flow. Both are heated by the same enhanced greenhouse effect from atmospheric greenhouse gases, CO2 in particular.
David B. Bensonsays
Digby Scorgie @120 — By definition, ice shelves float. There are glaciers grounded below sea level as well as parts of at least the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. When these melt at a minimum the portion of the ice above sea level contributes to sea level rise. That portion below sea level just fills the basin, to first approximation.
This graphic (usually 2 cicks to ‘download your attachment’) attempts to illustrate these wobbles and their causes.
Beg pardon, MAR: are you the source of that graphic? AFAICT it’s otherwise unattributed. TIA.
Victorsays
Regardless of how the heat is transmitted from the atmosphere to the oceans, there would have to be a time lag, no? And yet most of the graph shows them moving in tandem.
As MARodger writes: “You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.” As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? So how is it possible for them to respond concurrently?
Victor (@129): He’s graphing sea SURFACE temperatures. There is relatively little lag between the atmosphere SST, as it is in more direct contact with the atmosphere. If it had been deep ocean then you (and I don’t think I’ve had to say this before) would have been right. You’re just gonna have to find some other justification for your willful disregard of the conclusions climate science.
Chris Ho-Stuartsays
Victor, there is not a time lag in the initiation of response. Why would there be? It’s just that water responds more slowly than land… that is, at a lower rate. NOT a longer lead time. The reasons are pretty basic physics, and it’s exactly what you see in the graph.
Also, oceans are heated from the Sun. Not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is colder than the ocean, so really, it’s the ocean (and land) that heats the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect means that heat gets from the surface (land or ocean) less efficiently. You can describe that in lots of ways… including, of course, quantifying radiation from the atmosphere to the surface. But there’s a much more radiation going in the opposite direction, from surface to atmosphere, so in terms of net heat flow, surface heats atmosphere. There’s no additional delay over water compared with land.
JCHsays
One – in general, energy, sunlight, passes through the atmosphere and enters the oceans. Most of it is absorbed in close proximity to the SST layer. (Do you understand that the oceans are layered?) Similar thing for land… sunlight passes through the atmosphere and it is absorbed by the land surface. So that the SST and land show similar wiggles is not, to me anyway, surprising.
CO2 comes into the discussion as that energy eventually finds its way back to space
Two – in the graph to which you linked GISS land and HadCrut SST diverge around 1980, but continue have similar wiggles. Just a hunch, but I suspect that is being caused by a combination of the cooling of the Eastern Pacific SST that took place from around 1980 until around 2015 and the progressively increasing enhanced GHE that also took place over that same period (more ocean evaporation; more land warming.)
As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? … I suspect the answer for the SST layer would be very different than for 700 meters to 2000 meters, and different again for below 2000 meters.
spilgardsays
Re 129:
Note the ocean data source: global sea surface temperature
The temperature lag between atmosphere and water in the upper few meters of the ocean is on the order of a few days.
Nuggets from wikipedia regarding Sea Surface Temperature:
“Sea surface temperature (SST) is the water temperature close to the ocean’s surface. The exact meaning of surface varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface.”
…
“The temperature of the ocean at depth lags the Earth’s atmosphere temperature by 15 days per 10 metres (33 ft) …”
Mr. Know It Allsays
So many questions:
Is CO2 distributed evenly throughout the atmosphere? Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far? If it only goes up so far, what are the gases in the higher regions of the atmosphere?
Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?
If the atmosphere is warming, by what amount, if any, is radiation from the earth to space increasing?
When scientists model radiation from the earth atmosphere to space, what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet? On the sunlit side?
About 49% of the radiation from the sun is infrared. If so, why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere – or maybe it does? If it does reduce incoming infrared radiation, by what amount does it reduce it? Do greenhouse gases reduce, even a little bit, the higher frequencies?
Digby Scorgiesays
David B. Benson @125
Okay, so if a part of an ice cap (or glacier) is grounded on the sea bed (below sea level) that part is not defined as an ice shelf. Did I understand that correctly?
