This month’s open thread for climate topics. This month’s climate highlight will likely be the PACE launch at some point between Feb 6th and Feb 8th, that will hopefully provide information on aerosols and ocean color with more detail than ever before. Fingers crossed!
A few notes on the blog and commenting. We have an open thread (this one!) for random discussions or new topics. Comments on specific posts should be related to the topic. Random contrarian nonsense is just going to get deleted (as are the complaints about it). Additionally, excessive and argumentative commenting is tiresome – remember this is a blog and (almost) no-one reads the comments, but they never will if it’s dominated by only one or two people shouting past each other. Please stick to the one substantive comment per day rule if you can (and the moderation will help if you can’t).
Secondly, there have been some complaints about the lack of comment previews (which we used to have) and the lack of ability to move nonsense to the Crank Shaft or Bore Hole threads. This functionality was provided by old plugins that worked really well until they didn’t. The ‘Ajax Comment Preview’ plugin hasn’t been updated in years and no longer works at all, and the move comment plugin we used has been identified as being a security risk. If readers know of alternatives that are being actively developed and keeping up with WordPress versions, please let us know, we will be happy to try them out.
Thanks for continuing to engage with the topics and ideas here.
JCM Jan 31: “irrespective of the emotional outburst of Piotr, if one diminishes moisture limitation at the surface, there is a corresponding increase of LE and decrease of H in turbulent heat flux partitioning.
Let’s sum up this “discussion”, in a symbolic notation:
– Tomas K: X and not-X
– Piotr: You can have both X and not-X
– JCM: Most of Piotr’s confusion can be explained by a lack of understanding. The discussion of … Y should really not be butchered to such an extent as displayed above. Piotr’s impassioned responses clearly lack any foundation in knowledge on the issue.
– Piotr: I showed contradiction WITHIN Tomas’s argument. Tomas didn’t invoke Y. Consequently, neither did my response. So my “impassioned butchering of Y” is only in your head.
– JCM: irrespective of the emotional outburst of Piotr, let me explain Y, I have provided other more introductory resources elsewhere to assist with this foundational concept.
Unless you find some introductory resources on effective discussion (like “read the post you are answering to, BEFORE you start making patronizing comments”) and take this advice to heart, I don’t plan to waste more of my newly-reinstated 1 comment per day limit – on you.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818853
Dear Piotr,
The fictitious “Tomas K”, asserting opposites (“X and not X”) in parallel, is nothing else as your own strawman, I am afraid.
Let us imagine that part of the Earth area occupied by land sinks and is replaced by ocean. It undoubtedly increases water availability for evaporation. I think that it would result in global water cycle intensity increase, which could be measured as an increase in global annual precipitation and expressed as a latent heat flux increase.
I the previous discussion
https://orgpad.com/s/7zfynb_y5o7 ,
I finally agreed to JCM’s objection that a such latent heat flux increase cannot be simply added to previous value of the sum of latent and sensible heat fluxes (that is often called “turbulent” or “convective” heat flux). This assumption served as the basis for Barton Paul’s calculation of the influence that the assumed change in global water cycle intensity might have on the global mean surface temperature.
JCM convinced me that the increase in latent heat flux will primarily result in a significant decrease of the sensible het flux. The exact partitioning between these two parts of the entire “turbulent flux” is crucial for quantitative estimation of the resulting cooling effect. Unfortunately, we have not arrived at any simple formula yet, enabling to compare Barton Paul’s estimation with this physically more realistical model.
For this reason, I cannot say if the direct cooling effect of improved water availability for evaporation will remain significant even in the (still sought) improved model better reflecting the physical reality, or if the average temperature decrease computed on the basis of a physically realistical model perhaps becomes significantly smaller. In this sense, I admit that Barton Paul’s analysis cannot be taken as a support for claims that anthropogenic interferences with global water cycle intensity might have contributed to the observed climate change, or as an estimation that an artificial improvement of water availability for evaporation might be considered among “geoengineering” tools for climate change mitigation.
On the other hand, I still do not see any reason for assuming, analogously as Barton Paul, that the intensified water cycle resulting from the imagined land flooding must be accompanied by a commensurate increase in the average global specific air humidity.
If we assume that in a steady state of Earth climate, global speciffic average air humidity is basically commensurate to the global mean surface temperature, and if we will agree that the imagined land flooding should no way increase the global mean surface temperature but rather decrease it, then I do not see any discrepancy in my assumption that it may be well possible that, in fact, no average global air humidity increase assumed by you and Barton Paul must accompany the expected water cycle intensity / latent heat flux increase..
I am fine if you still see such thoughts as a kind of a surprising paradox. I just do not see any logical fallacy therein.
Anyway, it would be very nice if you could desist from further asserting bad will and/or character faults on my side.
Sincerely yours
(real) Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz 1 FEB 2024 “ Dear Piotr, The fictitious “Tomas K”, asserting opposites (“X and not X”) in parallel, is nothing else as your own strawman, I am afraid. Sincerely yours” (real) Tomáš
I am afraid it is you who is the fake, not him. See the list of the 3 internal contradictions ( (“X and not X”): I have shown to the real Tomáš K., several times already, e.g. :
=== Piotr Jan. 12 ===
1. I asked you about your “ 12% increase in global absolute air humidity”, you answered about “12.6% increase in …latent heat flux”. Wasn’t the decoupling of humidity from the latent heat flux (that doubling latent heat flux won’t increase humidity), your main argument here?
2. If evaporation on land does not change humidity over the ocean, this implies NO horizontal transport of air masses, with their extra humidity, from land onto the ocean, thus contradicting your claim: TK:” your assertion, that I required that water vapour coming from land staying above land, is incorrect ”
3. And IF there was no movement of air masses from land to sea (point 2), how could
the increased latent heat flux above land – force “the entire Earth surface” to cool?
====
The real Tomáš K knows perfectly well what has been posted to him, he even post the links to his archives of the responses to him. Furthermore, he repeatedly thanked for my posts that pointed to the above contradictions.
Ergo – the very opposite to your claims that TK has NOT been confronted about the above contradictions.
Therefore, I must conclude that it is you who is the imposter. One who tries to
discredit the real “Tomáš K”, as either:
– somebody with serious memory problems (despite archiving them – not remembering several of my and his posts a mere couple weeks ago) OR:
– a dishonest troll, who, unable to own up for his contradictions, pretends ignorance,
and goes further – employs hutzpah – accuses … the very opponent who pointed to these contradictions … of intellectual dishonesty (“ nothing else as your own strawman “).
Please release the real Tomáš K.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818917
Dear Piotr,
In line with moderator’s plea that we focus on the merits, I would like to desist from justifying my first sentence of the previous post and just remember you of the rest thereof that you have skipped.
I am aware that you think that any increase in water evaporation rate must result in a nearly commensurate increase in the average absolute air humidity and that you perceive an opposite as an absurd paradox.
The opposite view may, however, be valid. It is based of the dependence of the absolute air humidity on the average surface temperature. I tried to summarize it again in my previous post. For these reasons, I believe that the alleged contradictions to that you repeatedly pointed may in fact not exist.
Greetings
Tomáš
Dr. Lague is very interested in this issue:
“Reduced terrestrial evaporation increases atmospheric water vapor by generating cloud feedbacks”
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1
Lague cautions:
“Previous work has shown how changes in terrestrial evaporation modulate the water vapor greenhouse effect; specifically, Laguë et al (2021a) show that while reducing land evaporation directly warms the surface, over very large idealized continents, reductions in land evaporation lead to reduced atmospheric water vapor and drive an overall cooling at the surface by reducing the water vapor greenhouse effect.”
The popular wisdom is repeated:
“In idealized continental configurations with large land masses, reducing terrestrial evaporation can instead drive terrestrial cooling by reducing atmospheric water vapor concentrations and the strength of the water vapor greenhouse effect (Laguë et al 2021a).”
In previous works Lague shows that with large continental configurations, such as that of a “Northland” continent, inhibiting ET does in fact cool the situation by reducing the water vapor greenhouse effect. This was discussed at a recent ECS & CLoud Feedback symposium session posted on youtube by Lutsko.
However, Lague demonstrates in the recent work that in the modern actual Earth’s continental configuration, using a GCM with real shaped continental patches intersperse dby ocean:
“When we suppress evaporation to create a desert-like planet, we find that temperatures increase and precipitation decreases in the global mean. We find an increase in atmospheric water vapor over both land and ocean in the DesertLand simulation.””
“DesertLand has the most atmospheric water vapor, despite having suppressed land evaporation (figure 3). The planet as a whole is not water limited in the modern continental configuration, so ocean evaporation increases in the DesertLand simulation (figure 4(a)).”
Does this help or make it more confusing? Surely we could at least entertain ideas even if we do not accept them. Wouldn’t it be more fun?
TKalisz: Feb 4: Dear Piotr, In line with moderator’s plea that we focus on the merits, I would like to desist from justifying my first sentence
What are talking about? My challenging you on the three internal contradictions in your posts – is as focused on the merits as it gets.
You, instead of defending your claims, tried to change the subject. And now you are trying to portray your inability to face the truth about your claims, as something … laudable – you following “ the moderator’s plea that we focus on the merits “…
If you can’t stand the heat, don’t start fires.
Et tu, Brute?
JCM, in his Feb 4 post, …. stabbed poor Tomas in the back, repeatedly, with his new source, Laguë et al.:
1. Tomas began with the assumption that doubling evaporation would double the latent heat flux without affecting any other energy fluxes. JCM source suggest otherwise. Stab.
2. Tomas insists he can massively increase evaporation over land without increasing absolute humidity there. JCM source proves otherwise. Stab.
3. Tomas fall-back position, that even if there was a increase in water vapour, the warming effect would be negligible compared to the latent heat cooling. Laguë proves otherwise. Stab.
