Three new papers in the last couple of weeks have each made separate claims about whether sea level rise from the loss of ice in West Antarctica is more or less than you might have thought last month and with more or less certainty. Each of these papers make good points, but anyone looking for coherent picture to emerge from all this work will be disappointed. To understand why, you need to know why sea level rise is such a hard problem in the first place, and appreciate how far we’ve come, but also how far we need to go.
Here’s a list of factors that will influence future regional sea level (in rough order of importance):
- ice mass loss from West Antarctica
- ice mass loss from Greenland
- ocean thermal expansion
- mountain glacier melt
- gravitational, rotational and deformational (GRD) effects
- changes in ocean circulation
- steric (freshwater/salinity) effects
- groundwater extraction
- reservoir construction and filling
- changes in atmospheric pressure and winds
And on top of that, the risks of coastal flooding also depend on:
- tectonic/isostatic land motion
- local subsidence
- local hydrology
- storm surges
- tides
If that wasn’t bad enough, it doesn’t even get into why some of the bigger terms here are so difficult to constrain – but more of that below.
Meanwhile, note that the factors listed above involve the whole Earth system: the oceans, the cryosphere, the atmosphere, the solid earth and lithosphere, and a full range of scales, from the city block and shoreline, to ice dynamics that change over kilometers, to GRD footprints, to the whole global ocean. While each of these elements has a devoted scientific community, sea level rise cuts across all the disciplines. And similarly, while each of these elements has a specialized modeling capability, there is no single model that encompasses all of this (not even close – as yet).
What this means is that estimates of future sea level rise are mixes of information from multiple sources, tied together in more or less sophisticated frameworks (this is the approach in the IPCC SCROCC report and the upcoming AR6) that attempt to build a full uncertainty range from all the disparate sources of information (coupled ocean-atmosphere models, hydrology models, ice sheet models, solid earth models etc.). To reiterate, there is no ‘climate model’ prediction of global sea level rise, though the climate models we often discuss here (the CMIP-class of models), do provide some of the inputs. This means that links and feedbacks between these different elements are not always coherent – e.g. the estimates of groundwater depletion (used for irrigation) or glacier melt might not impact the soils or the freshwater budget of the downstream rivers and ocean.
Yes, but what about West Antarctica?
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the elephant seal in the aquarium. Ever since the 1970s it’s been suspected that it was prone to rapid collapse because the bedrock on which it sits is below sea level (and in some places, thousands of meters below sea level). More recent research constraining Eemian sea level (~125,000 yrs ago) has confirmed that WAIS collapsed at that time, adding 3 or more meters of sea level rise to the contribution from a much reduced Greenland Ice Sheet. Moreover, present day observations from gravity sensors (GRACE/GRACE-FO) show large ice mass losses from WAIS – dominated by the rapid retreats of the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites glacier, and concomittent decreases in ice sheet elevation (from IceSat2).
There are many interesting observations and non-observations from WAIS that make this a challenging problem. First, the melting of the ice shelves and the retreat of grounding line is being driven from below as slighty warmer circumpolar deep water (CPDW) has been pushed onto the shelf. The CPDW is thought to be affected by the shift in the westerly winds around Antarctica which have increased in recent decades due to a combination of greenhouse gas forcing and the polar ozone hole (Miller et al, 2006).
Additionally, it looks like the anomalous meltwater from WAIS is causing the local ocean to freshen, stratify and cool (see Rye et al. (2020) or Sadai et al. (2020). Both of these effects make a straightforward connection between global mean warming and WAIS mass loss tricky.
But there is more. For instance, the bedrock topography under the ice sheet is still being refined. The last major revision (BedMap2) was in 2013 (Fretwell et al., 2013), but many areas remain without good data and important revisions are still being made (Morlighem et al., 2020). Also, the topography of the ocean bottom under the ice shelves is still being discovered using autonomous underwater vehicles, for instance, under the Thwaites last year. Meanwhile Bedmap3 is underway...
Furthermore, one important factor in how WAIS will affect sea level is how fast the lithosphere will respond to changes in the ice loading (part of the GRD effects mentioned above). If the mantle is very viscous, then the response is slow and it doesn’t add much to the global sea level change. But if it’s less so, then uplift is more rapid, and it can add more SLR, faster. Unfortunately, It turns out that the specific conditions under WAIS are less viscous than was thought (Pan et al., 2021).
Recent advances
Given, then, that we don’t have a suite of models with all the effects that we can analyze to give us a measure of the uncertainty, what can we do in the meantime? First, we can analyze the models we have and estimate the structural uncertainty among them – for the processes they include. This is what Edwards et al., (2021) do. Using the ISMIP6 and GlacierMIP simulation data and a statistical emulator they map out the responses of these models to the global mean temperature change and ocean-driven melting in Greenland and Antarctica. The nice thing about this is that you aren’t tied to the emission scenarios that were initially used in the MIPs, but you can’t independently calibrate the projections to paleo-climate changes, and you are stuck with the models that were used, some of which are a little out of date.
Alternately, you can take a single ice sheet model with better calibration to paleo-climate changes and drive it with climate model-derived boundary conditions as is done by DeConto et al., 2021. This doesn’t give you an estimate of full structural uncertainty (which is high), but perhaps is more internally consistent. However, the calibration that has been done on this model is (a little) controversial, and it’s worth discussing why.
Back in 2015, Pollard et al. (2015) found that their ice sheet model was overall too stable in that it wasn’t able match the large sea level changes that have been inferred for the Pliocene 3 million yrs ago (~20 meters) Eemian 125,000 yrs ago (6 to 9 meters). They added two destabilizing mechanisms, hydrofacturing of ice shelves and something called marine-ice cliff instability (MICI) and tuned the parameters to match the target. They then used this tuned version for future projections. However, the number of potential issues in the model (or any model really) is large – from uncertainties in the bedrock topography, the boundary conditions at bedrock itself, grounding line parameterizations, the resolution, the ice rheology, the lithospheric response etc. And MICI itself is quite uncertain Clerc et al., 2020 and as Edwards et al note, no model that contributed to ISMIP6 included a MICI-like mechanism. There is no guarantee that the specific destabilizing mechanisms used were the actual mechanisms at play in the warmer period. There may be other (unexplored) variations in the ice model that could have provided as good a match and that would have different sensitivity in the modern.
To their credit, DeConto et al. have extended the calibration to Pliocene sea level, the Eemian and the rate of change observed since 1992, though the Eemian constraint is the most important. And they did vary the mantle viscosity in the sea level calculations consistent with the Pan et al values. Even better, they also explored the sensitivity to a southern ocean response to Antarctic meltwater based on Sadai et al. (2020).
The question then is whether these two approaches are consistent and/or complementary.
So what do they show?
As one might expect, there are a lot of moving parts in these results. Many things have been varied. But there are some notable contrasts. First off, the main results for Antarctica in Edwards et al surprisingly suggest very little sensitivity to forcing scenario – basically just a continuation of the current rates of melt, which contrasts strongly with the DeConto et al result suggesting a threshold effect by 2060 between SSP1-26 (consistent with 2ºC) and SSP2-45 (or higher). Edwards et al. also look at some more ‘low probability/high impact’ runs (their ‘simulations for the risk averse’) which are more similar to the DeConto et al. results (around 20 cm from WAIS by 2100).
Remember that the biggest uncertainty is still the emission scenario, and the higher the scenario in terms of global warming, the more uncertain the ice sheet contribution is. Another key point made by DeConto et al. is that the world doesn’t stop at 2100. The consequences of even stable temperatures post-2100, has very large long term implications for sea level. For instance, even a 2ºC eventual warming is associated with around 1 meter of SLR just from WAIS by 2300.