Given the above, it makes sense to me that, to a first approximation, the part below sea level does not contribute to SLR on melting, whereas the part above sea level does. The crucial point is that the ice has to be grounded on the sea bed. I hope I got that right.
V 129: As MARodger writes: “You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.” As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? So how is it possible for them to respond concurrently?
BPL: The deep ocean waters are still at 277 K. It’s the surface waters which are heating up.
Victor the Troll @129.
You are well known here for suffering greatly from wanton ignorance and only seeing what you want to see, so this is a simple response to your enquiry.
You ask why “most of the graphs” show a concurrent reponse? Why do they move “in tandem” when the inertia caused by ocean heat capacity is in your understanding “decadal” in nature?
One reason for this is because “most of the graphs,” indeed I believe all fo the graphs presented within this thread, are comparing global temperature anomalies with SST anomalies and two-thirds of the globe is ocean. Thus SST anomolies contribute two-thirds of the data used to compile the global temperature anomalies.
Additionally, the SST is, of course, the temerature of the sea surface. It is in contact with the atmosphere and with the oceans beneath. The oceans beneath delay the warming of the surface waters due to thermal inertia. This delay is probably best described as multi-decadal. But the ocean surface is also in contact with the atmosphere which exhibits very large wobbles. These SAT wobbles are big enough to show up in a diminshed form within the SST anomalies at a monthly and annual level. So we find monthly TLT data above ocean is showing 70% of the variation (ie s.d. of ΔRSS monthly TLT) found in the data above land and a linear correlation of ~10%. The SST is more damped than the ocean-air above and thus exhibits less wobbliness (ie s.d. of NOAA monthly global ΔSST data is only 15% as wobbly as the land ΔSAT data) and the linear correlation is only just statistically significant. But the accumulative effect of these SAT wobbles on SST (& visa versa) at an annual level are evident in the relative levels of wobbliness being more closely matched than in the monthly data (ie s.d. of NOAA annual global ΔSST data is 40% as wobbly as the land ΔSAT) and the linear correlation rising to 15%.
Thus, as well as the SST & global anomalies comparison comparing data that is not independent because the global data comprises two-thirds the SST data, the correlations of the wobbles in the other one-third of the global values are also quite strongly coupled with SST wobbles. The multi-decadal nature of the thermal inertia of the ocean depths is not significant to these short-term phenomena.
don’t feed the trolls. It wastes our energy. There is an infinite time lag between presentation of facts/evidence and trolls acceptance of same. Trolls use most of their energy moving goalposts and have zero energy to spare for gaining knowledge.
just sayin… how about those ice-sheets and glaciers?
CO2? falling like a rock?
Weekly value from May 28, 2017 409.52 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 407.62 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 386.92 ppm
KIA 134: Is CO2 distributed evenly throughout the atmosphere? Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far? If it only goes up so far, what are the gases in the higher regions of the atmosphere?
BPL: CO2 is well-mixed by turbulence throughout the troposphere and stratosphere, which together account for more than 99% of the mass of the atmosphere.
KIA: Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?
BPL: Sure. As the troposphere warms, the stratosphere cools.
KIA: If the atmosphere is warming, by what amount, if any, is radiation from the earth to space increasing?
BPL: It’s decreasing. The Earth has to warm up to compensate.
KIA: When scientists model radiation from the earth atmosphere to space, what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet? On the sunlit side?
BPL: Don’t know offhand. The global mean is 255 K at the top of the atmosphere (so to speak).
KIA: About 49% of the radiation from the sun is infrared. If so, why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere – or maybe it does?
BPL: Sure, it absorbs it. As do water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.
KIA: If it does reduce incoming infrared radiation, by what amount does it reduce it? Do greenhouse gases reduce, even a little bit, the higher frequencies?
BPL: They absorb it, but since that heats them, it heats the ground as well.
Again I repeat my offer to give you a short course in how planet surface temperatures are determined. It’s an honest offer, if you’re interested. It covers a lot of this kind of material.