4. Tomas limited his analysis to continents only – in fact, he chastised BPL for considering changes in energy fluxes over the ocean. In one of the runs, Lague et al. also run a continents-only model (no exchange of air with ocean). Conclusion: “ while reducing land evaporation directly warms the surface, reductions in land evaporation lead to reduced atmospheric water vapor and drive an overall cooling at the surface by reducing the water vapor greenhouse effect.”. Hence the opposite, Tomas’es increasing evaporation from land without the air masses moving between land and ocean, would cause the opposite – add to global warming. Stab, stab, stab.
To borrow from Nemo: “ With fronds like JCM, who needs anemones“
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818986
Dear all,
I have read the fulltext of the Laguë article
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1/pdf
Although I, as a layman, do not fully understand the technical details of the models described in the article, I am somewhat confused by the interpretation of the article
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819041
offered by Piotr on February 6, 2:47 PM.
It is my feeling that conclusions provided by the authors of the article are basically opposite to Piotr’s interpretation.
My understanding to the message of the article is that according to the simulation by the used CESM (Community Earth System Model) tool, an increase in water availability for evaporation from land (by shifting to the “swamp land Earth”) would have resulted in a significant global mean surface temperature descrease. In this simulation, the increase in the water cycle intensity and the commensurate increase in the latent heat flux is accompanied by a decrease of the average absolute air humidity. Most important contribution to this result is not the direct surface cooling by the increased latent heat flux but rather increased Earth albedo due to increased cloud cover.
Oppositely, a decrease in water availability for evaporation (by shifting to the “desert land Earth”) would have resulted in a significant global mean surface temperature increase. In this simulation, the decrease in the water cycle intensity and the commensurate decrease in the latent heat flux is accompanied by an increase of the average absolute air humidity.
Am I wrong and confused, as suggested by Piotr?
Can someone advise?
Greetings
Tomáš
To Piotr
Tomas seemed willing to entertain the framework scenario proposed by BPL, adopting an honest and constructive argumentative style, in stark contrast to a deceptive adversarial approach. I submit that my assessment was to reject the scenario of BPL.
Both Tomas and BPL exhibited a collaborative effort within the specific framework offered. As I mentioned previously, however, that framework was physically misleading, and the negative consequences of that persist to this day, still poisoning the thread months later. Everyone, except you, has acknowledged this and moved on.
Latching on to that and progressively distorting it with invented mind games is next-level detrimental. The drift away from physical meaning has become incredibly severe. It has become so twisted that the “opponent” stance that you position yourself appears to have overwhelmed your process. It is you projecting a tribal mindset onto others, now filtering it through a Shakespearian romanticism.
You demonstrate classic manipulation – where instead of presenting strong arguments you are relying instead on trying to catch people in meaningless and unphysical traps. This is a form of intellectual dishonesty and is generally not conducive to a constructive and honest exchange of ideas about reality.
Still you have failed to offer any reasoned arguments that successfully debunk watershed relations to climates at any scale. Now distorted so far as to use Lague in support of your adversarial games. Many of the assumptions that you bestow upon Tomas are in fact the scenario framework introduced by BPL. Lague articulates clearly how and why the assumption of increasing water vapor greenhouse effect with continental ET is misleading on planet Earth.
Needless to say, Lague’s physical teachings about reality can not not be conceptualized within the unphysical configuration introduced by BPL. That is neither a reflection on BPL nor Tomas.
I introduced Lague’s process GCM examples in tandem with Kleidon style analytical approach long-ago to demonstrate two ways of understanding the same concept. Using either independent approach, each with different conceptual framework, a useful platform for arguing the climate change associated with landscape destruction is introduced for the Earth system. I recommend to understand the references I provide before engaging. I do the same with materials provided to me.
I urge you to refrain from actively distorting, misrepresenting, and misunderstanding the issue. The perceived implications of the subject do not threaten the values of GHG reduction. If you have confused me for your enemy in climate protection consider reflecting on that.
Tomas Kalisz: “ Am I wrong and confused?
Yes, you are wrong and confused. Here is why:
If you want to increase the confidence in the results of your model by results of another more realistic model – you have to choose the model most compatible with yours. Of the two versions of Laguë et al – from 2021 and 2023 – it is the 2021 that looks ONLY at the effects over land – is like yours – since you demanded from BPL that the change in humidity, if any at all, should be LIMITED to land. You can’t have this limitation, if there is air exchange between ocean and land.
And it matters which models you use – since the results depend on the assumption made in each model – the model more like YOURS, Laguë 2021 – suggests that increasing evaporation from land would cause WARMING of the Earth – i.e. the outcome OPPOSITE to your claims. Hence your model, and therefore its “results” and your “feelings” based on them, are irrelevant: “Garbage assumptions in, garbage conclusions out”. And unless you admit it, you will never learn from your mistakes.
If after that admission, you wanted still to discuss results of the model based on the REJECTION of your assumptions, let me know. (Heads up though – even that 2023 model won’t likely prove your claim that your evaporative scheme is a valid alternative to GHG reduction – massive cost and massive ecological damage for the … very uncertain and likely much too small to matter outcome.)
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819074
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
First of all, I must apologize that I have not read the older articles issued by Laguë et al, and therefore cannot refer thereto nor comment thereon.
My approach to this discussion is reflected in the title of my tracking orgpage
https://orgpad.com/s/7zfynb_y5o7 ,
which is:
“Discussion forum: Heat wave mitigation in urban environment, solar energy exploitation and global water cycle restoration”.
As a layman, I rather try to learn the truth about the role of water cycle in Earth climate than to promote and/or defend an own theory or hypothesis.
In this respect, I would like to turn your attention to the circumstance that despite of Barton Paul’s assumption of a latent heat flux doubling above land, his simple model does not make any distinction between land and sea. It does work with global averages and does not comprise any limitation as regards the real geographical distribution of any of the considered energy fluxes over the Earth surface. The starting assumption was made purely for practical reasons. I asked if human interferences with terrestrial water cycle could have an influence on global climate, and Barton Paul Levenson tried to answer this question.
I must admit that I was quite long unable to recognize that ignoring the partition of convective fluxes into latent and sensible heat is too far from the physical reality. Finally, I agreed to JCM that this is clearly an oversimplification which makes the results obtained from the BPL model hardly applicable. Nevertheless, I still hope that the extremely simple BPL approach with global averages might be perhaps helpful if someone will be able (and willing) to implement the convective flux partitioning therein.
Anyway, I would like to emphasize:
The model with land and sea energy fluxes separated from each other (that I allegedly defend) does not exist. Please accept this fact. Otherwise, we can hardly progress forward in any productive manner.
Greetings
Tomáš
JCM: Both Tomas and BPL exhibited a collaborative effort within the specific framework offered. As I mentioned previously, however, that framework was physically misleading, and the negative consequences of that persist to this day, still poisoning the thread months later.
BPL: I tried disguising myself as a harmless old woman in a black cloak and offering JCM the poisoned apple, but he was too wise to take it. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!
More like noticing a shady cook in a dirty kitchen on a Monday. best to avoid.
JCM 7 FEB “ To Piotr. Tomas seemed willing to entertain the framework scenario proposed by BPL, adopting an honest and constructive argumentative style, in stark contrast to a deceptive adversarial approach. I submit that my assessment was to reject the scenario of BPL.”
Nobody challenged your “submission of assessment ” (I too have told Tomas to stop using BPL model to claim that it validates his scheme).
What I challenged is your interjecting yourself into my discussion with Tomas WITHIN his own arguments:
I have proven that his use of BPL’s model was anything BUT “ honest and constructive ” – Tomas used BPL – by cherry-picking results he liked, and dismissing results and general conclusions of BPL that he didn’t like, to claim the BPL’s results validate his harebrained evaporation scheme. Tomas’s answer to criticism – have been invariably dishonest and evasive – after proclaiming his gratitude for my answer, he would not address my objections, but try to change the subject, or slither away on a technicality. I have documented this pattern in many posts, and I concluded with the list of 3 internal contradictions e.g. on Jan 15 WITHIN Tomas’s OWN posts, internal i.e., not dependent on whether he used BPL’s model or not.
To that discussion between me and Tomas, interjected JCM, by characterizing my pointing of the internal contradictions WITHIN Tomas argument as:
– [aiming] “to distort the established and widely understood principle”
– lacking “honesty”
-“a lack of understanding ”,
“lacking any foundation in knowledge on the issue”
– an attempt to “butcher the discussion”
– and being … emotional about my butchering and distorting (“ Piotr’s impassioned responses”, “protestations” )
Now you added: “ deceptive adversarial approach ”
Of course, without ANY falsifiable proof for any of these (except adversarial – I don’t mind that – life is too short to suffer fools gladly, and it is calling spade a spade.)
And now you are telling me that all the above was did not refer to your … interjecting yourself into my discussion with Tomas on the internal contradiction in his claims, but that you merely … advised him on what … I have advised him too (to stop using BPL model to claim that it validates his scheme) ???
But please, do continue lecturing me on my “lack of honesty“.
Tomas Kalisz Feb. 8: “ First of all, I must apologize that I have not read the older articles issued by Laguë et al, and therefore cannot refer thereto nor comment thereon.”
No, you can – the quote from that “older” article (Laguë et al. 2021a) I took from … the post of JCM Feb. 4, post that you have read. Further, JCM got it from “latest” article by Laguë et al. (2023) that you told us you have read too (TK: “ I have read the fulltext of the Laguë article “).
So no, pleading ignorance won’t get you off the hook.
Furthermore – the very results of the Laguë et al. 2023 you have quoted are possible ONLY by their REJECTION of the 4 of your claims from the previous discussion: see these 4 in my Feb. 6 post here:
For instance, without allowing for the land-sea air masses exchanges (which you explicitly rejected when you asked BPL to contain the water vapour from land to land only) – we have the “older” Laguë et al. 2021 version of the model – in which using your assumption of no exchanges between land and the ocean – the increased evaporation from land would cause net WARMING.
TK: As a layman, I rather try to learn the truth about the role of water cycle in Earth climate than to promote and/or defend an own theory or hypothesis.