Work to be done
These two papers illustrate the fundamental ingredients that will (eventually) get us to a more reliable estimate of SLR. The structural uncertainty explored by Edwards et al is broad, still incomplete, but essential. The calibration against past change in DeConto et al is also essential, even if the structural uncertainty they explore is narrower. A combined approach would be enlightening – using the DeConto et al model for the current ISMIP6 protocol, and extending that project to include the Eemian as an out-of-sample test might help.
Ice sheet science and the consequent sea level rise, like many cutting-edge topics, generally has a widening of uncertainty when the tools and theory start to really kick off. It is only later that this uncertainty is constrained as more observational data is brought to bear. Then, and not before, will projections start to narrow.
Until then, the most productive way to reduce uncertainties might just be to reduce emissions.
References
- R.L. Miller, G.A. Schmidt, and D.T. Shindell, "Forced annular variations in the 20th century Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report models", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, vol. 111, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006323
- C.D. Rye, J. Marshall, M. Kelley, G. Russell, L.S. Nazarenko, Y. Kostov, G.A. Schmidt, and J. Hansen, "Antarctic Glacial Melt as a Driver of Recent Southern Ocean Climate Trends", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 47, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GL086892
- S. Sadai, A. Condron, R. DeConto, and D. Pollard, "Future climate response to Antarctic Ice Sheet melt caused by anthropogenic warming", Science Advances, vol. 6, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1169
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- M. Morlighem, E. Rignot, T. Binder, D. Blankenship, R. Drews, G. Eagles, O. Eisen, F. Ferraccioli, R. Forsberg, P. Fretwell, V. Goel, J.S. Greenbaum, H. Gudmundsson, J. Guo, V. Helm, C. Hofstede, I. Howat, A. Humbert, W. Jokat, N.B. Karlsson, W.S. Lee, K. Matsuoka, R. Millan, J. Mouginot, J. Paden, F. Pattyn, J. Roberts, S. Rosier, A. Ruppel, H. Seroussi, E.C. Smith, D. Steinhage, B. Sun, M.R.V.D. Broeke, T.D.V. Ommen, M.V. Wessem, and D.A. Young, "Deep glacial troughs and stabilizing ridges unveiled beneath the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet", Nature Geoscience, vol. 13, pp. 132-137, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0510-8
- L. Pan, E.M. Powell, K. Latychev, J.X. Mitrovica, J.R. Creveling, N. Gomez, M.J. Hoggard, and P.U. Clark, "Rapid postglacial rebound amplifies global sea level rise following West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse", Science Advances, vol. 7, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf7787
- T.L. Edwards, S. Nowicki, B. Marzeion, R. Hock, H. Goelzer, H. Seroussi, N.C. Jourdain, D.A. Slater, F.E. Turner, C.J. Smith, C.M. McKenna, E. Simon, A. Abe-Ouchi, J.M. Gregory, E. Larour, W.H. Lipscomb, A.J. Payne, A. Shepherd, C. Agosta, P. Alexander, T. Albrecht, B. Anderson, X. Asay-Davis, A. Aschwanden, A. Barthel, A. Bliss, R. Calov, C. Chambers, N. Champollion, Y. Choi, R. Cullather, J. Cuzzone, C. Dumas, D. Felikson, X. Fettweis, K. Fujita, B.K. Galton-Fenzi, R. Gladstone, N.R. Golledge, R. Greve, T. Hattermann, M.J. Hoffman, A. Humbert, M. Huss, P. Huybrechts, W. Immerzeel, T. Kleiner, P. Kraaijenbrink, S. Le clec’h, V. Lee, G.R. Leguy, C.M. Little, D.P. Lowry, J. Malles, D.F. Martin, F. Maussion, M. Morlighem, J.F. O’Neill, I. Nias, F. Pattyn, T. Pelle, S.F. Price, A. Quiquet, V. Radić, R. Reese, D.R. Rounce, M. Rückamp, A. Sakai, C. Shafer, N. Schlegel, S. Shannon, R.S. Smith, F. Straneo, S. Sun, L. Tarasov, L.D. Trusel, J. Van Breedam, R. van de Wal, M. van den Broeke, R. Winkelmann, H. Zekollari, C. Zhao, T. Zhang, and T. Zwinger, "Projected land ice contributions to twenty-first-century sea level rise", Nature, vol. 593, pp. 74-82, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03302-y
- R.M. DeConto, D. Pollard, R.B. Alley, I. Velicogna, E. Gasson, N. Gomez, S. Sadai, A. Condron, D.M. Gilford, E.L. Ashe, R.E. Kopp, D. Li, and A. Dutton, "The Paris Climate Agreement and future sea-level rise from Antarctica", Nature, vol. 593, pp. 83-89, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03427-0
- D. Pollard, R.M. DeConto, and R.B. Alley, "Potential Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat driven by hydrofracturing and ice cliff failure", Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol. 412, pp. 112-121, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.12.035
- F. Clerc, B.M. Minchew, and M.D. Behn, "Marine Ice Cliff Instability Mitigated by Slow Removal of Ice Shelves", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 46, pp. 12108-12116, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084183
@49, 48, 47 – I never doubted the Clausius-Clapeyron law for a second. But – it is not valid over a desert without significant rainfall, since the water vapor content remains unsaturated there.
I would have liked to have believed the satellite data from ISCCP & NASA, because in a few centuries and at breathtaking speed mankind has reduced evaporation over many millions of km² of land area and continues to do so. (See 20)
I had no idea that Nasa-Satelittes can not be trusted and apparently 25 years of time and money has been wasted here to produce wrong and still published data.
I am also not so much concerned with the exact global water vapor content of the atmosphere, but with global cloud cover and with the question asked at the beginning:
Why is future sea level rise still so uncertain?
For my part, I will return this not entirely unimportant question with a very simple answer: “It will depend on whether humanity finds a concept that slows, stops or even reverses sea level rise.”
…and here it is
45,000 km³ of fresh water flows into the seas via rivers every year. Even a high annual sea level rise of 3.7 mm corresponds to “only” ~ 1300 km³ (3%).
https://wiki.bildungsserver.de/klimawandel/upload/Wasserkreislauf.jpg
This corresponds to 9L / m² over global land area and 18L / m² for the 50% agricultural area – far too little for a drought lasting 2 weeks to 2 months in a summer in the Rhine Valley at the 49th parallel.
If you convert this volume into cumulus clouds, you get ~ 2 billion clouds, which improve the earth’s albedo all year round on 3.5 million km². The global cloud cover will improve by ~ 1%, which will cause a negative radiative forcing of
~ 0.21 W / m².
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL-1.pdf
page 582
That is far more than the current annual increase in radiative forcing caused by CO² – and would holistically resolve almost all problems caused by climate change.
The volume of 1300km³ of water will also ensure an additional assimilation of 1.3-2.6 Gt of carbon in agriculture.
This newly discovered Israeli / Egyptian climate protection concept starts with rain barrels, cisterns and larger rain retention basins which are equipped with an overflow onto unsealed terrain. But even the smallest stream and river can tolerate a small diversion outside of the drought and low water and is usually much cleaner than in the vicinity of the larger cities.
Taking out as much CO² emissions as possible …
but also evaporate as much water as possible through an increasing plant growth — is hopefully the global motto for the atmosphere of the future.
Artificial, intelligent irrigation is instantly faster, 1000times cheaper and will have to be implemented anyway as an adaptation measure in many regions in the future.
To make a virtue out of necessity – that’s what we need to do quickly.
More info (which needs to be updated now)
https://www.lumen-laden.de/products/ganzheitliche-alternative-klimaschutz-strategie/
MS,
Clement, A.C., Burgman R., and J.R. Norris 2009. “Observational and Model Evidence for Positive Low-Level Cloud Feedback.” Science 325, 460-464.
Dessler, A.E. 2010. “A Determination of the Cloud Feedback from Climate Variations over the Past Decade.” Sci. 330, 1523-1527.