Thomassays
#134 KIA. Give it up. Have you no self-respect at all?
Thomassays
#131 in response to Victor “..it’s the ocean (and land) that heats the atmosphere.”
That’s so funny. AGW:101 It reminded me of a chap back in the 2000s who asked on a forum about a agw/cc article: “But have the climate scientists considered the Sun?”
I smiled. Because it reminded me of the naive curiosity of 3-6 yr old children asking endless questions. One doesn’t (or shouldn’t) get angry at them but maintain an endless degree of patience.
Unfortunately there are many adults in this world who assume that knowledge, wisdom and maturity is a simple linear component of one’s age. Yet become offended and increasingly indignant when others point out, objectively, that they are really behaving like little children and way out of their depth.
C’est la Vie!
Victorsays
#139 MARodger: “You are well known here for suffering greatly from wanton ignorance and only seeing what you want to see, so this is a simple response to your enquiry.”
What I “want to see” are interpretations of the data that make sense. Much of what I usually see on this blog fails to meet that criterion. In this case, however, I must say that what I was able to understand of your “simple” explanation does seem to make some sense. So, thank you, MA.
The Chinese Global Warming plot against America started in 1911.
Scott Nuddssays
134 – “Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far?”
Does the salt sink to the bottom of the ocean?
If so, then why is the ocean bottom not covered in a layer of salt? If not, then why isn’t it coated in a layer of salt.
Scott Nuddssays
134 – “Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?”
The upper atmosphere is actually cooling due to a change in the spectra of exiting long wave radiation and the expansion of the atmosphere due to heating.
Scott Nuddssays
134 – “what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet?”
“space” has no temperature since by definition “space” contains no matter.
However Space does contain remnant energy from the Big Bang, and it’s temperature is essentially uniform from all directions in space at a temperature of around 2.7’K
You just asked, “You have a box of nothing. What is it’s temperature?”
134 -“why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere”
It does of course.
But just as the upper atmosphere is largely tansmissive to outgoing IR, it is also transmissive to incoming IR.
Where there is absorption is in the lower atmosphere.
About 35 watts per square meter of IR is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Google Global Warming Flux to find multiple descriptions and depictions of the incoming and outgoing energy flux for the earth’s surface and atmosphere.
David B. Bensonsays
Digby Scorgie @135 — Yes, you have all of that correct.
88 B Paul L: “Seriously, how naive are you?”
Compared to who? What’s the yardstick? What’s the Baseline?
“what’s the probability that the US goods and services will be subject to boycotts” – KS
100%. I am boycotting all American made goods, and services.
86 Hmm
Lastly, Edenhofer says this, “The book contains a parable: A group of hikers, who represent the world community, walks through a desert. The industrialized nations drink half of the water and then say generously: ‘Let us share the rest.’ The others reply: ‘This is not possible; you have already drunk half of the water. Let us talk first about your historical responsibility.’ I think if we are arguing about the water supply because we cannot agree on the ethical principles, then we will die of thirst. What we need to look for is an oasis that is the non-carbon global economy. It’s about the common departure for this oasis.”
I love ethical parables.
200 begin a 100 day walk towards the Nirvana Oasis.
After 90 days the 200 discover that 20+ of that 200 are fit and healthy. Most are over weight and fat while the rest are weary and very thin.
That 20+ had help all the weapons and had been controlling 90% of all the water and food on the sole self-declared basis they were more powerful, more intelligent, more ethical, and morally far superior to the other 180.
But that 20+ in the last 90 days have in fact eaten all the best food every day, slept in the very best tents, and have drunk or irresponsibly wasted 90% of all the Water all by themselves.
That 20+ are obese with a high bodily water nutrient rich content and posses all the benefits of their over irresponsible careless over-indulgence.
The 180 have been living very frugally and have no bodily reserves.
The only fair, equitable, and ethical for the 20+ to keep walking the next 10 days with no food and no water until such times that they loose their excess weight (and thus their own bodily water reserves) and until any of them become so weak that death is imminent before they are given a minimum supply of food or water.