You have posted many dozens of posts promoting your mass-evaporation scheme, and touting it as a REPLACEMENT for the GHG mitigation, which, despite being a layman, you felt qualified to dismiss as a brute-force” approach, that by relying “on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good“. And you asked us to … delay the reductions in the fossil fuel use by “ trusting in human creativity [to] invent more suitable and more efficient tools“. i.e., the old deniers: anything, but reductions in the fossil fuels use .
So your today’s claim how you don’t promote and/or defend your theories but merely innocently “ try to learn the truth about the role of water cycle – is a boldfaced LIE. Or in JCM’s vernacular: “ [Tomas’es] honest and constructive style“.
If you can’t own up to your own actions, you won’t learn anything. So, strap on a pair, Tomas, would ya?
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819145
Dear Piotr,
in my post of February 8
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819062,
I wrote:
“My understanding to the message of the article is that according to the simulation by the used CESM (Community Earth System Model) tool, an increase in water availability for evaporation from land (by shifting to the “swamp land Earth”) would have resulted in a significant global mean surface temperature descrease. In this simulation, the increase in the water cycle intensity and the commensurate increase in the latent heat flux is accompanied by a decrease of the average absolute air humidity. Most important contribution to this result is not the direct surface cooling by the increased latent heat flux but rather increased Earth albedo due to increased cloud cover.
Oppositely, a decrease in water availability for evaporation (by shifting to the “desert land Earth”) would have resulted in a significant global mean surface temperature increase. In this simulation, the decrease in the water cycle intensity and the commensurate decrease in the latent heat flux is accompanied by an increase of the average absolute air humidity.”
In your post, you do not dispute what I wrote. Instead, you compare Lague with your own theses:
–
1. Tomas began with the assumption that doubling evaporation would double the latent heat flux without affecting any other energy fluxes. JCM source suggest otherwise. Stab.
2. Tomas insists he can massively increase evaporation over land without increasing absolute humidity there. JCM source proves otherwise. Stab.
3. Tomas fall-back position, that even if there was a increase in water vapour, the warming effect would be negligible compared to the latent heat cooling. Laguë proves otherwise. Stab.
4. Tomas limited his analysis to continents only – in fact, he chastised BPL for considering changes in energy fluxes over the ocean. In one of the runs, Lague et al. also run a continents-only model (no exchange of air with ocean). Conclusion: “ while reducing land evaporation directly warms the surface, reductions in land evaporation lead to reduced atmospheric water vapor and drive an overall cooling at the surface by reducing the water vapor greenhouse effect.”. Hence the opposite, Tomas’es increasing evaporation from land without the air masses moving between land and ocean, would cause the opposite – add to global warming. Stab, stab, stab.
–
Could you return to my post of February 8 and specify in which aspects I misunderstand Lague 2023?
Best regards
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb 12: “Could you return to my post of February 8 and specify in which aspects I misunderstand Lague 2023? ”
Why should I help you to divert the attention from your previous claims? I have identified 3 specific contradictions in your previous claims – you have failed to address ANY of them and produced LIES to cover them. The latest batch of them in the very same “ post of February 8” you ask about:
-you lied that you are unfamiliar with the quote from Lague 2021, when it was quoted both in JCM Feb. 4, and in the Lague 2023 which you read too (TK: “ I have read the fulltext of the Laguë article “)
– you lied when claiming:
TK Feb. 8: “ I rather try to learn the truth about the role of water cycle in Earth climate than to promote and/or defend an own theory or hypothesis”
when for many months you have pushed your own version on the old denier’s
claim that we don’t have to reduce GHGs (which you dismissed as ” “brute-force” approach, that by relying “on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good “ ), because … we could just double the Earth’s evaporation. And when the problems with proposed by you mass evaporation scheme have been pointed to you, repeatedly, – you now pronounce your innocence – how you have not pushed your evaporative scheme, but merely: try to learn the truth about the role of water cycle in Earth climate .
If you can’t own up to your own EARLIER actions, why would I waste time on your new questions? So, strap on a pair, Tomas.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819278
Dear anonymous Piotr,
Please be honest to yourself:
If I once again try to deal with your accusations, are you really willing to answer the questions I asked with respect to my and your understanding to Lague 2023?
OK, let us try.
1) First, I wrote that I read Lague 2023, not Lague 2021. Requesting that I should comment on JCM citation from Lague 2021 because I read JCM post sounds strange.
2) Equally strange is your assertion that I should deal with Lague 2021 because I allegedly requested or assumed that there should be no mass and heat exchange between land and ocean. I can only repeat that I have never did so, and remind you again that the model discussed by Barton Paul Levenson has not comprised a such assumption or limitation.
3) Furthermore, I would like to note that I came to this website because I erroneously assumed that this is a place where public can ask questions to climate scientists hosting it, in a reasonable expectation of an answer (if the question makes sense).
4 )The incentives for my questions were, on one hand, articles asserting (on the basis of computations made by state-of-art climate models) that installing lot of dark solar panels in deserts of Africa or Middle East brings more precipitation in these arid regions, and, on the other hand, objections raised in other articles that present climate models may not treat latent heat flux and water cycle properly and that their predictions, especially with respect to the Earth climate sensitivity to human interferences with water cycle, may be unreliable.
5) I still think that asking what is the role of water cycle in Earth climate regulation is a legitime question, as well as asking if human influence could have disrupted the water cycle on continents in some extent, or if renewable energy exploitation might be modified the way enabling an active human influence thereon. I do not think that 10 months of the previous discussion clarified these questions. If you assign my efforts as “pushing evaporation scheme” and request that I “own my earlier actions”, it sounds, however, as if I made something illegal or subversive.
6) It is of course up to you as you assess others, however, calling them liars or accusing them of dishonesty, and making all this from comfortable anonymity of your nick, sounds strange.
7) I suppose that contributions to the discussion made by JCM and the articles cited by him were most relevant to the topics. My question if you could clarify the difference between my and your understanding to Lague 2023 was an attempt to overcome teh above mentioned negative attitudes and refocus on merits. If you prefer to ignore this question, I will be fine. Nevertheless, if you do so, please be so kind, stop this thread and do not reply to this post anymore.
Best wishes
Tomáš
re: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819143
Piotr,
I have no interest in the fixation of what you perceive to be procedural errors concerning interjections.
I concede that my chosen language labelling your contributions as “confusion” is borrowed directly from the style used in the headpost articles of the page authors here. Your butchery and demonstrated lack of skill on the issue is evident. No amount of hand waving will cure that.
It is true that debunking soil regime connections to hydrologies, moisture, and climates is a difficult task. This is because, to some degree, this is old and common knowledge. Only bad teaching and a lack of experience can lead someone to refuse that. This is obvious because it’s so fundamental.
In more advanced topics, the notions of doublings of ET from today are plainly nonsense, and if one can’t begin to realize why – and refuses to understand – this is what I perceive to be dishonest. I could not imagine interpreting it any other way.
One could play around with a maximum ET concept, and that is made more interesting by the instantaneous decay function of soil moisture after precip. It is this decay, and the moistening frequency, which is of interest.
Once you can begin to appreciate how the landscape constraints operate, in a real and experienced way, or with an ability and willingness to advance on that, then a productive dialogue can commence.
Tomáš Kalisz 14 FEB: “ Dear anonymous Piotr”
??? What have you wanted to achieve with that “anonymous”? I haven’t seen you writing “Dear anonymous JCM”, even though “JCM” is much more anonymous than me. But there is a silver lining to it – it shows how much
your superficial politeness (“ Dear”, “Thank you for your answer”, “please be so kind“) – is worth – just a duplicitous pose. So lets dispense with your pretense – , never be ashamed of who you are ;-)
TK: “ Please be honest to yourself”
“be honestto yourself “? I see your non-anonymous JCM rubs off on you.
TK:” If I once again try to deal with your accusations, are you really willing to answer the questions I asked with respect to my and your understanding to Lague 2023? ”
Sure, if you can live up to your word. But it seems you hit the wall at the very first step.
To my Feb13: “you lied that you are unfamiliar with the quote from Lague 2021, when it was quoted both in JCM Feb. 4, and in the Lague 2023 ”
you answered:
TK 14 Feb: “ 1) First, I wrote that I read Lague 2023, not Lague 2021.”
which part of “ the quote from Lague 2021 [was] in Lague 2023” you can’t understand, Tomas?
TK 14 Feb: “ Requesting that I should comment on JCM citation from Lague 2021 because I read JCM post sounds strange.
So you find it … “strange” to expect from you
– to … read the post addressed to you and to … which you have responded, AND
– to … read the 2023 article you have claimed to have “read the fulltext of”
Since you have a tendency to skip arguments you don’t like, let me stop for now here – so you have no excuse for not answering the points above.
Once you do so, I’ll be happy continue with your next points (2-7).
Tomas Kalisz.
You are an intelligent man, however Piotrs claims that some of your comments are wrong or not totally honest, or contradictory look correct to me. In response to his criticisms you have gone into denial, and are deflecting, and are defending the indefensible or making incoherent explanations. Piotr isnt letting you get away with that – and quite right he shouldn’t. The result is like an awful never ending debate like a stalemate in chess and its getting tedious to read. Please admit your sins, and break that stalemate!
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819357
Dear Nigel,
Thank you very much for your kind words, although I do not know if I deserve them.
An upgrade of this website to a church is, in my opinion, an excellent idea that is worth of a serious consideration. Sins against mainstream climatic science, such as heretic water cycle worshipping or doubts about suitability of policies recommended for climate change mitigation, could be effectively and to mutual satisfaction on both sides redeemed e.g. by buying emission allowances.
Unfortunately, this exceptional business opportunity seems to be still completely neglected by administrators. Even worse, the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether.
As I feel that I willl be hardly ever able to get rid of my sinful ideas, my further appearance on this sacred ground becomes rather uncertain.