“Estimates of Earth’s climate sensitivity are uncertain, largely because of uncertainty in the long-term cloud feedback. I estimated the magnitude of the cloud feedback in response to short-term climate variations by analyzing the top-of-atmosphere radiation budget from March 2000 to February 2010. Over this period, the short-term cloud feedback had a magnitude of 0.54 ± 0.74 (2s) watts per square meter per kelvin, meaning that it is likely positive. A small negative feedback is possible, but one large enough to cancel the climate’s positive feedbacks is not supported by these observations.
Both long- and short-wave components of short-term cloud feedback are also likely positive. Calculations of short-term cloud feedback in climate models yield a similar feedback. I find no correlation in the models between the short- and long-term cloud feedbacks.”
Yao, M.-S., and A.D. Del Genio, 1999: Effects of cloud parameterization on the simulation of climate changes in the GISS GCM. J. Climate, 12, 761-779, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1999)0122.0.CO;2.
Abstract:
Climate changes obtained from doubled CO2 experiments with different parameterizations of large-scale clouds and moist convection are studied by use of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) GCM at 4° lat × 5° long resolution. The baseline for the experiments is GISS Model II, which uses a diagnostic cloud scheme with fixed optical properties and a convection scheme with fixed cumulus mass fluxes and no downdrafts. The global and annual mean surface temperature change (DeltaTs) of 4.2°C obtained by Hansen et al. using the Model II physics at 8° lat × 10° long resolution is reduced to 3.55°C at the finer resolution. This is due to a significant reduction of tropical cirrus clouds in the warmer climate when a finer resolution is used, despite the fact that relative humidity increases with a doubling of CO2. When the new moist convection parameterization of Del Genio and Yao and prognostic large-scale cloud parameterization of Del Genio et al. are used, ?Ts is reduced to 3.09°C from 3.55°C. This is the net result of the inclusion of the feedback of cloud optical thickness and phase change of cloud water, and the presence of areally extensive cumulus anvil clouds. Without the optical thickness feedback, ?Ts is further reduced to 2.74°C, suggesting that this feedback is positive overall. Without anvil clouds, ?Ts is increased from 3.09° to 3.7°C, suggesting that anvil clouds of large optical thickness reduce the climate sensitivity. The net effect of using the new moist convection parameterization without anvil clouds is insignificant (from 3.55° to 3.56°C). However, this is a result of combination of many competing differences in other climate parameters. Despite the global cloud cover decrease simulated in most of the experiments, middle- and high-latitude continental cloudiness generally increases with warming, consistent with the sense of observed twentieth-century cloudiness trends; an indirect aerosol effect may therefore not be the sole explanation of these obervations.
An analysis of climate sensitivity and changes in cloud radiative forcing (CRF) indicates that the cloud feedback is positive overall in all experiments except the one using the new moist convection and large-scale cloud parameterization with prescribed cloud optical thickness, for which the cloud feedback is nearly neutral. Differences in ?CRF among the different experiments cannot reliably be anticipated by the analogous differences in current climate CRF. The meridional distribution of ?CRF suggests that the cloud feedback is positive mostly in the low and midlatitudes, but in the high latitudes, the cloud feedback is mostly negative and the amplification of ?Ts is due to other processes, such as snow/ice-albedo feedback and changes in the lapse rate. The authors’ results suggest that when a sufficiently large variety of cloud feedback mechanisms are allowed for, significant cancellations between positive and negative feedbacks result, causing overall climate sensitivity to be less sensitive to uncertainties in poorly understood cloud physics. In particular, the positive low cloud optical thickness correlations with temperature observed in satellite data argue for a minimum climate sensitivity higher than the 1.5°C that is usually assumed.
Text excerpts:
“In every run without exception, global low cloud amount and middle cloud amount decrease when CO2 is doubled, contributing to a positive feedback.”
MS, #51–
Again, these are quite distinct beasts; clouds are *liquid* water, not vapor.
NASA’s Earth Observatory:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV/MODAL2_M_CLD_FR
Matthias Schürle (51): I had no idea that Nasa-Satelittes can not be trusted and apparently 25 years of time and money has been wasted here to produce wrong and still published data.
The problem seems to be with your understanding than with NASA satellites themselves. it was you who stated: “How do you explain the decrease of ~ 2mm absolute water vapor content in the atmosphere 1983-2010?” and when asked about the source – you quoted … a paragraph on The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) – which deals with …. clouds, and nothing about “2mm”.
MS(51) I am also not so much concerned with the exact global water vapor content of the atmosphere, but with global cloud cover
then why make claims on the “ decrease of ~ 2mm absolute water vapor content“, INSTEAD of saying something about clouds? We can’t read your mind – we can only go by what chose as important to your argument.
MS(51) and with the question asked at the beginning: Why is future sea level rise still so uncertain?
I think the clouds are one of the least important source of this uncertainty –
the article points to “ ice sheet science” as the factor that has to be constrained first. And until we get better handle on predicting of ice shelves,
they conclude: “ the most productive way to reduce uncertainties might just be to reduce emissions“.
If you want to promote rain barrels and other storage – my suggestion would be: do it the context of adapting to the future extremes weather events – helping to intercept some of the rains and provide them for human use (irrigation or other) when it is dry, but to should be from the view point of an individual or a community, as the scale is too small to effectively affect the macro hydrological flows – eg. to smooth the flood-drought extremes in a river – wetlands and hydroreservoirs have a better scale to do so. Not even saying about the ability to mitigate sea-level rise.
So my suggestion is:
– “write what you know (that you can prove)” – promote barrels as one way to ADAPT, for individuals and communities, to water supply changes caused by climate change. BTW, this being a low-tech would fit into Killian’s idea of simplification.
– don’t try to sell it as way to _mitigate_ large scale climate change impacts – like changes hydrology on land and in sea level, because your all your barrels combined would have too small volume to have a noticeable effect on total river runoff or sea level rise.
@52,53,54 – SORRY for my misinterpretation of:
https://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm#Clouds, evaporation and climate
https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/analysis/climanal1.html
The graphs used there clearly show a decrease in atmospheric water and low cloud cover. @ Piotr – please note, that 99,7% of all atmospheric water is water vapor. The clouds contain only a 0,25-0,3%. Among the different cloud types, the highest long-term association between water vapour content and cloud cover is apparently seen in relation to low clouds, while other cloud types show little association. On a shorter time scale, however, the annual variation of water vapour and global cloud cover occur in concert with each other.
Unfortunately, I overlooked the note explaining this discrepancy since 1998/99:
” Please note that the step-like change in atmospheric water content 1998-1999 may be related to changes in the analysis procedure used for producing the data set, according to information from ISCCP. The cloud cover data, however, should not be affected by this. ”
However, we also experience a lower annual cloud cover from the fact that at least here in Europe & Germany the annual number of hours of sunshine (depending on the region and year) has often increased by more than 20% within the last 70 years:
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sunshine-duration
https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/zeitreihen/zeitreihen.html?nn=480164
This increase does not only take place in summer during the longer periods of drought, but alarmingly also in winter and spring. Only autumn often has a more or less constant solar radiation that reaches the earth’s surface.
Due to the high position of the sun and the longer days, clouds naturally continue to have the greatest cooling effect in summer, which is why their loss is particularly painful in the increasingly frequent summer droughts. It would also be the time of the year, in which mankind could ideally produce additional (artificial) clouds with additional artificial irrigation.
P(54) I think the clouds are one of the least important source of this uncertainty
I think clouds are one of the most important sources of this uncertainty – one that we can also deal with.
You also underestimate the roof areas of this world. The urban area sealed by humans is ~ 1% of the land area(1.500.000km²). With global mean values for annual precipitation amounts of ~ 1000mm, there is a volume of precipitation over this area, that corresponds to a sea level rise of almost 4mm.
With an estimated 25% roof area, rain barrels have the potential of 1mm sea rise. Streets, (parking) spaces and other urban areas often force water into the sewer system and through sewage treatment plants without need, which also causes high costs.