The is only fair, equitable, and ethical for the 180 to be able to have total access and use the remaining 10% of the food and water and technology owned by the 20+ in order to sustain them until all the 200 reach the Nirvana Oasis.
People that are irresponsible, wasteful, greedy, selfish and stolen the Water from others should never benefit nor be advantaged by their immorality over those who have NOT been unethical, immoral or self-indulgent.
(smile)
Reason is 98% Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & Cultural Narratives and Parables
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm0R1du1GqA
Very weird co-incidence!
Sometimes, the lost desert wanderer does stumble into an oasis, replete with proverbial date palms and life-saving waters. Most visions, though, turn out to be mirages.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/adanis-green-light-on-carmichael-coal-mine-more-a-mirage-than-reality-20170606-gwlc16.html
Please see my comment at #66,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/business/energy-environment/china-clean-energy-coal-pollution.html?hp
Just sayin’.
Maybe it’s time to stop moralizing and falling into the trap the other guys keep setting, and acknowledge that the existing “world economic order” is what we have to work with. We can exert leverage to steer it in the best direction for future generations, which is what the “evil moderates” keep trying to do, with no help from the neo-hippie wing. There is no Nirvana Solution; that’s why we call it a fallacy.
It’s the Koch boys or Elon Musk. Your choice.
Russell:
Can I despair now, Russell?
Re: my reply to tw2017, I wish to credit the prior contributions of zebra, Hmm and MA Rodger; especially the last.
Postglacial response of Arctic Ocean gas hydrates to climatic amelioration
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2017/05/23/1619288114.abstract.html?collection
“we investigate the dynamics between gas hydrate stability and environmental changes from the height of the last glaciation through to the present day…
we find that incursions of warm Atlantic bottom water forced rapid gas hydrate dissociation and enhanced methane emissions during the penultimate Heinrich event, the Bølling and Allerød interstadials, and the Holocene optimum. Our results highlight the complex interplay between the cryosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere over the last 30,000 y that led to extensive changes in subseafloor carbon storage that forced distinct episodes of methane release due to natural climate variability well before recent anthropogenic warming.”
Some will point out (correctly, I think) that a lot of sub-Arctic methane release may get broken down in the water column. But it is important to remember that breakdown of methane in water column will release carbon dioxide into the oceans and atmosphere.
May CO2
May 2017: 409.65 ppm
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
Dr. Mann said in 2014 that we need to keep the CO2 under 405 ppm. Uh-oh.
Warm regards
Mike
I want to revisit communicating to the public about how thick the atmosphere is. But it gets sparse, at the top. So, is there some single metric for atmospheric thickness, that atmospheric scientists use, or could use, that would give a rough impression to an audience, so they don’t go away from you still holding the assumption that it’s 1000 times thicker than that?
For example – at what height would 90% of the atmospheric molecules be below you? Which gas molecule would you choose to use, for this “x% will be at this height or below” metric? And am I making any sense in my effort to ask about this?
http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/another-step-closer/
Biggest iceberg ever, about to break off in the Antarctic.
I have been on Woodfortrees comparing sea surface temperatures (hadsst3) alongside global mean surface temperatures 1880-2016.
Here is the GISTEMP dT extrapolated: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1880/mean:12/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:12/from:1880
It shows a warmer sst 1880-1900, then a fairly close concordance between sea and global temperatures 1900-9180, but then the land warms more quickly than sea surface.
We can re-plot the graph with different datasets, and all the global surface data show the same pattern to some extent. IN particular the HADCRUT4 global mean shows close concordance of the global and sea surface temps, with a divergence again beginning in 1980, and showing clearly in the sawtooth period 2000-2008. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/mean:12/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:12/from:1880
What is the explanation for this pattern? Is the land heating more quickly than the sea surface for some reason, or is the transfer of warm water to deeper layers speeding up?
Thanks.