Greetings
Tomáš
JCM says 14 FEB: “ Piotr, I have no interest in the fixation of what you perceive to be procedural errors concerning interjections”
What you dismiss “procedural errors concerning interjections
is the most elementary rule of a discussion – if you interject yourself into the discussion of other people, you’d better have something to say about the topic, instead of trying to discredit one party of the discussion for “butchering” the topic …. he wasn’t talking about. So let me wrap up with a summary
JCM:
– The discussion of … Y should really not be butchered to such an extent as displayed above. Piotr’s impassioned responses clearly lack any foundation in knowledge on the issue.
– irrespective of [the above] emotional outburst of Piotr, let me explain …Y.
– latching on to that and progressively distorting it
– you projecting a tribal mindset onto others, now filtering it through a Shakespearian romanticism. {P: “Shakespearian romanticism” ??? Quickly, take me to the burn unit!]
– you demonstrate classic manipulation
– your intellectual dishonesty
– I urge you to refrain from actively distorting, misrepresenting, and misunderstanding
– Piotr’s deceptive adversarial approach
– your butchery and demonstrated lack of skill on the issue is evident.”
So many words, yet not a single word of falsification of the logic of my argument (Jan 31):
—-
” This discussion, in a symbolic notation:
– Tomas K: X and not-X
– Piotr: You can have both X and not-X
– JCM: Piotr impassionedly butchered Y
– Piotr: I showed contradiction WITHIN Tomas’s argument about X.
Tomas didn’t invoke Y. Consequently, neither did my response. So the “butchering of …Y” [and all other invectives above] are only in your head. “
to Piotr,
I’ve noticed your consistent efforts to impede productive communication, a disruption that has persisted for weeks and months. Your mishandling of the issue has been ongoing for years, even predating the current procedural error that has captured your fixation.
It appears that you’ve created a pattern of imagining that watershed hydrology has no connection to climates at any scale, and your objective seems to be to sabotage any attempt at fostering a better understanding of this relationship.
If you are unable to contribute meaningful insights into whether hydro-ecological restoration is beneficial for climate stability or not, including regional extremes and hazard exposure, kindly refrain from distorting the topic. I’ve encountered people like you many times before; those displaying superficial environmental values and a false sense virtue. The damage caused by this cannot be under stated.
I submit that you have failed to debunk anything and the issue stands firm – that watershed hydrology is an essential aspect of heat budgets, climates, and the places we live. Weeks and months of your nonsense and refusal to refocus or advance is plenty-enough to secure the failed debunking attempt.
Evapotranspiration (ET) accompanied by mass and heat transport in the hydrological cycle is a key component in regulating climate observables. Yet, understanding this remains challenging because of the apparent dependence on many factors, such as radiation, turbulent flux, soil properties, vegetation, and moisture availability limits. All of these factors operate within the broader framework of global circulation, ongoing trace gas radiative forcing, natural and unnatural aerosol forcing disruptions, and feedbacks.
I’m receptive to knowledgable or genuine efforts to discuss this matter. However, if your intent is rooted in sabotage driven by bias and bad teaching, I kindly request that you abstain from participating.
Tomas Kalisz
“Sins against mainstream climatic science, such as heretic water cycle worshipping or doubts about suitability of policies recommended for climate change mitigation, could be effectively and to mutual satisfaction on both sides redeemed e.g. by buying emission allowances.”
This is another example of your tendency to sometimes deflect. This time its away from my comments that Piotr has made some claims that some of your comments are incorrect and contradictory or dishonest, and that this seems correct and that your response has been to defend the indefensible or give a incoherent justification of why you are correct and so on. Please just either admit you were wrong, or give a much clearer explanation if you believe you were not wrong, and one that doesn’t entail people searching back through the past conversations. Your defence should have all pertinent information and quotes. and be self contained.
Your claims appear wrong to me, but its also possible that I have misinterpreted you due to lack of clarity on your part. Many internet arguments result from misinterpretations.
Please appreciate Piotr has also challenged me when he has believed I was wrong and I have denied it even though I knew I was wrong. Its human nature. I quickly learned the simplest solution to make Piotr shut up is to admit I was wrong (or words to that effect). We all make mistakes or contradict ourselves occasionally. On another occasion I just ignored his criticism completely and made no response.
Piotr is quite sharp and is merely holding people to account and I support him in that, and I do the same when I have time.
Theres little point defending the indefensible because everyone can see what you are doing. Once you have admitted you were wrong or given a convincing explanation if you were in fact correct Piotr will leave you alone, and will be happy to agree with you if he believe you are correct about something, because I’ve seen him do this with people.
“As I feel that I willl be hardly ever able to get rid of my sinful ideas, my further appearance on this sacred ground becomes rather uncertain.”
I did not claim your ideas on the water cycle or about problems of mitigation are sinful. Indeed you are creating a strawman. And indeed I share some of your views about inadequacies of certain types of mitigation. But your “righteousness” on some of those things does not make Piotrs claims about your comments being inconsistent etcetera any less valid. So stop being petulant and playing the hard done by victim.
All your problems on this website would be solved by acknowledging some of your statements were contradictory or erroneous. If I can do this so can you. Then we get back to substantive discussion about the water cycle, mitigation or whatever. You have useful technical knowledge in those areas to contribute.
To Tomas
Many prioritize the appearance of environmental consciousness without genuinely committing to meaningful actions or understanding. These people often express profound concern for the environment, but their participation is superficial at best. As a land steward, I actively observe this trend infiltrating progressive values, eroding community engagement, and impeding the pursuit of positive outcomes.
I came to this page after the regional municipality chose to prioritize investing in wind turbines, rather than restoring the local water budget regime factors, following the depletion of wells. This decision went directly against expert opinion at the time, which was based on actual and well-established local circumstances. It was then that I realized the profound harm caused by the phony contemporary discourse. However, I maintain that the vocal minority who exhibit characteristics resembling religious fervor and imperviousness may not faithfully represent these pages or professional opinion in general. In fact, I know this for certain..
JCM: to Piotr,
I’ve noticed your consistent efforts to impede productive communication, a disruption that has persisted for weeks and months. Your mishandling of the issue has been ongoing for years, even predating the current procedural error that has captured your fixation.
BPL: When you can’t argue the substance of the debate, attack the person.
Tomáš Kalisz 16 FEB:
-“ An upgrade of this website to a church”
– “I feel that I will be hardly ever able to get rid of my sinful ideas”
-“the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether.”
But before your bring your own wood, affix yourself to the stake, and set yourself alight – nice try, but no cigar – yours is just another denier’s cliché: the deniers try to discredit scientists as followers of a …. sinister religion. The religious dogma is the very opposite of the scientific reasoning, it’s the belief, sustained in the absence, or even better, in spite, of the facts and logic . (Your Deity won’t be impressed much with you faith, if you accepted it because … the facts support its existence.) Any subjective belief is as valid as any other – so the climate science must be no more valid than the belief in, say, flat Earth. Furthermore – by making scientists into deluded followers of irrational, baseless, religion – deniers can attach the worst features of the actual religions – persecution of the non-believers, for their “sins of heresy against mainstream climatic science“. And to portray yourself and other JCMs – as … victims – martyrs for the reason, bravely standing by it, even in the face of … “ extermination“:
“ the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether ” Tomas Kalisz.
Whether you stay here, or move on to the more denier-friendly websites – I don’t care – either you go – thus one denier-troll less here, or you stay – then an opportunity to challenge the deniers clichés: if the fate gives you a Tomas, you make lemonade:
Some of the deniers clichés in the Tomas mass production so far:
1. Reductions of GHGs are “a brute-force” approach, which by relying “ on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good“
2. Instead, we should …“ trust in human creativity [to] invent more suitable and more efficient tools“ (prof. Pangloss view of the world)
3. We don’t have to worry about reducing fossil fuel use- INSTEAD we can just …double global evaporation (massive ecological damage, uncertain outcome, and further ocean acidification – be damned)
4. Co2 is “completely natural,” and therefore cannot be possibly “ dangerous and harmful“.
5. The current: climate science is “religion” – “the church of climate change” that enforces adherence to their irrational dogma among the faithful and “threatens to exterminate the sinners”
Other inferences (so no point in trying to get out on technicality that you haven’t said so explicitly) from the above claims:
6. Climate scientists must form a global cabal, controlling all universities on Earth – not only in the West, but also in Russia or Saudi Arabia, countries that have most to lose, if we move off the fossil fuels.
7. This scientists cabal is so powerful – not only has it managed to suppress the truth, but there have been no defectors from their ranks
– even though the payout from the fossil fuel industrial complex to such a defector would have been astronomical (the defector would have saved them trillions of dollars in profits annually). Yet … no takers???
8. The scientists cabal has turned out to be impervious to infiltration by the intelligence operatives of countries like Russia or Saudi Arabia – even though at stake for them: if humanity stopped buying their oil and gas.
the end of their regimes, and their ability to project power abroad.
Probably there is more denier lines in the vast production of Tomas, but who has the time to read all that …
JCM 18 FEB “to Piotr, I’ve noticed your consistent efforts to impede productive communication“.
You must have been looking in the mirror – it was you who interjected himself into my discussion with Tomas, in which I have listed the internal contradictions within his, Tomas’s, claims.
You, unable to explain out these contradictions in Tomas’s claims, attacked … me with your bizarre accusations of me “ butchering” something … I didn’t discuss, because it was OUTSIDE the subject of the discussion into which you interjected yourself.
And having done so – _you_ have the hutzpah to accuse _me_ of “consistent efforts to impede productive communication” ? ;-)
To Piotr;
in response to perceived inappropriate interjections and hutzpah:
I’ve requested many times to please clarify what it is you are disputing, and I conceded that it has become inscrutable.
I looked back and there is indeed contamination of concepts, ideas, and various crossing lines of argument. I think the current rut stems from here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818588
To me the obvious hang-up is the foundational notion that you assume.
“when you increase evaporation you would increase SH there”.