The catchment area of the Rhine alone, in which I live, has hundreds of thousands of springs, streams and rivers that are suitable for diversion to keep the water in the landscape, to fill up the water table, to rewet moors and forests.
With a worldwide increased awareness that clouds are one of our best climate protection, and the global demand to wrest a small part of the runoff from the rivers of the world – we create a strong tool for climate protection in addition to CO² avoidance, that could withstand the sea level rise.
There are not an infinite number of concepts for lowering sea level rise – in any case, meditation on the Mauna Loa and trust in human reason will not get us any further.
Matthias Schürle(55):” Unfortunately, I overlooked the note explaining this discrepancy since 1998/99: Please note that the step-like change in atmospheric water content 1998-1999 may be related to changes in the analysis procedure used for producing the data set, according to information from ISCCP ”
Well … here goes your decreasing trend… and your bitter criticisms of NASA and satellites: MS (51): “I had no idea that Nasa-Satelittes can not be trusted and apparently 25 years of time and money has been wasted here to produce wrong and still published data.”
MS(55): “I think clouds are one of the most important sources of this uncertainty ”
Based on what? Based on that the article opening this thread says it is …not?
Based on your: “ @ Piotr – please note, that the clouds contain only a 0,25-0,3% of atm. water“?
Based on the fact that even 100% of atm water is still MANY orders of magnitude less than water locked in land ice – hence even a tiny % change in the latter would outweigh even a massive change in atm water vapour, and even more so of something that makes at most … “0.3% of that atm vapour”?
Perhaps you heard somewhere that clouds are the major source of the climate model uncertainty – yes, but they meant in predicting the temperature, NOT the sea-level.
MS55: “ one that we can also deal with.”
How, other than via geoengineering?
MS55: “in Europe & Germany the annual number of hours of sunshine (depending on the region and year) has often increased by more than 20% within the last 70 years”
Germany and even Europe are only a tiny part of “global”. And regional trends reflect regional changes in the atmospheric patterns – say position of a Jet Stream deciding what air masses you get + plus you get i recent decades reduction in aerosol emissions, from smokestacks and cars, which reduces the number of the available CCNs (cloud condensation nuclei).
Matthias Schürle @51 appears to suggest we combat climate warming by increasing the atmospheric water vapour and thus cumulous cloud formation to reflect solar energy. But wouldn’t even more atmospheric water vapour, a greenhouse gas, increase radiative warming cancelling out the cooling effect? Googling my suspicions I found this which suggests they were right, and further problems manipulating cloud formation:
https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html
#57, nigel–
If that’s Matthias’s proposal, the issue would seem to me to be, could we even meaningfully affect atmospheric water vapor in the first place?
I have difficulty imagining that we could ever rival the natural evapotranspiration fluxes to a significant degree (though I admit I have no analysis backing this intuition.) And then consider the short atmospheric residence time… It makes me think of old King Cnut (AKA “Canute”) trying to hold back the tide.
(Though I’ve read in recent years that contrary to the long commonly-held version of the tale, Cnut wasn’t megalomaniacal at all, but rather a wise king commending humility to his courtiers via a dramatic reductio ad absurdam.)
@Piotr – Based on what? – Do I think you are at home in a country, where handguns are sold on the next corner and children often go to school with them?
Here’s a list of factors that will (be)influence(d by clouds for the) future regional sea level (in rough order of importance):
Do clouds influence the factor
ice mass loss from West Antarctica – yes
ice mass loss from Greenland – yes
ocean thermal expansion – yes
mountain glacier melt – yes
gravitational, rotational
and deformational (GRD) effects – no
changes in ocean circulation – yes
steric (freshwater/salinity) effects – yes
groundwater extraction – yes
reservoir construction and filling – yes
changes in atmospheric pressure and winds – yes
—
Here I propose an addition —
*changes in the water cycle.* – yes
The author says also:
“Remember that the biggest uncertainty is still the emission scenario, and the higher the scenario in terms of global warming, the more uncertain the ice sheet contribution is.”
So I could also say: if the cow shits – the sea level rises.
Uncertainty of cloud -> is uncertainty of temperature -> is uncertainty of sea level rise. Don`t lose your head guy.
My personal meta-factor is the albedo – and (low) clouds play an enormous role there. They keep ~ 20% of solar radiation off the earth’s surface.
Even if the author meant CO² and other greenhouse gases in the first place by emissions – I claim that we as mankind are also increasingly influencing water (vapor) emissions.
Every km² of burned rainforest, boreal forest or drained bog and wetland reduces global evaporation and increases the runoff into the oceans.
You will probably have to be forced at your shotgun to recognize evapotranspiration as a heavyweight in the radiation budget.
In the global radiation balance, ~ 80W / m² evaporation is a temporally and locally averaged value, which in summer can be up to ~ 350W / m² in real terms at noon. — Without any water, as is often the case in a desert, 350W / m² are then converted into heat and NOT into cooling clouds. –
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/global-land-degradation/story
On the other hand, the ~ +3.5W / m² radiative forcing, which is in accordance with the Paris Agreement on Climate Protection (~1.5 ° C) – is peanuts.
P says: “Based on the fact that even 100% of atm water is still MANY orders of magnitude less than water locked in land ice – hence even a tiny % change in the latter would outweigh even a massive change in atm water vapour, and even more so of something that makes at most … “0.3% of that atm vapour”?
I say yes: Most of the millions year old, millions of km³ antarctic land ice sheet is made out of tiny snowflakes. Falling out of clouds with its very tiny fraction of the global water.
P asks: “How, other than via geoengineering?”
I would call rain barrels, cisterns, groundwater charge and artificial irrigation more like home-engineering.
Europe may be small – but God knows not the only continent affected by drought and temperature records.
Kevin McKinney @58,
(Your mention of King Cnut and his seaside demonstration of his kingly limitations to his obsequious courtiers reminds me of the explanation for Caligula’s declaration of war against the sea.)
The Matthias proposal is perhaps spoilt by its delivery and the bells-&-whistles added about SLR as well as what appears to be a few errors.
It is well established that the difference in warming between land and ocean is due both to the thermal lag of the ocean mass (a temporary thing) and also the increase of evaporation from the oceans (a permanent thing). I read this as being the central point being made by Matthias:- an increase in evaporation over land will reduce the warming.
It is true that the land is becoming significantly less-wet under AGW and may well be significantly less-wet due to more direct human activity like chopping down trees and draining marshes. There is also a decrease in low cloud when low cloud is a cooling factor so less low cloud would presumably increase warming, but I wouldn’t like to speculate over any connection between drier land and decreased low cloud.
But it seems what is fundamental to the Matthias proposal is humanity’s impact on the water cycle – specifically how much is being evaporated from land. A recent paper (CarbonBrief coverage HERE) has suggested that despite land becoming drier, on average AGW is increasing evaporation from land. So perhaps the actual point of the Matthias proposal is that humanity could boost the cooling effects of land evaporation. If such boosting were significant and remembering ‘what goes up must come down’, this would likely come with some big changes in climate, changes whose impacts may well rival AGW itself.
I hope this interpretation assists the discussion and is not misrepresenting the Matthias proposal.
(Perhaps I should add that the idea of using land water storage to combat SLR is ill-thought-out. If we are faced with 1m of SLR, we would have to somehow cover the continents with an average of 2m of water to reverse such a rise.)