105 zebra
http://www.philosophy-index.com/logic/fallacies/false-dilemma.php
http://jensorensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/enviromasculinity600.png
Elsewhere in the world of political dwaf tossing, Administrator Pruit has his eye on a new Red Team captain:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/06/blue-on-outside-red-state-on-inside.html
Thomas #112,
?
Not a false dichotomy at all.
You may be wanting to say that there are other options, which I don’t think is true in the real world, but you are choosing the wrong claim of a fallacy.
The distinction is clear between inefficient, polluting, extractivism, and relying on technology in which the use of natural resources is optimized (because batteries and wind turbines and so on can be recycled with relatively low loss rates.)
No contest.
Re #53 Ideology Driveler said Share? Cooperate? I’d burn it all down first! Let them eat cake! Jeeves, open the bunker – and keep the cake-eaters out!
The jokes on Driveler (or who.ever they are quoting): A welfare state would be as co sumptive as the current form of Capitalism, or enough so that it’s irrelevant which you choose. Simplicity has no state nor State. It can’t because top-down management cannot allocate resources rationally because.it cannot adequately track what need lies where.
http://www.wcpo.com/news/national/two-year-old-girl-may-have-died-from-disease-caused-by-tick-bite
Toddler dies from possible tick bite: ‘It happened so fast and we couldn’t do anything about it’
Relevant paragraph.
“The Indiana Department of Health says only five cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever have been reported in the state over the past five years, but because of the warm winter, experts are warning Hoosiers that this year could be an especially bad year for ticks.”
Re #105 zebra said It’s the Koch boys or Elon Musk. Your choice. AKA I give up! We’re all gonna die!
False premise leads to false conclusion.
gc 109,
At 16 km, 90% of the mass of the atmosphere is below you. Pressure is 10% of sea-level.
I have been puzzled for some time by one aspect of sea-level rise. I know that meltwater from glaciers and ice caps on land contribute to SLR, whereas melting sea ice and floating ice shelves do not. But what is the case regarding ice shelves grounded on the sea bed? Can anyone help?
#111 Thanks so much for this very interesting graph, Richard. (http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1880/mean:12/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:12/from:1880)
But if CO2 levels were driving BOTH atmospheric AND oceanic temps, we would not expect such close coordination between the two. We’d be seeing a significant delay as the increased CO2 levels gradually made their way from the air to the sea. Must be some other driver, I’d imagine. :-)
115 zebra: which I don’t (think) BELIEVE is true in the real world”
Why do you BELIEVE that you’re world view/knowledge base is the one connected to the “real world”?
http://www.philosophy-index.com/logic/fallacies/false-dilemma.php
Sorry Z, I was correct the first time. The rest is your ‘job’. :-)
Richard Lawson @111,
If you plot out the difference between HadSST3 and HadCRUT4, you see that prior to 1895 the SST anomaly was tracking at an almost constant difference from the global figure, being roughly 0.04ºC cooler. At this point the SST anomaly quickly begins to track warmer than Global, roughly +0.02ºC warmer but from 1900 to 1940 this difference drops back and 1950-70 the SST anomaly is again tracking roughly 0.04ºC cooler. It is from 1970 that the land and ocean temperatures begin to warm at different rates, with the Global anomaly rising roughly 0.05ºC/decade quicker than the SST anomaly.
You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.
Attributing the 1900-1940 changes in this SST/Global anomaly difference, you need to be wary of the increasing uncertainty in the SST & Global temperature anomalies for earlier parts of the temperature record.
If you are asking about the interannual wobbles in temperature (for instance 2000-08), the big factor behind these wobbles is ENSO with volcanoes also bringing the occasional cooler period. This graphic (usually 2 cicks to ‘download your attachment’) attempts to illustrate these wobbles and their causes.
Richard #111: My understanding on the difference between land and sea is that water (deep water in particular) has a massive capacity to absorb heat energy.