Although I have tried to provide numerous ways to understand why that isn’t the case, I reintroduce this in a good-faith effort to get out of the rut.
Your concept is directly opposed to a long history of hydrological and agricultural knowledge, and it is opposed to recent climatological literature.
The following review article on hydrological and temperature extremes offers a good overview of the state-of-classic field-experienced observation approaches.
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nyas.13912
“”””On land−atmospheric feedbacks:
“These feedbacks are intuitive: as soil and vegetation dry out, land evaporation (or evapotranspiration26) is reduced, hence the air becomes even drier, which may further decrease the likelihood of rainfall and favor the occurrence of meteorological droughts (Fig. 1).21, 27-29 Concurrently, as evaporation progressively declines, a larger fraction of incoming radiation is employed to warm up the environment, which leads to an accumulation of sensible heat in the atmosphere that may develop into a heatwave or exaggerate its magnitude”
Lessons learned from observations –
“Although the importance of land surface evaporation for hydrology and agriculture has long been recognized,53, 54 its crucial role in climate has only been highlighted in more recent years.40, 55-57 Overall, natural land evaporation (1) is highly sensitive to changes in radiation and temperature, thus it propagates the radiative effects of anthropogenic emissions throughout the entire water cycle,58, 59 (2) plays a central role in critical climate processes, such as the water vapor and cloud feedbacks, and (3) connects the water and carbon cycles through its coupling to photosynthesis.60, 61 However, as mentioned above, the most direct effect of land evaporation on climate comes from its role in the surface energy partitioning: evaporation directly regulates climate through a series of feedbacks acting on air temperature and precipitation, which may affect climate trends,62, 63 regular meteorological conditions,30,32, 40 and hydro-meteorological extremes4, 39, 57” “”””
I have provided additional resources elsewhere to place this into the preferred context of globally averaged climates. I concede, however, that owing to the far more computationally complex (and observationally limited) role of soils, ecosystems, hydrologies, and atmospheric interactions (relative to radiative transfer of longer waves in atmosphere), these processes are less-documented in contemporary literature. However, I propose that one should not artificially impose bounds on knowing the nature of reality based on that which is computationally feasible at global scal,e or from basing one’s perspective on the teachings of those with a single specific policy objective. Indeed, Earth Systems, and the environments we experience, require a multidisciplinary perspective for optimal outcomes. I see no virtue in denying that.
in response to BPL
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819413
yes you have displayed this behavior many times before. I find it nearly impossible not to reflect back to toxic animosity that prevails in this virtual space, leading to frustration.
While I can understand a reflexive defense-reaction developed in response to those you label deniers, surely we could gain clarity and perspective by recognizing that, for the most part, we shared common ground as allies in the ongoing pursuit of realclimate stabilization. This stands in stark contrast to those who refuse to acknowledge the extreme ongoing human interference with multiple climate-related processes.
I am certain our common ground would become obvious face-t0-face over a pint outside in reality.
Please consider volunteering or participating in public forum and other opportunities in your community for environmental restoration. The numbers are dwindling as many have been convinced that purchasing certain types of manufactured and investment products, and voting to subsidize these products, is the extent of environmental participation. Some others engage by fighting a “climate war” online via screens. In doing so, many are completely misled and are losing perspective of the reality outside.
JCM Feb 22: “ I’ve requested many times to please clarify what it is you are disputing,
To which I have clarified, also “many times”. Several times in the specific form: e.g. on Feb.2 quoting from Piotr, Jan.12 – referring to Tomas internal contradictions within his own writings:
=== ” 1. I asked you (Tomas) about your “12% increase in global absolute air humidity ”, you answered about “ 12% increase in …latent heat flux”. But wasn’t the decoupling of humidity from the latent heat flux (i.e. that doubling latent heat flux won’t increase humidity), your main argument here?
2. If evaporation on land does not change humidity over the ocean, this implies NO horizontal transport of air masses, with their extra humidity, from land onto the ocean, thus contradicting your [Tomas’s] claim:
TK:” your assertion, that I required that water vapour coming from land staying above land, is incorrect ”
3. And IF there was no movement of air masses from land to sea (point 2), how could the increased latent heat flux above land – force “ the entire Earth surface” [ (c) TK] – to cool ===
===
… and then I explained to you … several times more, in a more general form, explaining what does it mean to show a CONTRADICTION WITHIN SOMEBODY’S OWN ARGUMENT: e.g.
=== Piotr Jan. 31: ============
“I showed contradictions WITHIN Tomas’s argument. In simplifying notation:
– Tomas K: “X” and not-“X”
– Piotr: You can’t have both “X” and not-“X”
– JCM: Most of Piotr’s confusion can be explained by a lack of understanding of … “Y”. The discussion of “Y” should really not be butchered to such an extent as displayed above. Piotr’s impassioned responses clearly lack any foundation in knowledge of “Y”.
=========================
All those many explanation went over your head, since you have come back with … this chestnut:
JCM (Feb.22): To me the obvious hang-up is the foundational notion that you assume. “when you increase evaporation you would increase SH there”.
The discussion is not about MY assumptions, but about Tomas, who in earlier posts made claims CONTRADICTING his assumption in a later post. See p.1 in the list of contradictions above, namely:
== “1. I asked you (Tomas) about your “12% increase in global absolute air humidity ”, you answered about “ 12% increase in …latent heat flux”.
But wasn’t the decoupling of humidity from the latent heat flux (i.e. that doubling latent heat flux won’t increase humidity), your main argument here?” ====
See? His equating the 12% increase in abs. humidity with 12% increase in latent heat – CONTRADICTED his earlier claims that changes in abs. humidity are decoupled from changes in latent heat flux.
Or if still incomprehensible to you, in simplifying notation:
– Tomas: “X and not-X”
– Piotr: You can’t have both “X” and not-“X”
– JCM: “ To me the obvious hang-up of Piotr is the foundational notion that Piotr assumes that “X” is true
So that “obvious hang-up ” …. is only in your head. As are your other claims about me:
“ distorting the established and widely understood principle”, “lacking honesty”, “lacking understanding ”, “lacking any foundation in knowledge on the issue”, “your deceptive approach“ or “ butchering [the subject that you admitted was, and apparently still is (see above) “inscrutable” to you.
JCM: yes you have displayed this behavior many times before. I find it nearly impossible not to reflect back to toxic animosity that prevails in this virtual space, leading to frustration.
BPL: Try to think of other things. Read a book, watch a movie. Get some rest.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819471
Dear Piotr,
Please be so kind and stop repeating your bullshit about alleged contradictions on my side.
The assumption that global average air humidity is commensurate to average latent heat flux was made by Barton Paul in his analysis, not by me.
I mentioned his assumption to explain why Barton Paul had to correct his analysis the way as he did it. This does not mean that I accepted this assumption as correct, or that I started promoting it.
I explained these aspects in very detail in my posts of January 12, 4:03 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-817917
and of January 9, 10:43 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-817858
and after you completely ignored my replies and continued in your assertions, I tried to remind you of these explanations again, in my post of January 26, 10:46 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818524 .
You obviously enjoy the circumstance that either no one reads my explanations or nobody else than JCM dares to tell you that you have to stop trolling.
Indeed, a such person risks being promptly assigned as “vaporist” and “science denier” or “liar” and being accused of unjustifiably interfering with your discussion. You do not miss any opportunity to start another round of this endless game.
Do you think that you make other readers of this website happy, just because no one (except JCM) does protest?
Best regards
Tomáš
Thanks Piotr,
I think I understand a bit better now.
I can’t say for sure what was going through Tomas’ head, but as previously mentioned I think he was trying to entertain the propositions of BPL. In that framework the water vapor pressure followed from the change in ET. Tomas noted that in spite of this assumption, the global temperature was allowed to be (slightly) cooler.
This may have led to apparent contradictions as entertaining an unphysical framework while simultaneously arguing about physical reality in parallel can result in some crossed wires.
Further to this, I no longer wish to speculate what motivates others to argue they way they do. I think we all understand this and it’s extremely boring to dwell on that still. If you need me to say that yes there is a contradiction between the unphysical and that of reality, then sure I agree.
Subsequent responses to “I’m open to suggestions as to a SH = f(T) or f(pH2O) function” were what I interpreted to be an honest attempt to move past the unphysical framework scenario. Subsequent responses to that were meant to advance. I could have been mistaken(?).
Regardless, I do not understand why keep one foot in the unphysical scenario and dwelling on irrelevant contradictions still while trying to advance. Doing so has resulted in more crossed wires and the inscrutability aspect from my POV. It’s running in circles and does not seem in line with a genuine effort to realize nature. BPL’s call to advance, and noting your butchery of the attempt to do so, has really no relation at all to Tomas, your X and Y, or anything of the sort.
If it helps to move on, it simply does not compute to have a cooler global average near surface air temperature and a higher globally averaged water vapor pressure. Whatever about this 12% thing is irrelevant and unphysical. it’s in the rear-view mirror.
Meanwhile, there has been no debunking of the obvious connections between freedom in eco-hydrologies, freedom in ET, and realclimates. Ongoing suppression of ET has real impacts on climates. I don’t think it’s even qualitatively controversial in the literature.
As demonstrated by Lague 2023 and widely recognized in foundational teaching, the primary control on global average water vapor is temperature. This is fundamentally different from vapor pressure following directly from ET forcing in global mean.
Vapor pressure follows from temperature as it shakes out in global mean over time in the current Earth system configuration. The mechanism which connects forced ET change to global average temperature change, and therefore to global average vapor pressure change, is cloud feedbacks.
If I have caused a hangup for you that’s on me. As previously mentioned, however, I think most would prefer to move past the unphysical and the associated irrelevant contradictions introduced. Relying solely on that fixation to strengthen your position seems to be a weak stance, wouldn’t you agree?