@nigelj 57,Kevin 58
I posted this link in MS 51 and will repeat doing so.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL-1.pdf
Page 578-582
7.2.1.2 Effects of Clouds on the Earth’s Radiation Budget
The effect of clouds on the Earth’s present-day top of the atmosphere
(TOA) radiation budget, or cloud radiative effect (CRE), can be inferred
from satellite data by comparing upwelling radiation in cloudy and
non-cloudy conditions (Ramanathan et al., 1989). By enhancing the
planetary albedo, cloudy conditions exert a global and annual shortwave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) of approximately –50 W m–2 and,
by contributing to the greenhouse effect, exert a mean longwave effect
(LWCRE) of approximately +30 W m–2, with a range of 10% or less
between published satellite estimates (Loeb et al., 2009). Some of the
apparent LWCRE comes from the enhanced water vapour coinciding
with the natural cloud fluctuations used to measure the effect, so the
true cloud LWCRE is about 10% smaller (Sohn et al., 2010). The net
global mean CRE of approximately –20 W m–2 implies a net cooling effect of clouds on the current climate. Owing to the large magnitudes
of the SWCRE and LWCRE, clouds have the potential to cause significant climate feedback (Section 7.2.5). The sign of this feedback on climate change cannot be determined from the sign of CRE in the current
climate, but depends instead on how climate-sensitive the properties are that govern the LWCRE and SWCRE.
@Kevin – “I have difficulty imagining that we could ever rival the natural evapotranspiration fluxes to a significant degree (though I admit I have no analysis backing this intuition.)”
2-4mm sea level rise over 71% ocean area = 4,9 – 9,8mm over 29% land area.
Now imagine a farmer after 2 weeks of summer drought – looking to his corn or whatever.
5-10L/m² is about as much as a moderate summer thunderstorm delivers in precipitation.
Even at the 49th parallel north, we can now see extended periods of drought between April and October. 50% of the global land area is used for agriculture and can easily evaporate a multiple of the sea level rise – theoretically, a similarly large volume can be sunk in the 30% forest areas, which in summer already partially die under heat stress and drought.
I would like to show how this climate protection strategy could be implemented locally, using my city and its possibilities as an example. In the urban and rural district, 750,000 inhabitants live on an area of 1250km².
This area extends from the western bank of the Rhine to the foothills of a low mountain range, which we call the Black Forest.
On the relatively flat surface there are ~ 15-20 smaller quarry ponds, some of which are located directly on the banks of the Rhine, but some are also 4-8km away from the Rhine.
These lakes were created through sand and gravel mining and mostly contain very clean groundwater. On the shores of the lakes, you can read the groundwater level of the area.
With a 4km long and approx. 50cm thick water pipe we discharge approx. 475L / sec from the Rhine outside of the drought period – and into the groundwater of the Rhine plain. How much will this pipeline cost ? few million euros ?
With 12,5 million m³ extra water per year it`s a fantastic buisness, as citizens here pay ~ € 2,-/m³.
560km² of agricultural area will now have 22L/m² extra in summer available. Actually still far too little, as my m² garden easily slurps away 10L / m² after a long, hot, sunny day.
Since the natural variability of our precipitation is somewhere between 700mm and 900mm / year, we can easily discharge 5-10 times the amount of water in a dry summer.
Mathias, I tried to put a little quantitative flesh on the project you propose, per your #61 and its antecedents. Here’s what I came up with.
Earth’s ocean surface is ~362 million km2, and a 2 mm ‘skin’ = 2/millionths of 1 km, so the volume of water cited implied by your SLR figure is ~724 km3. A hypothetical lake with that volume would rank 16th in the world.
Now, how does that compare with natural fluxes? Annual precipitation over the globe is apparently a bit over 1000 mm. We’ll assume, probably a bit contrafactually, that that’s proportionate over land and sea, and that figure therefore applies to the oceans. So that’s pretty close to 3 mm/day, for around 1000 km3–a volume that would more than fill the world’s 14th largest lake. (Lake Ladoga, if you care).
The Rhine takeoff pipe was spec’ed to carry 475L/s, which is about 41 million L in a 24-hour day. Or 0.000041 km3… which means you’d need a tad over 24 million of those babies.
With a water supply equal to one Lake Ladoga per day. Compare the Amazon, with the greatest average discharge rate on Earth, @ 209,000 m3/s. That works out to ~18 km3/day. Call the daily total 50 Amazon River’s worth.
And, don’t forget, power to pump it all–recall that E-P had put the volume of water needed for US pumped hydro storage at ~1 Lake Erie (480 km3). (But I forget the time frame involved just now… more than one day, I think.) Anyway, it’s a pretty significant amount, even considering that it’s on a global scale.
This is all pretty rough, admittedly, but so far I’m not seeing this project as highly practical on the global scale–although you could certainly do it on a local scale, as your example shows.
Matthias Schürle(55): “,i> I think clouds are one of the most important sources of this uncertainty ”
===
Piotr(56) “Based on what? Based on the article opening this thread saying it is …not?
Based on your own claim that “the clouds contain only a 0,25-0,3% of atm. water“?
Based on the fact that even 100% of atm water is still MANY orders of magnitude less than water locked in land ice?
===
Matthias Schürle(59) “Do I think you are at home in a country, where handguns are sold on the next corner and children often go to school with them “?
That ….. definitely punched a major hole in my arguments ;-) Comparing to that you assigning me a wrong country – only the icing on that cake…. ;-)
MS(59) “ So I could also say: if the cow shits – the sea level rises.
that’s … a surprisingly accurate metaphor for your argument here.
MS(59) “Most of the millions year old, millions of km³ antarctic land ice sheet is made out of tiny snowflakes. ”
….which took them close to …. a million years. I bet that if you keep pilling up your “ cow shits ” for a million years – you would end up with a quite an impressive pile too. But who has the million years to wait for that….
MS(59) “ Uncertainty of cloud -> is uncertainty of temperature -> is uncertainty of sea level rise
The first part (“ Uncertainty of cloud -> is uncertainty of temperature “) sounds right since …this is what I have tried to explain to you in my P(56) by saying:
“Perhaps you heard somewhere that clouds are the major source of the climate model uncertainty – yes, but they meant in predicting the temperature, NOT the sea-level.”
Unfortunately, the rest of you post indicates that you are just saying it, without applying to your argument, e.g.:
MS(59) “ Most of the millions year old, millions of km³ antarctic land ice sheet is made out of tiny snowflakes. ”
which means that you are still talking about clouds as a SOURCE OF WATER, not clouds as affecting temperatures.
As for your second arrow, i.e.: “[clouds-caused] uncertainty of temperature -> is uncertainty of sea level rise”
– iceshelves are primarily destabilized by Antarctic seawater. I doubt your tiny increase in cloudiness over Germany would really alter that.
MS(59) Don`t lose your head guy
Ignorance correlates with arrogance.
Nigel: “Matthias appears to suggest we combat climate warming by increasing the atmospheric water vapour and thus cumulous cloud formation to reflect solar energy.”
Kevin: “if that’s Matthias’s proposal…”
MARodger: “perhaps the actual point of the Matthias proposal is that humanity could boost the cooling effects of land evaporation”
It reminds me my childhood summers in the mountains, laying on a grass, next to my brother and my cousin, pointing at a cumulus in the sky – “ It’s bird! It’s plane! “It’s a …. definitely not the Superman, since we don’t have that imperialist cartoon on our TV!“.
Our Matthias’s style reminds me also Trump: he moves from topic to topic, often making contradictory claims, and those who are trying to make sense of it – latch on the first recognizable argument and dispose of the rest. “ It’s bird! (ignore plane thing garbage) .
For example – his 1st post (20) starts with: “Water vapor, and not CO2, is the most important greenhouse gas.” So by increasing evaporation, he didn’t want to cool off Earth through higher cloud albedo (Nigel and Kevin) nor do evaporative cooling (MAR), but to …warm it even more (“the most important greenhouse gas”!)??? How this would help with the topic of this thread – SLR?
Then a couple paragraphs below, he hints using the increased evap. to …. lower SL – via directing rain water into the air instead of allowing it to flow to the ocean. So which is it?
Maybe not important, since with his claims on water vapour trends proven false, it turns out he wasn’t interested in the vapour, but in clouds.