Water takes a long time to heat up. The land has a much smaller capacity, and so heats up (or cools down) quite quickly. (This is why you get much smaller day/night temperature differences at sea than inland.) This means that while Earth is heating up from an enhanced greenhouse effect, we should expect the land to heat up faster than the ocean. I would expect this to reverse in time, when we (eventually) come to energy balance again (time scale probably in centuries). Eventually I would expect a time when Earth is an approximate energy balance again as the greenhouse effect stabilizes and CO2 (in particular) is slowly flushing out of the atmosphere again. I expect this period to be marked by the ocean continuing to heat up slowly, as the land reverses again and starts to cool down slowly. (Though I’ll defer to more knowledgeable comments or good numeric modeling of the heat flows involved.)
Victor #121: CO2 is certainly driving both atmospheric and ocean temperatures; by virtue of atmospheric CO2 levels. CO2 in the ocean has no effect for heating. The difference in rate is simply to do with the physics of heat capacity and heat flow. Both are heated by the same enhanced greenhouse effect from atmospheric greenhouse gases, CO2 in particular.
Digby Scorgie @120 — By definition, ice shelves float. There are glaciers grounded below sea level as well as parts of at least the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. When these melt at a minimum the portion of the ice above sea level contributes to sea level rise. That portion below sea level just fills the basin, to first approximation.
V 121: But if CO2 levels were driving BOTH atmospheric AND oceanic temps, we would not expect such close coordination between the two.
BPL: Huh? What? Come again?
V: We’d be seeing a significant delay as the increased CO2 levels gradually made their way from the air to the sea.
BPL: You think the carbon dioxide CARRIES the heat with it? Victor, there’s this thing called “the greenhouse effect.” Please Google it.
But if CO2 levels were driving BOTH atmospheric AND oceanic temps, we would not expect such close coordination between the two. …
Why not? They’re both surfaces of a planet being warmed by a sun where that planet’s atmosphere plays a major role in its energy balance.
MAR:
Beg pardon, MAR: are you the source of that graphic? AFAICT it’s otherwise unattributed. TIA.
Regardless of how the heat is transmitted from the atmosphere to the oceans, there would have to be a time lag, no? And yet most of the graph shows them moving in tandem.
As MARodger writes: “You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.” As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? So how is it possible for them to respond concurrently?
Victor (@129): He’s graphing sea SURFACE temperatures. There is relatively little lag between the atmosphere SST, as it is in more direct contact with the atmosphere. If it had been deep ocean then you (and I don’t think I’ve had to say this before) would have been right. You’re just gonna have to find some other justification for your willful disregard of the conclusions climate science.
Victor, there is not a time lag in the initiation of response. Why would there be? It’s just that water responds more slowly than land… that is, at a lower rate. NOT a longer lead time. The reasons are pretty basic physics, and it’s exactly what you see in the graph.
Also, oceans are heated from the Sun. Not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is colder than the ocean, so really, it’s the ocean (and land) that heats the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect means that heat gets from the surface (land or ocean) less efficiently. You can describe that in lots of ways… including, of course, quantifying radiation from the atmosphere to the surface. But there’s a much more radiation going in the opposite direction, from surface to atmosphere, so in terms of net heat flow, surface heats atmosphere. There’s no additional delay over water compared with land.
One – in general, energy, sunlight, passes through the atmosphere and enters the oceans. Most of it is absorbed in close proximity to the SST layer. (Do you understand that the oceans are layered?) Similar thing for land… sunlight passes through the atmosphere and it is absorbed by the land surface. So that the SST and land show similar wiggles is not, to me anyway, surprising.
CO2 comes into the discussion as that energy eventually finds its way back to space
Two – in the graph to which you linked GISS land and HadCrut SST diverge around 1980, but continue have similar wiggles. Just a hunch, but I suspect that is being caused by a combination of the cooling of the Eastern Pacific SST that took place from around 1980 until around 2015 and the progressively increasing enhanced GHE that also took place over that same period (more ocean evaporation; more land warming.)
As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? … I suspect the answer for the SST layer would be very different than for 700 meters to 2000 meters, and different again for below 2000 meters.
Re 129:
Note the ocean data source: global sea surface temperature
The temperature lag between atmosphere and water in the upper few meters of the ocean is on the order of a few days.