Tomáš makes a point of his “doubts” and has professed his faith in humanity’s ability to solve any global warming issues without climate scientists’ interfering help, thank you very much. Doubting Thomas (pretty sure his choice of word is intentional) no doubt looks at the world through his own dogged religious filter, and thinks he’s spotted a potential rival to his one true faith. No surprise that his projections are so churchy.
That’s the thing with faith, it’s not about reason; FUD on the other hand… different story and ironically lacking in good faith.
As for your patronizing comments: JCM Feb 22: “ I reintroduce this in a good-faith effort to get out of rut. – that rut is only in your head. See below:
JCM: “ Your concept is directly opposed to a long history of hydrological and agricultural knowledge, and it is opposed to recent climatological literature.”
False. First, there is NO “ long history of hydrological and agricultural knowledge ” THAT applies to the discussion at hand: i.e. to whether humans increasing evaporation would cause the GLOBAL cooling – the historical knowledge is at best fragmentary – applying to the LOCAL climatic effects – yet your own source “ Lague et al. 2023” makes the point that local, or even regional processes (like those they studied in Lague et al. 2021) produced the conclusions OPPOSITE to the results at the global scale.
Second, “ recent climatological literature” is NOT opposed to, but SUPPORTS, my criticism of Tomas Kalisz “proofs” that we don’t have to mitigate GHG emissions, because we could just crank up evaporation instead.
For instance, your own recent source, Lague et al. 2023, SUPPORTS my criticism of Kalisz’s claims that:
a) Tomas can’t limit the effect of his scheme to the evaporative latent heat cooling assuming everything else is decoupled from it – Lague et al. 2023 supports me by showing the importance of including changes in specific humidity and clouds.
b) Tomas can’t treat the continents separately from the oceans – Lague et al. 2023 shows that exchange of air masses between the oceans and land have REVERSED their earlier conclusions obtained for continents only ( Lague et al 2021)
The points a) and b) above are relevant specifically to Tomas attempts to quantify his evaporative scheme. Then there is the third and most important point that is general – applies not only to Tomas, but to ALL deniers who either claim that INSTEAD of reducing GHGs we can just crank up the evaporation, OR question the need of decarbonizing the economy UNTIL we have a better understanding the role of the water cycle. Namely:
c) your own Lague et al. 2023 proves that changes in evaporation have NEGLIGIBLE effect on the global warming or cooling: see their Fig.5b – even MUCH LARGER increases in evaporation than theoretically possible today (i.e. going from ZERO evaporation from continents (DesertLand simulation) to the MAXIMUM evaporation from continents (SwampLand simulation)) – produced …. only small net global cooling:
Delta net global TOA energy flux in Fig. 5b from going from ZERO continental evaporation to Max possible continental evaporation – increased the net TOA outgoing energy flux by …. 0.3 W/m2 (=12.8+16 – 14.1). And since this was an extreme case, the real world effect are smaller than that: the current world is not “zero evaporation from continents“, so there is much less room for additional evaporation – hence the increasing of the current continental evaporation to its maximum, would have produced only … a fraction of that 0.3 W/m2 cooling. Compare this fraction of 0.3 W/m2 with the current human forcing (GHGs – minus aerosols) of 2.72 W/m2 (2019 relative to 1750) [IPCC, 2021]…
So deniers get a laughable small effect (fraction of 0.3 W/m2) at the astronomically high economic and environmental costs of irrigation of all Earth’s deserts, semi-deserts and any area that is not fully saturated with water today.
But don’t let my points a), b) and c) stop you from lecturing me how it is my arguments that are opposite to those of “ the recent climatological literature” and from accusing of:
“distortion of the established and widely understood principle”, “lacking honesty, understanding and any foundation in knowledge on the issue”
and “butchering the discussion” and “deceptive approach”
So you are what you accuse others of: – you based your arrogance toward opponents on either:
– your own ignorance (“lacking honesty, understanding and any foundation in knowledge”) because of your inability to understand the implications of what you read, or
– your own “dishonesty”, “distortions”, [and] “deceptive approach ” – cherry-picking only those pieces of information from the literature that support your narrative.
In other words, deniers are using science like a drunkard uses a street lantern – not for enlightenment, but for support. Or, to urinate (attacking integrity of climatologists/IPCC for not playing along with them).
I think I could now finally offer a self-clarification as I now realize I falsely assumed SH to mean sensible heat flux, rather than perhaps its intended meaning of specific humidity ?? I suppose I failed to see a distinction between pH2O and specific humidity, which is a mass ratio (q in g/kg), subsequently resulting in a miscommunication. finally! cheers.
I somehow just automatically assumed it to mean sensible heat flux within the original context. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818570
in reponse to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819496
To Piotr,
Lague 2023 attempted to get near-equilibrium simulations, achieved to within 0.3 W/m2 at TOA, to highlight the climate differences. You distort or misunderstand that.
The main difference related to clouds in CESM leads to a net 12.8 W m−2 increase in energy into the Earth system at the TOA in equilibrium, and about 8.5K temperature increase. That is +14.8 W/m2 from shortwave radiation, and −2 W/2 from longwave radiation. The is the main point of the article – the reductions in low cloud cover as a result of suppressing terrestrial evaporation.
Please refrain from insinuating I am a denier, comparing me to a drunk, or that I propose doubling of ET or irrigation of all the Earth’s deserts, or causing environmental damage, or anything of the sort.
I think you have the wrong idea. Please disentangle. Why do you keep talking about Tomas? I do not see why landscape remediation should be deemed as a moral-hazard which threatens trace gas cuts or the integrity of climate science. It doesn’t.
I propose improved climate stability by a renewed recognition of environmental stewardship, wetland and soils conservation. An improved freedom of the landscape to maximize recharge and the duration of ET, instead of its continuous suppression. This comes with practically no capital expenditure, but cash dividends are low. It’s not glamorous but it’s extremely gratifying. If this makes me the boogey-man, I think it’s super weird, but so be it. Do not worry, there is no chance to double ET!
The framing within globally averaged climates is to cater to the interests of the group here and to improve engagement. I’m acutely aware of the total lack of interest in local circumstances in popular discourse. While we butt heads, I learn more about the extreme ideology that is interfering with my work. For global climate enthusiasts, this work persists more closely within the Lague 2023 configuration, not the 2021 counter-factual.
Tomas Kalisz Feb 23: “ Dear Piotr, Please be so kind and stop repeating your bullshit about alleged contradictions on my side
Unfortunately for you, your past posts are archived, so everybody can check out who of us two is bullshitting here:
TK: The assumption that global average air humidity is commensurate to average latent heat flux was made by Barton Paul in his analysis, not by me
Bullshit. And the proof is in your own posts.
– Tomas K. Jan 9: “ doubling of water cycle intensity above land [would] increase global absolute air humidity by 12 % – not 100 % or 29 % ”
– Piotr Jan 10: “How have you come up with that 12% ?”
– Tomas K. Jan. 12: “ Sellers (1965, p. 5) estimates […] 12.6 % increase [of latent heat flux (and not a 100 % or 29.2 % increase).
So it was YOU, not BPL, who claimed on Jan. 9 that doubling land evaporation would increase absolute humidity “by 12%”, and it was YOU, not BPL, who “proved” it with the calculation of the 12% increase in “latent heat “ flux.
Ergo it was YOU, not BPL, who implied that “ the increase in global abs. humidity is commensurate to the increase in latent heat flux”
And it was YOU, not BPL, who in other posts claimed that abs. humidity is decoupled from latent heat flux – i.e. that doubling evaporation won’t increase abs. humidity. Hence my description of the above as a “Contradiction”.
And it is you, not BPL, who KNOWING all that (since I have quoted you your own words half a dozen times)
– can’t admit of being wrong
– tries to blame for your claims … BPL,
– calls my proof: “Bullshit”, and
– portrays yourself as a victim: TK: “ I perceive all Piotr’s accusations and personal attacks against me as absolutely unfair and shameful”
– and claims on the stake as the martyr for the Truth:
“ the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether ”
By their fruits you shall know them: Tomas K.
JCM 23 FEB “I no longer wish to speculate what motivates others to argue they way they do.”
I don’t “speculate” on unknowable thing, I analyze the posts posted here – because once the motives and rhetorical techniques are analysed on the examples here – it would be easier to recognize the same patterns in the public discourse outside of this group.
Of these two: deniers’ motives and techniques – motives are quite self-explanatory – aside for people who may have an ulterior financial motives (paid Russian trolls, or a poster, who works for the fossil fuel industrial complex) – the motives are either
– ideological (the conservatives denying climate change because environment is a “woke” thing; religious people – because environment is a “woke” thing, and/or accepting humans affecting climate would be usurping the God’s control (as former Rep. Shimkus (R) , Ranking Member of Subcommittee on Environment and Economy of the US Congress stated:
“The earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood .”
– psychological – the same psychological rewards as the global conspiracy theories: being able to think about oneself as a “ fiercely independent mind“, and helping the ego, particularly of those who don’t have much to be proud of in the rest of their life:
“if everybody else got fooled, but me, then I must be smarter than all those who blindly swallow what they are being fed by the global conspiracy of climate scientists trying to enrich themselves on promoting climate change.
As for the deniers techniques , on the example of Tomas,I will write separately.
JCM 24 Feb: “ To Piotr, Lague 2023 attempted to get near-equilibrium simulations, achieved to within 0.3 W/m2 at TOA, to highlight the climate differences. You distort or misunderstand that. ”
Aga-baga? How is this technical details from the Methods section relevant to my post? If anything, you shoot yourself in the foot – you have just proven that even a massive increase in evaporation would produce cooling …. within the SIMULATION ERRORS of the model. :-) See below.
JCM 24 Feb: “The main difference related to clouds in CESM leads to a net 12.8 W m−2 increase in energy into the Earth system ”
FALSE. See the Fig.9b, which shows that the clouds are NOT the “main difference”, specifically, in addition to your “cloud response” of 12.8 W/m2″ – there are ALSO:
– -14.1 W/m2 of the “NON-cloud atmospheric responses” and
– 1.6 W/m2 of snow albedo.
|- 14.1 | > 12.8, ergo 12.8 is not “main difference”. And when you ADD ALL three “differences” – you obtain NOT 12.8, but
0.3 (=12.8- 14.1 +1.4) W/m2, i.e. the net effect 40 SMALLER than your “main” value of “12.8 W/m2” you wave with.