When we pointed that the clouds contain much too little water to directly affect SLR – and the actual influence of clouds is only indirect via albedo – he claims that this … is what he meant all the time, and … almost immediately contradicts himself by arguing:
“ Most of the millions year old, millions of km³ antarctic land ice sheet is made out of tiny snowflakes”
Obviously he is no longer talking about cloud albedo.
And what he lacks in logic and knowledge he makes up with arrogance:
“ I had no idea that Nasa-Satelittes can not be trusted and apparently 25 years of time and money has been wasted here to produce wrong and still published data.”
after he missed”the step-like [drop] in atmospheric water content 1998-1999 may be related to changes in the analysis procedure” in the fig description.
Or his response to Gavin:
– Gavin:“ Remember that the biggest uncertainty is still the emission scenario, and the higher the scenario in terms of global warming, the more uncertain the ice sheet contribution is.”
– Matthias: “So I could also say: if the cow shits – the sea level rises […] Don`t lose your head guy.”
Touche!
With NASA and Gavin put in their place in such a spectacular way, Matthias highly technical response to me “ Do I think you are at home in a country, where handguns are sold on the next corner and children often go to school with them “?
seems mild by comparison, if a tad perplexing. Even if I did live in the US…:-)
Matthias Schürle @61, thanks for the link on “Effects of Clouds on the Earth’s Radiation Budget” however it doesn’t change what I said or invalidate the study in the link I posted which showed its not clear that trying to increase the numbers of low level clouds by enhanced evaporation would actually cool the planet. There would certainly be big side effects with changes to rainfall.
Its also not clear whether you could get enough enhanced plant growth to cause enough of a difference to atmospheric water vapour and cloud formation. Your numbers mostly focus on processes happening long term in equilibrium. It’s change that counts.
I also note that there has been enhanced plant growth at scale due to the extra CO2 fertilisation process but it has not cooled the climate.
I see where you are coming from and such ideas are interesting.
#64–
“…children often go to school with [handguns]…”
A gross irrelevancy, of course–but just for the record, children do *not* often take handguns to school in the US. (Though admittedly, part of the reason is that doing so is heavily penalized, and enforcement is locally quite intense.)
You hear of instances, of course, but they are rare enough to be newsworthy still.
@ Kevin – “Now, how does that compare with natural fluxes? Annual precipitation over the globe is apparently a bit over 1000 mm.”
Here are some numbers of the global water cycle and radiation balance:
https://wiki.bildungsserver.de/klimawandel/upload/Wasserkreislauf.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Sun_climate_system_alternative_(German)_2008.svg/440px-Sun_climate_system_alternative_(German)_2008.svg.png
80W/m² * 24h * 365d : 0,675KWh (Evaporation energy of 1kg water) = 1038mm(L).
If you estimate SLR only 2mm/year – over land area this is 4,9mm (0,47% of natural flux = 0,376W/m²). This is a ~ 10% ! of radiation forcing since 1750 !
With a 475L / sec pipe in Karlsruhe
we could manage 20% for our 1250km² area. If possible, it is important to switch from groundwater abstraction to river water or bank filtrate, on the one hand to fill up (ground) water reservoirs and to wrest as much km³ as possible from the sea level.
Any concept to mitigate the effects of climate change naturally requires a global scale. If science realizes that water has always played an outstanding role in saving a burning house, I have not the slightest doubt about feasibility.
A discharge from a stream or river does not always have to be accomplished with pumps and energy expenditure. – You can often even generate electricity with small hydropower just further up in the steeper terrain. Um die Vielzahl der möglichen Entnahmestellen für ein einzelnes Einzugsgebiet zu demonstrieren – hier die Donau in Österreich als Beispiel:
https://lumen-laden-de3.webnode.com/_files/200006581-f07b8f07bb/flusssystem_oesterreich2w.jpg
The analysis here seems to miss the forest for the trees. Over and over new research is finding that positive feedbacks are happening. Over and over the models prove to be underestimates. There is a clear pattern that indicates that James Hansen et al. were correct in 2016 to assert that ice melting is a non linear rapid process and the paleoclimate data indicates we can expect accelerating sea level rise increasing to as much as 10 meters of sea level rise per century, where current mainstream thinking is a fraction of that.
Hansen et al. 2016
Hansen, J., M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, B. Tormey, B. Donovan, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckmann, P. Kharecha, A.N. LeGrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo, 2016: Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761-3812, doi:10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016.
Re 68,
Donald,
I completely agree. There is well known ice albedo positive feedback which means that the Arctic sea ice melt will accelerate and eventually suddenly disappear. This will cause an abrupt climate change, just as happened when ice retreated from the GIN (Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian) Seas at the end of the Younger Dryas. Temperatures in Greenland rose by 10 K in matter of 3 years. The scientists can’t see that it was the formation of that ice which halted the THC there, and not the other way round. The resumption of the THC happened when the ice melted.
But the scientists won’t admit they’re wrong, and we are heading forward to disaster while the argue about whether to limit temperature rise to 1.5 or 2.0 K, and what the climate sensitivity is. It wasn’t linear during the start and end of the Younger Dryas, and it won’t be linear when Arctic sea ice disappears.
AM: But the scientists won’t admit they’re wrong
BPL: Darn those scientists! If only they’d listen to internet crackpots!
This, as usual, is much ado over nothing and where a problem that does not exist, it is being manufactured.
Aren’t we being asked to believe that this stupendous sea level rise will come from the Antarctica ice melting?
“Mean Sea Level Trends
999-001 Bahia Esperanza, Antarctica
The mean sea level trend is -4.82 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence
interval of +/- 2.58 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from
1961 to 1993 which is equivalent to a change of -1.58 feet in 100 years.”
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=999-001
If the ice sheet is melting, where is the water going?
Then I read this; “First, the melting of the ice shelves and the retreat of grounding line is being driven from below as slighty warmer circumpolar deep water (CPDW) has been pushed onto the shelf”. Who is going to believe this when this is what the water temperature in in the Antarctic sea?
Antarctica sea surface temperature today
Sea water temperature throughout Antarctica is not yet warm enough for swimming and does not exceed 20°C. The warmest sea temperature in Antarctica today is -1.8°C (in McMurdo), and the coldest water temperature is -1.8°C (McMurdo).
https://seatemperature.info/antarctica-water-temperature.html
Are we supposed to believe that the circumpolar deep water is going to be warmer than the surface water?
Is the warmin ses the reason why in 2015 the Antarctic Sea Ice extent had been at record high levels?
The Antarctic Sea Ice extent has been at record highs for 7 months in 2015 and now is even with the 1981 to 2010 average. It fell below the record highs set in 2014 in July, 2015.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/global-snow/2015/08/Antarctic_daily_seaice.png
John Swallow (71) “ If the ice sheet is melting, where is the water going? ”
You missed the point – the discussion is about the NONLINEAR increase in the sea-level rise resulting from the increasingly likely collapse of the Antarctic iceshelves, I quote:
– Donald Condliffe (68): “ James Hansen et al. were correct in 2016 to assert that ice melting is a non linear rapid process and the paleoclimate data indicates we can expect accelerating sea level rise increasing to as much as 10 meters of sea level rise per century, where current mainstream thinking is a fraction of that” , and
– Alastair McDonald (69): “There is well known ice albedo positive feedback which means that the Arctic sea ice melt will ACCELERATE“.
– See also the red lines on the left in graph in the opening article: “Antarctic contributions to sea Level scenarios from DeConto et al (2021)”
Hence you CAN’T disprove the recently discussed here papers on the increasing probability of the near-FUTURE collapse of the Ant. iceshelves – by … looking BACK at what DID happen between “1961 and 1993”,
and you CAN’T ridicule the high possibility of the “ACCELERATION” of ice melts by calculating the difference between 1993 and 1961 and then …. extrapolating it LINEARLY over the next 100 yrs.