Nuggets from wikipedia regarding Sea Surface Temperature:
“Sea surface temperature (SST) is the water temperature close to the ocean’s surface. The exact meaning of surface varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface.”
…
“The temperature of the ocean at depth lags the Earth’s atmosphere temperature by 15 days per 10 metres (33 ft) …”
So many questions:
Is CO2 distributed evenly throughout the atmosphere? Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far? If it only goes up so far, what are the gases in the higher regions of the atmosphere?
Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?
If the atmosphere is warming, by what amount, if any, is radiation from the earth to space increasing?
When scientists model radiation from the earth atmosphere to space, what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet? On the sunlit side?
About 49% of the radiation from the sun is infrared. If so, why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere – or maybe it does? If it does reduce incoming infrared radiation, by what amount does it reduce it? Do greenhouse gases reduce, even a little bit, the higher frequencies?
David B. Benson @125
Okay, so if a part of an ice cap (or glacier) is grounded on the sea bed (below sea level) that part is not defined as an ice shelf. Did I understand that correctly?
Given the above, it makes sense to me that, to a first approximation, the part below sea level does not contribute to SLR on melting, whereas the part above sea level does. The crucial point is that the ice has to be grounded on the sea bed. I hope I got that right.
France is offering US scientists 4-year grants to move to the country and do research
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/emmanuel-macron-american-climate-scientists-france-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
Gavin? It’s closer to home and family. :-)
oops dot france
http://www.makeourplanetgreatagain.fr
V 129: As MARodger writes: “You would expect a warming world to see the land heat up quicker than the oceans due to the thermal inertia of the ocean waters.” As I understand it the delay is decadal, no? So how is it possible for them to respond concurrently?
BPL: The deep ocean waters are still at 277 K. It’s the surface waters which are heating up.
Victor the Troll @129.
You are well known here for suffering greatly from wanton ignorance and only seeing what you want to see, so this is a simple response to your enquiry.
You ask why “most of the graphs” show a concurrent reponse? Why do they move “in tandem” when the inertia caused by ocean heat capacity is in your understanding “decadal” in nature?
One reason for this is because “most of the graphs,” indeed I believe all fo the graphs presented within this thread, are comparing global temperature anomalies with SST anomalies and two-thirds of the globe is ocean. Thus SST anomolies contribute two-thirds of the data used to compile the global temperature anomalies.
Additionally, the SST is, of course, the temerature of the sea surface. It is in contact with the atmosphere and with the oceans beneath. The oceans beneath delay the warming of the surface waters due to thermal inertia. This delay is probably best described as multi-decadal. But the ocean surface is also in contact with the atmosphere which exhibits very large wobbles. These SAT wobbles are big enough to show up in a diminshed form within the SST anomalies at a monthly and annual level. So we find monthly TLT data above ocean is showing 70% of the variation (ie s.d. of ΔRSS monthly TLT) found in the data above land and a linear correlation of ~10%. The SST is more damped than the ocean-air above and thus exhibits less wobbliness (ie s.d. of NOAA monthly global ΔSST data is only 15% as wobbly as the land ΔSAT data) and the linear correlation is only just statistically significant. But the accumulative effect of these SAT wobbles on SST (& visa versa) at an annual level are evident in the relative levels of wobbliness being more closely matched than in the monthly data (ie s.d. of NOAA annual global ΔSST data is 40% as wobbly as the land ΔSAT) and the linear correlation rising to 15%.
Thus, as well as the SST & global anomalies comparison comparing data that is not independent because the global data comprises two-thirds the SST data, the correlations of the wobbles in the other one-third of the global values are also quite strongly coupled with SST wobbles. The multi-decadal nature of the thermal inertia of the ocean depths is not significant to these short-term phenomena.
don’t feed the trolls. It wastes our energy. There is an infinite time lag between presentation of facts/evidence and trolls acceptance of same. Trolls use most of their energy moving goalposts and have zero energy to spare for gaining knowledge.
just sayin… how about those ice-sheets and glaciers?