Furthermore, that cooling by 0.3 W/m2 is for the extreme case of increasing evaporation on continents from ZERO (DesertLand) to its MAXIMUM (SwampLand). The deniers schemes could span only a fraction of this range (since the current continents are nowhere close to zero evaporation, so you don’t start from zero), therefore the net effect would be PROPORTIONALLY smaller, i.e. a fraction of 0.3 W/m2.
Conclusions:
– even converting all continents to swamps would cool the Earth by a …. laughable small, compared to the inflicted cost and env. damage, amount – a fraction of 0.3 W/m2
Which:
– is smaller by more than order of magnitude from the net warming by human emissions (GHG – aerosol cooling) = 2.72 W/m2, hence cannot be used as an alternative to GHG reductions
– even massive increases in evaporation would produce statistically negligible effect (since the effect. i.e. fraction of 0.3W/m2, is SMALLER than even one element of uncertainty – stopping model after 50 years brings us to ~ 0.3 W/m2 from the new equilibrium, not mentioning all the other uncertainties for the model.
So how do you look now with your:
JCM to Piotr: “You distort or misunderstand that”
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, eh?
Tomáš Kalisz
@ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819362
Oh, please. That’s rich. I would have thought a comment like that would be beneath you. I guess the mask must fly off as you make your dramatic exit.
The science of AGW is rigorous enough that it pretty much obviates the need for a completely different and extraordinary hypothesis, otherwise the onus is on you to back up your alternative idea; the idea which, ironically, is faith-based given that you maintain that: a) action on climate is unnecessary due to human ingenuity always conquering all and b) the mysterious invisible hand of free market fundamentalism will (according to some vaguely unspecified social Darwinist dogma) provide the best fix, because c) government can never be trusted. That’s not science, it’s bromides from a libertarian script.
You know, you could just answer Piotr’s objections point by point in a straightforward and honest manner. Then maybe we’d all learn something.
Quoting Mal Adapted
@ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/not-just-another-dot-on-the-graph-part-ii/#comment-818284
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819399
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819397
Dear Radge, dear Nigel,
Thank you very much for your comments.
I tried to overcome my frustration from the endless and fruitless exchange with Piotr by a joke that, unfortunately, was not as funny as I thought. I am sorry for that.
As regards my “sins”, I can admit (again, see
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816142 )
that I am a “non-believer”, in the sense that I cannot accept the view spread by a significant part of media that climatic scioence is “settled” and knows what will happen if we do (or will not do) this or that.
In my opinion, present climatic science is comparably mature as astronomy in the era of Copernicus. Although it already has a roughly correct picture how Earth climate works, important pieces of the mosaic are still missing or pretty blurred. Its predictive power corresponds to this maturity level. It can roughly explain why we observe what we observe, however, I am afraid that relying in political decisions on its projections of future developments may have comparably high expectation of success as an attempt to launch a space probe to Venus on the basis of Copernician theory.
I can further admit that this scepticism is behind the questions I asked. Unfortunately, I must also admit that the answers I have (not) obtained so far on this forum as well as elsewhere rather enforced than dispelled my doubts.
Therefore, I would like to correct Radge’s perception of my views in the sense that although I do not believe in libertarian free markert economy as an universal recipe for everything, I do not trust in voluntary political decisions that do not respect economy.
Here, I must start being rude and expressly reject the “sins” that I have never committed:
If you check in my tracking orgpage
https://orgpad.info/s/jbMMYQviOyk (apologies for the change of link made for unknown reasons by OrgPad provider)
what I posted in the past, you find out that I have never said that we shall be passive and quietly do business as usual.
In fact, I believe that actions for climate change mitigation and/or adaptation are very desirable. However, I am afraid that if we will resign on human ingenuity which is in my opinion the strongest card that has humanity ever played as a trump in its game for survival, and will rely solely on the available, “ready-to-use” solutions instead, our mitigation and/or adaptation actions will most likely fail.
As regards the objections made by Piotr, I am afraid that you have completely missed all my futile attempts to convince him that his starting point (or, what at least seems to be the cornerstone of the objections he stubbornly repeats since Barton Paul Levenson published the correction of his analysis – namely his assertions that I allegedly assume(d) that water vapour does not flow between land and sea and/or that I pushed Barton Paul to build this assumption in his analysis) is a total nonsense. I can only repeat that Barton Paul’s analysis does not comprise a such limitation. If you do not trust me, please ask Barton Paul.
For these reasons, I perceive all Piotr’s accusations and personal attacks against me as absolutely unfair and shameful, and I am not going to apologize for any “sins” allegedly committed by me in this respect.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz (at 20 FEB 2024 AT 3:36 AM): – “As regards my “sins”, I can admit (again, see…”
Tomáš Kalisz stated (at 21 NOV 2023 AT 2:43 AM):
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816142
There’s enough to know we/humanity are currently on a trajectory towards civilisation collapse before the end of this century.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816647
Tomáš, what will it take for you to stop doubting/denying and cherry-picking to fit your ideological narrative?
Tomas Kalisz, unfortunately you have succeeded in adding yet more denier talking points to add to Piotrs list. For example:
1) “The science isnt settled.” In fact its settled enough to know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is at least the main cause of the warming.
2)”Political decisions wont work” (carbon tax, cap and trade, subsidies, etc, etc), meaning by definition that only individual initiative will work, a typical right wing and libertarian meme. (This also conflicts with your claim that you are not a libertarian.)
3) “We must not ‘damage’ the economy!” An emotive statement that could mean anything. The energy transition proposed will cost society money in the short term and will save money in the long term. We are not going to solve the climate problem at no additional cost, but apparently you oppose spending ANY extra money and redirection of resources to mitigate the problem.
4) “The water cycle perturbed by humans could be the main cause of the warming”(paraphrasing what you appear to be saying). Typical attempt to blame a scapegoat and create doubt in peoples minds about official explanations without providing any actual analysis and calculations and quantification, despite your many posts on the issue.
Piotr thinks you have made some contradictory and erroneous statements and your defence is more or less just a simplistic denial. I’m more inclined to largely believe Piotr because his criticisms of various peoples comments (Zebra, Killian, JCM, Keith Wollard, etc,etc) look 90% accurate to me, and almost always equal exactly what’s in my own head, and they are very precise and organised, unlike your comments. I did look at the matrix diagram on your website thanks, but it took ages to load on my computer even although my computer has a powerful processor chip and plenty of memory and again I’m not spending hours trawling back through dozens of conversations to see who said what when.
Tomáš Kalisz 20 FEB:
“ I tried […] a joke that, unfortunately, was not as funny as I thought.”
“ not as funny as I thought“??? Explain the INTENDED humor in your:
-“ An upgrade of this website to a church”
– “I feel that I will be hardly ever able to get rid of my sinful ideas”
-“the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether.”
– “I willl be hardly ever able to get rid of my sinful ideas,
my further appearance on this sacred ground becomes rather uncertain.”
Your attempts to discredit the climate scientists and portraying yourself as their victim – is not a “joke” – it is called “derision” (= “contemptuous ridicule or mockery”). And since the motives of the derision are completely different than those of a “joke”, the former does not enjoy the get-out-of-jail card (“it’s only an innocent joke”) of the other.
Thus you still have to own up for your words and your motives – and either defend your attacks on climate scientists, or HONESTLY admit of having been wrong in those attacks, and hopefully learn from your mistakes.
TK,
“Settled?” Depends on how fine a point you want to put on it. You’re playing word games again.
You may not have noticed that this is a climate science site, not a climate policy site. There are a multiplicity of opinions on policy expressed here from time to time, particularly in the comment section, but that’s not the heart of the matter discussed here. The main distractions are dealing with unscientific attacks.
Bull. Based on what? Presumably you come here to be “convinced” which means that you know that you don’t understand the situation from the point of view of climate scientists. So you’ll understand why I think your opinion is worthless. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and yet, you dig in your heels and put that ridiculous talking point out there anyway.
Welp, looks to me like your doubts do not equate to skepticism or an open mind, otherwise you’d put your doubts aside and focus your efforts on learning the science bottom up, for better or worse, come what may, and let the chips fall where they will. Instead you slyly try to interject rhetorical talking points into the conversation. Your statement(s) just reinforce the notion that you really don’t want to be convinced.
So this time, your objections are apparently rooted in tone– but certainly not the science.
A gross mischaracterization. “Ready-to-use.” “Resign on human ingenuity.” Nobody is talking about that. WTF.
Total lack of respect for the ingenuity of climate scientists.
“Sins?” Nobody said that. So you actually do think that this is a church and you weren’t making a joke.
As for the rest of it, take it up with Piotr. Again, I suggest you respond to the points he clearly outlined. Meanwhile, your stock keeps sinking.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819445
Dear Piotr,
The single person I derided by my joke were you. I am not aware of any attack (or even attacks, as you wrote) on any specific scientist from my side, nor on a group of scientists, like e.g. climate scientists. I believe that our hosts have not taken my weak joke as a derision towards them.
I honestly admit that I have not resisted to a temptation to return you a little bit of your attacks, for what I apologize to all others on this website.
So I cannot defend my attack on you, I only try to explain it. If you do not wish to be atacked by contemptuous ridicule or mockery, please try to treat others the way how you wish they should treat you.
Best regards
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb23.: “ Dear Piotr, The single person I derided by my joke were you.”