You shouldn’t, yet you did, and both. Which suggests that you are ignorant, disingenuous, or both.
PARTICULARLY AFTER you were so full of yourself, and derisive toward others:
“ Aren’t we being asked to believe that this stupendous sea level rise” -John Swallow
Mocking other works ONLY if you are right; if you are wrong it discredits only you.
#71 and #72 Luckily I don’t have to swallow the nonsense John posts!
Re: ” circumpolar deep water is going to be warmer than the surface water ”
Actually, yes. And melting point of ice at depth is less than that at surface …
sidd
John Swallow(72) “The warmest sea temperature in Antarctica today is -1.8°C (in McMurdo), and the coldest water temperature is -1.8°C (McMurdo). Are we supposed to believe that the circumpolar deep water is going to be warmer than the surface water?”
Let’s see: in the presence of ice, the surrounding water has the temperature ~= the melting/freezing temperature of water at this salinity: so the -1.8C at Mc Murdo would correspond to the melting point at S=33. Using this T and S we get the density of surface water at Mc Murdo: rho= 1026.55
To MATCH this density – “Circumpolar deep water (CPDW)” of S=34.7 (wikipedia), would need temp. of ~+11C….
Which means that at already at +10C and S=34.7 water would be DENSER than the surface water at Murdo, and as such would reside below it, and melt the base of iceshelves (as illustrated in the fig in the opening article). To make things better – the deeper the base – the better for melting, as the freezing/melting point decreases with water hydrostatic pressure.
And if you couldn’t find online calculators for seawater density and freezing point, BEFORE ridiculing scientists – you would have saved yourself an egg on your face, if instead of relying on the high opinion of ourselves, you just typed: “circumpolar deep water” into Google, and voila, the first hit, Wikipedia:
“Circumpolar deep water is between 1–2 °C and has a salinity between 34.62 and 34.73 PSU)”
With that, John Swallow’s question would have taken the form of
“ Are we supposed to believe that “1-2C” is warmer than “-1.8C””?
to which the answer would have been an emphatic: “Yes, oh our Very Stable Genius, oh yes!”
When I see an apparent paradox, my first instinct is NOT to assume that the experts in the field are morons who missed something so obvious that a lay person like me noticed it immediately, but instead consider it more likely that it is me who is missing something.
What do you do, Mr. Swallow?
JS, 71 &2–
News flash: a single station trend (from 30 years ago at that) is singularly uninformative without a whole lot more information.
And you appear to be confusing the ice sheet with sea ice–though your language is confused enough to make it hard to tell.
JDS @71 says “999-001 Bahia Esperanza (Hope Bay), Antarctica. The mean sea level trend is -4.82 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence. interval of +/- 2.58 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from. 1961 to 1993 which is equivalent to a change of -1.58 feet in 100 years….If the ice sheet is melting, where is the water going?”
The melt water is going into the worlds oceans. The land may be uplifting significantly locally, so sea levels fall relative to local land but are still rising relative to the land mass of the planet as a whole just at a slower pace. This process can be temporary. Ocean circulation patterns can vary and can sometimes cause local sea levels to fall or rise. Melting glaciers in the western antarctic are also known to be reducing gravational attraction pushing water (including meltwater) away from antarctica causing sea levels to fall in this western antarctic area and sea levels to rise faster in other regions. References below:
https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/3002/sea-level-101-part-two-all-sea-level-is-local/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/sep/12/greenland-antarctic-ice-sheet-sea-level-rise-science-climate
JDS @72 says “First, the melting of the ice shelves and the retreat of grounding line is being driven from below as slighty warmer circumpolar deep water (CPDW) has been pushed onto the shelf. Who is going to believe this when this is what the water temperature in in the Antarctic sea? Antarctica sea surface temperature today Sea water temperature throughout Antarctica is not yet warm enough for swimming and does not exceed 20°C. The warmest sea temperature in Antarctica today is -1.8°C (in McMurdo), and the coldest water temperature is -1.8°C (McMurdo)……..Are we supposed to believe that the circumpolar deep water is going to be warmer than the surface water?”
Yes apparently the circumpolar deep water is warmer at about 3.5 deg c, driven by an oceanic current. I don’t find this hard to believe especially as its only a few degrees warmer. Temperatures of ocean currents are typically different from the surrounding waters, because they are fundamentally redistributing heat energy. You provide no hard data that proves any of this incorrect. Your comments are empty rhetorical argument from personal incredulity. References:
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/changing-antarctica/changes-circumpolar-deep-water/
https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/climate.html
One swallow doth not a summer make: This, as usual, is much ado over nothing and where a problem that does not exist, it is being manufactured.
Aren’t we being asked to believe that this stupendous sea level rise will come from the Antarctica ice melting?
“Mean Sea Level Trends
999-001 Bahia Esperanza, Antarctica
The mean sea level trend is -4.82 millimeters/year
BPL: You don’t understand the difference between sea level in one bay and sea level averaged over the entire globe, apparently.
@72 John Swallow Some of the ice of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) that is in contact with the ocean melts at -2.3 degrees and above so if there is water at -1.8 degrees as you suggest then it will melt some of the ice.
It seems the idiot J Doug Swallow is now calling himself John Swallow and returned to fill up** the Bore Hole with yet more servings of total nonsense.
**At time of writing, this bore has provided 37 of the last 48 bore-holed comments.
A couple of comments by me about the “Mean Sea Level Trends at 999-001 Bahia Esperanza, Antarctica Certainly brought out the squeals of disdain from the ones who actually believe that the trace gas, CO₂, due it being between .03-.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and also the fact that it is 1.6 times more dense than that atmosphere, is going to destroy the Earth and everything on it, or some such nonsense.
I’m sure that these same ‘knowledgeable’ people about everything there is to know about Antarctica will tell me how much of the ice sheet is melting today in Antarctica.
Weather in South Pole, Antarctica
Now -64 °C
Fog.
Feels Like: -79 °C
Location: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
Current Time: 28 Jun 2021, 01:35:24
Latest Report: 27 Jun 2021, 18:00
This is the link that was not included in the comment.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/antarctica/south-pole
J. Doug Swallow, Ah, if only his mother had taken to heart the wisdom contained in the last name!
Re. 71/72… “john swallow” is a particularly apt–if somewhat ironic–self descriptor. Self awareness is obviously not a strong suit here.
#82 The amount of scientific information that MA Rodger offered up in his post is amazing and I’m sure it is the extent of his knowledge regarding this issue, that he, as of now, has fully defined. It would be interesting to get his report on this that is about, of all things, Antarctica.
“New Record for Coldest Place on Earth, in Antarctica
Scientists measure lowest temperature on Earth via satellites
[…]Using new satellite data, scientists have measured the most frigid temperature ever recorded on the continent’s eastern highlands: about -136°F (-93°C)—colder than dry ice.
The temperature breaks the 30-year-old record of about -128.6°F (-89.2°C), measured by the Vostok weather station in a nearby location. (Related: “South Pole Expeditions Then and Now: How Does Their Food and Gear Compare?”)
Although they announced the new record this week, the temperature record was set on August 10, 2010.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131210-coldest-place-on-earth-antarctica-science/
How much of the Antarctica ice sheet was melting on August 10, 2010 is the question that I have for MA Rodger?
A (Modest) Proposal:
Given the delay in posting the responses, we have had 8 different authors wasting their time to answer 1 idiot. Obviously, it is not time-efficient way to deal with the trolls.
The simplest way would be, if the MODERATOR could expand the borehole filter to include the Beta-variant (“John Swallow”), as well as keep in check the original strain (“J. Doug Swallow”).
But if that is not feasible/reliable:
1. we could agree to ignore all his future posts – which has the downside of creating the appearance to the passers-by that his claims may have merit and nobody here was able to answer them.