CO2? falling like a rock?
Weekly value from May 28, 2017 409.52 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 407.62 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 386.92 ppm
Warm regards
Mike
KIA 134: Is CO2 distributed evenly throughout the atmosphere? Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far? If it only goes up so far, what are the gases in the higher regions of the atmosphere?
BPL: CO2 is well-mixed by turbulence throughout the troposphere and stratosphere, which together account for more than 99% of the mass of the atmosphere.
KIA: Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?
BPL: Sure. As the troposphere warms, the stratosphere cools.
KIA: If the atmosphere is warming, by what amount, if any, is radiation from the earth to space increasing?
BPL: It’s decreasing. The Earth has to warm up to compensate.
KIA: When scientists model radiation from the earth atmosphere to space, what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet? On the sunlit side?
BPL: Don’t know offhand. The global mean is 255 K at the top of the atmosphere (so to speak).
KIA: About 49% of the radiation from the sun is infrared. If so, why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere – or maybe it does?
BPL: Sure, it absorbs it. As do water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.
KIA: If it does reduce incoming infrared radiation, by what amount does it reduce it? Do greenhouse gases reduce, even a little bit, the higher frequencies?
BPL: They absorb it, but since that heats them, it heats the ground as well.
Again I repeat my offer to give you a short course in how planet surface temperatures are determined. It’s an honest offer, if you’re interested. It covers a lot of this kind of material.
#134 KIA. Give it up. Have you no self-respect at all?
#131 in response to Victor “..it’s the ocean (and land) that heats the atmosphere.”
That’s so funny. AGW:101 It reminded me of a chap back in the 2000s who asked on a forum about a agw/cc article: “But have the climate scientists considered the Sun?”
I smiled. Because it reminded me of the naive curiosity of 3-6 yr old children asking endless questions. One doesn’t (or shouldn’t) get angry at them but maintain an endless degree of patience.
Unfortunately there are many adults in this world who assume that knowledge, wisdom and maturity is a simple linear component of one’s age. Yet become offended and increasingly indignant when others point out, objectively, that they are really behaving like little children and way out of their depth.
C’est la Vie!
#139 MARodger: “You are well known here for suffering greatly from wanton ignorance and only seeing what you want to see, so this is a simple response to your enquiry.”
What I “want to see” are interpretations of the data that make sense. Much of what I usually see on this blog fails to meet that criterion. In this case, however, I must say that what I was able to understand of your “simple” explanation does seem to make some sense. So, thank you, MA.
http://www.zmescience.com/other/offbeat-other/1912-climate-change/
The Chinese Global Warming plot against America started in 1911.
134 – “Or, due to larger atomic weight than lighter gases, does it only go up so far?”
Does the salt sink to the bottom of the ocean?
If so, then why is the ocean bottom not covered in a layer of salt? If not, then why isn’t it coated in a layer of salt.
134 – “Is there an altitude above which global warming is not occuring?”
The upper atmosphere is actually cooling due to a change in the spectra of exiting long wave radiation and the expansion of the atmosphere due to heating.
134 – “what temperature do they use for the temperature of space on the dark side of the planet?”
“space” has no temperature since by definition “space” contains no matter.
However Space does contain remnant energy from the Big Bang, and it’s temperature is essentially uniform from all directions in space at a temperature of around 2.7’K
You just asked, “You have a box of nothing. What is it’s temperature?”
http://gotbooks.miracosta.edu/oceans/images/insolation_curve.jpg
134 -“why doesn’t increasing CO2 reduce some of that radiation from getting thru the atmosphere”
It does of course.
But just as the upper atmosphere is largely tansmissive to outgoing IR, it is also transmissive to incoming IR.
Where there is absorption is in the lower atmosphere.
About 35 watts per square meter of IR is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Google Global Warming Flux to find multiple descriptions and depictions of the incoming and outgoing energy flux for the earth’s surface and atmosphere.
Digby Scorgie @135 — Yes, you have all of that correct.