2. alternatively, following the suggestion in a parallel thread about KIA,
create a sign-up sheet for Whack-a-Troll, something along the lines:
sign-up sheet
We could use one of the signup sites, or simply exchange privately contact emails – and then just use Reply All – the first one gets him.
I would still prefer the Borehole to do its jobs (Moderators???), but if we can not count on it and there were several people interested, I could start the ball rolling by posting my email (one I rarely use – forgot) for the first contact purpose.
Alternatively, if you were already pestered by the trolls, or you have still
your aol or myspace account – we could post yours.
Then I (or whoever else posts their initial contact email) – would send email to us all. From that point on, Reply-All would reach the entire group.
As for the standard replies to the Troll, I would see it in two possible forms:
a) the short form e.g:
=====
“John D. Swallow is a denialist troll, his denialist clichés have been refuted many times on this site – please do not give him your time and attention that he craves so much”
====
b) the long form – in rare cases when it is instructive to dispel a frequent denialist myth – write a SHORT explanation. It could be as simple as:
“local weather is not the global climate”
or if I got Swallow (72) I would have posted:
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“Circumpolar deep water has 2-3C temp. and S=34.7 (Wikipedia),therefore more than enough to melt the submerged ice, as anything warmer than -1.9C at the surface, or -2.1C at 250m, would do the trick.
John D. Swallow is a denialist troll, his denialist clichés have been refuted many times on this site – please do not give him your time and attention that he craves so much”
====
I would suggest to use Swallow as a beta version Once we get the kinks out, we could make wide release onto KIA and any other trolls of interest.
Please post what you think and/or if you are in.
Piotr
J Doug Swallow @87,
I appreciate what a foolish fellow you are and given your limited abilities, I will keep my answer to your question brief.
How much of the Antarctica ice sheet was melting on August 10, 2010?
Given August 10th would be the middle of the Antarctic winter, the net melting would be negative.
Perhaps I should add (because you say “it would be interesting”) that finding a new ‘lowest temperature’ dating to 2010 within satellite data 2004-2016 does not contradict analysis showing Antarctica warming three-times the global average over the last 30 years.
…
For other readers of this thread, the surface lowest temperature recorded on Earth cited by the fool is reported in Scambos et al (2018) ‘Ultralow Surface Temperatures in East Antarctica From Satellite Thermal Infrared Mapping: The Coldest Places on Earth’. The location was at altitude in mid-winter and present only on the surface (so not at the 2m of normal met readings) from which a 2m temperature was inferred. The cold conditions requires clear skies and very low humidity with little wind to allow the cold dense air to puddle in small depressions in the ice-scape.
JDS 83: the ones who actually believe that the trace gas, CO₂, due it being between .03-.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and also the fact that it is 1.6 times more dense than that atmosphere, is going to destroy the Earth and everything on it, or some such nonsense.
BPL: Straw man. We believe it’s going to heat up the Earth to the point where it threatens our civilization, which is bad enough. BTW, the volume fraction is irrelevant and the density is even more irrelevant.
You really, really ought to familiarize yourself with what the theory ACTUALL SAYS before criticizing it. You’d come off like less of a chump if you weren’t always spouting silly things about it.
Look, Galileo was able to overthrow Aristotelian physics because he was thoroughly versed in Aristotelian physics and knew its weak points. Darwin was able to overthrow creationist biology because he was educated in creationist biology, and again, knew where it was vulnerable. You don’t seem to have a clue about atmosphere physics or the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, yet you keep maundering on about the same irrelevant talking points.
Crack open a book and study! It isn’t that hard if you can do some basic math. For a qualitative treatment, start with George S. Philander’s “Is the Temperature Rising?” (1998) or Spencer Weart’s “The Discovery of Global Warming” (2003). Then you can move on to more rigorous textbooks, like John Houghton’s “The Physics of Atmospheres” (3rd ed. 2002), or Hartmann’s “Global Physical Climatology” (1994). But unless you’re willing to do that, just stop posting. You’re making a fool of yourself.
JDS@83 wrote
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the above is an argument from incredulity and, therefore, fallacious and ignorable.
@JDS please post references to peer-reviewed, scientific literature supporting your opinion — or shut up.
“BPL: Straw man. We believe it’s going to heat up the Earth to the point where it threatens our civilization, which is bad enough.”
BPL, I don’t believe that science shows that climate change threatens our civilization. Feel free to cite work that contradicts my belief.
My reading of the various Assessment Reports from the IPCC, including their 2014 special report on projected impacts, certainly left me with the impression that science projects serious problems due to climate change, problems that it would be to everyone’s benefit to either prevent or prepare for, but definitely not something that threatens our civilization.
But as I said, feel free to prove me wrong.
# 92, Read the science! You are ignoring the reality based posts here and elsewhere!
Thomas William Fuller #92,
Time for zebra to once again chime in about how, in order to have a rational, constructive, science-type discussion, it is necessary for the participants to be speaking the same language.
What does “threatens our civilization” mean?? Or do you just want to elicit a response so you can talk past each other for as long as possible?
What does “threatens” mean?
Who is this “our”?
What is necessary, or not, for “civilization” to be “civilization”?
Once you establish those things, your question is worthy of a response. But if you simply challenge BPL, without requiring him to answer those questions, your sincerity is called into question.
Of course, BPL may want to engage in a “definition debate” as well, in which case, carry on.
TWF 92: I don’t believe that science shows that climate change threatens our civilization.
BPL: Look again.
http://www.ajournal.co.uk/pdfs/BSvolume13(1)/BSVol.13%20(1)%20Article%202.pdf
See also
Ahmed, N. 2015. UK Government Study Finds: If Nothing Is Done, Expect Civilization’s Collapse By 2040.
http://www.zerohedge. com/news/2015-06-21/uk-government-study-finds-if-nothing-done-expectcivilizations-collapse-2040?page=2, accessed 6/22/2015.
Thomas William Fuller (92) I don’t believe that science shows that climate change threatens our civilization. My reading of the various Assessment Reports from the IPCC, including their 2014 special report on projected impacts, certainly left me with the impression that science projects serious problems […], but definitely not something that threatens our civilization
Would this be …. the same 2014 IPCC report that says that the world may reach “a threshold of global warming beyond which current agricultural practices can no longer support large human civilizations by the middle of the 21st century.[38]”
in Wikipedia: Climate_change_and_agriculture
See also the 2019 IPCC report, which “predicted a 2 to 6 % decline in global crop yields every decade going forward” – the same link, ref. [39]
“Definitely not something that threatens our civilization”, eh?
@Kevin McKinney #62 says: Mathias, I tried to put a little quantitative flesh on the project you propose, per your #61 and its antecedents. Here’s what I came up with.
With your figures and ranking of large lakes, you’ve lost track of the quantitative flesh, which is actually quite simple.
A slr of 1335km³(3,7mm) per year is a constant flow of 42333m³ / sec (3600 * 24 * 365). My water pipe on the Rhine with 475L / sec should bring about 560km² of agricultural area through the summer drought. In 10 months (outside of the drought period) I can then create a reserve of 12.5 million m³, which provides artificial irrigation in summer of 22L / m². As a farmer, I wouldn’t be offended if it could be 44L or 66L/m². With ~ 90km³ annual runoff, the Rhine is still more of a smaller puddle but 6,7% of slr.
Kevin McKinney says:
… which means you’d need a tad over 24 million of those babies.
Less than 100.000 of those babies are needed !
Kevin McKinney says: …but so far I’m not seeing this project as highly practical on the global scale–
If you don’t want to do it to lower the slr and record temperatures in the summer, then do it to keep your food and water supplies safe.
Practical is also:
– less flood damage
– less damage of lowest water levels
– more clouds in summer and thus higher albedo over the global land areas with a cooling effect on the global temperature of the earth
– Maintaining or improving the CO² assimilation of land plants
(1-40Kg CO² binding / m³ transpired H²O)
– less wind erosion, species loss … and much more.