Unfortunately for you, your posts are archived, so we can confront your claims
with your actual words:
Tomas Kalisz Feb 16:
“An upgrade of this website to a church”
– “this exceptional business opportunity seems to be still completely neglected by administrators”
– “sins against mainstream climatic science”
– “the rising religious zeal among volunteer guardians of the true faith threatens to exterminate the sinners altogether”
How many of me you see here, Tomas, since you made … me into:
– a “church”,
– “administrators” of this website,
– “mainstream climatic science”
– “volunteer guardians of the true faith”
– who “threaten to exterminate the sinners altogether”
And you wrote above in you reply no to me but to Nigel, in the post that didn’t mention me at any point.
So your defense now – that the above was directed at a “ single person –
is a proof that you, Tomas, have no integrity, and that you are a serial liar, unable to own up to his own words and motives.
By their fruits you shall know them.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819530
Dear Piotr,
Of course that by
– “volunteer guardians of the true faith”
– who “threaten to exterminate the sinners altogether”
I meant you.
You act on this website as a self-appointed inquisitor, obsessed by identifying and punishing “climate deniers”. As soon as you “unveil” one, you put the label on him/her, and start serving this person with your “hemlock soup” of ridiculing comments.
I would have never written down this honest view on you if you have not called me liar – but you did it, repeatedly. I am sorry for that.
Fortunately, there is indeed record who said what. Please review it. If you do so carefully, you might recognize that the oversimplified model that Barton Paul Levenson used as a basis of his analysis does not comprise the limitation that there should be no exchange between land and sea. This is purely your, entirely false construction – which you, however, still keep exploiting as a justification for your – entirely inacceptable – personal insults.
If you do not trust me that the cornerstone of your “evidence” may be in fact wrong, based on your false logic, please ask Barton Paul
He knows his model and, hopefully, could be willing to explain its details to you independently and without any prejudice.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz 27 FEB: “Dear Piotr, Of course that I meant you“.
So … when you use the plural : “guardians”, “administrators, then “of course” you mean … one person …?
And how many … 1-person “churches” do you have in Czechia?
How Gavin et al. reacted when you told them that RC is now ruled by “the administrators” called Piotr?
Weren’t they a bit envious when you told them that when addressing the “ mainstream climate science” – “of course you are addressing … only by me?
TK: “I would have never written down this honest view on you if you have not called me liar”
By their fruits you shall know them. The difference between us is that you accuse others INSTEAD of the proof, I called you a liar as a CONCLUSION of a falsifiable proof – your own words and logic. Not the same thing.
As for your playing a victim: of “extermination” and of “inquisition” – at the price of trivializing the real the real extermination, and real inquisition
– you imply that they …. couldn’t be that bad, SINCE suffering of their victims is … comparable to, i.e., NOT much WORSE than, …. you having your public claims … challenged with the use of your quotes and logic. So you attempts to prop up your ego – come at quite a price.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819605
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your feedback. You insist in that you are right, and I insist in that you are wrong.
Nobody else seems to be interested in our dispute that became purely personal. I therefore propose that we refrain from further posting about Barton Paul’s analysis and what I said or not said with respect thereto. If you would like, we can try to resolve this dispute offline.
In my reply
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819601
to your post of February 27, 2:53
I proposed that with respect to the peer reviewed article by Lague et al., which, as you recently clarified, we also understand oppositely to each other, I proposed asking the RC moderators for their comment on the article, as it appears that in this case, a broader spectrum of readers could be interested.
Would you like to do so?
Greetings
Tomáš Kalisz
To Piotr,
my goal is to get to the heart of the issue of a scenario in which ET is allowed to increase from the landscape. I have remained steadfast in that. It is ultimately a question of how the surface-atmosphere system organizes in response to that surface energy re-partitioning. A scenario with increased ET and the associated reduced H flux exhibits a shallower boundary layer, for example. Considering I don’t know exactly what you are protesting it might help me to understand more about your motivations to distort the established and widely understood principle that moisture laden landscapes partition more surface energy to latent fluxes and less to sensible heat flux in closing the surface energy budget. An inability to move past this is not founded in honest inquiry and discourse.
JCM Feb1″ “Considering I don’t know exactly what you are protesting”
… and your ignorance in that matter .. didn’t stop you your accusations toward me of:
– aiming “to distort the established and widely understood principle”
– lacking “honesty”
-“a lack of understanding ”, “lacking any foundation in knowledge on the issue”
– an attempt to “ butcher the discussion”
– and worst of all: being emotional about my butchering and distorting (“ Piotr’s impassioned responses”, “protestations” )
If this is what you do to the people you don’t understand, I’d love to see what would you do to the opponents whom you would understand… ;-)
Iam not sure whether I could make it MORE simple, than I have already did in the post you are replying to:
===Piotr Jan.31 (1st post in Feb UV=====
“In a symbolic notation:
-Tomas K: X and not-X
– Piotr: You [can’t] have both X and not-X
– JCM: Most of Piotr’s confusion can be explained by a lack of understanding. The discussion of … Y should really not be butchered to such an extent as displayed above. Piotr’s impassioned responses clearly lack any foundation in knowledge on the issue.
– Piotr: I showed contradictions WITHIN Tomas’s argument. Tomas didn’t invoke “Y”. Consequently, neither did my response. So my “impassioned butchering of “Y” is only in your head.
====
Which part my last point continues to be inscrutable to you?
To Piotr,
yes I think inscrutable might be a good description. I must admit that the subject has become so distorted that it has effectively undermined discussion about the landscape moisture relations to climates. If that is a deliberate strategy then I will follow from Tomas and request to desist from that because it is hindering genuine advancement. I have no particular interest to engage in counterproductive and convoluted distractions. Certainly we can all agree to that. If you have a clearer perspective and wish to engage in good faith perhaps you can help us refocus.
cheers
JCM: “To Piotr, yes I think inscrutable might be a good description
Keep reading: “inscrutable to you“. I doubt even a junior-high student would find my response to you:
P: “ I showed contradictions WITHIN Tomas’s argument. Tomas didn’t invoke “Y”. Consequently, neither did my response. So my “impassioned butchering of “Y” is only in your [JCM’s] head.”
as “inscrutable” as you have. Depending on your age – ask your Mum or a friend to explain it to you. I can’t make it any simpler.
Since the last comment I made back in the November last year, I’ve decided to learn more about paleobiology. I’ve come to understand the gravity of the situation and I’ve more or less accepted that the civilization is heading for, at the very least, a substantial decline (climate is one thing, economic and unsustainable practices that aren’t likely to change without major shocks are another). However, one thing keeps me up at night, and that is the possibility of human extinction over longer (i.e. several centuries) timescales.
From what I understand, current policies (or lack thereof) are based on models crafted by the IPCC that run up to A.D 2100. However, the world won’t end by that date – if Hansen’s correct, the eventual ESS is 8-10K of warming over several millennia, which just isn’t survivable for homo sapiens. So, given all that, I have a few questions:
1. How good are the models? I know the “all models are bad, but some are useful” mantra, but given the amount of effort that went into CMIP, they must be at the very least somewhat accurate, right? Also, are the assumptions about carbon sinks realistic, i.e. that they’ll survive a warming of 2K by 40s?
2. How likely are temperatures to decline in the future (several centuries) if we stopped emitting by mid-century? I’d say this emissions scenario is quite likely, because of declining EROI for fossil fuels, especially oil used for transportation, let alone any catastrophic event like societal collapse or another world war.
3. This is a bit unrelated, but what’s the state of the permafrost research? Some people are making headlines by saying ice-free Arctic or “carbon bomb” in ESAS or clathrates will get us all killed by 40s, but is this a realistic time frame? What about the bigger timescales? I know there are articles about permafrost even on this blog, but they are a bit dated.
4. Lastly, what do? On the geological timescales we would go extinct either way, but I sure hope homo sapiens will stick around for at least a while longer and perhaps learn how to tend to the Nature.
Julian: – “Since the last comment I made back in the November last year, I’ve decided to learn more about paleobiology.”
I presume this was you – see link? There’s an extensive comment thread that follows…
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815434
Julian: – “1. How good are the models? I know the “all models are bad, but some are useful” mantra, but given the amount of effort that went into CMIP, they must be at the very least somewhat accurate, right?”
Reality is happening faster than most models have forecast.
Models don’t do well with non-linear phenomena.
https://johnmenadue.com/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/
Julian: – “2. How likely are temperatures to decline in the future (several centuries) if we stopped emitting by mid-century?”
I think one cannot dismiss what Professor H. J. Schellnhuber CBE said on 17 Dec 2018 in delivering his Aurelio Peccei Lecture, titled Climate, Complexity, Conversion, which can be seen/heard in the YouTube video titled Keynote Debate Can the Climate Emergency Action Plan lead to Collective Action? (50 Years CoR), duration 2:23:08. I’d suggest the relevant statements by Prof Shellnhuber that may answer your question begin from time interval (bold text my emphasis):
0:20:56: Schellnhuber: “So, some people have speculated the next ice age will be next week. I can tell you: It’s not true! Don’t believe that! [audience chuckles] It will happen… I blow it up… Actually, never again! That’s why we are in the Anthropocene. Remember, if the blue line is crossing or cutting the black line, from the left, there will be another glacial inception. Now this is a hundred-thousand years into the future, and if you look where, in fifty-thousand years, there would be another ice age, but only if the CO₂ would not be influenced by human intervention. Actually now, the atmospheric content is, according to the orange line, and you see, the lines are not crossing anymore, but we will add another billion, and hundred-billions of tonnes CO₂, where rather we will have to use the brown line, so there will be no ice age anymore. The human impact is so powerful already – that’s why we talk about the Anthropocene – that we have suppressed the Quaternary planetary dynamics already.”
0:22:15: Schellnhuber: “This is a fact… but let’s see what will happen in the future beyond that. So, just for you to remember, the Holocene… Holocene mode of operation, the last twelve-thousand years where human civilisation was created, will not come back, not for the next millions of years. It’s just… done!”
0:46:12: Schellnhuber: “Ja. OK, let me answer it directly, because it is such a rich question, ja? So I will not take others for the time being, but of course later. Now first of all, we are not mixing-up timescales. We have to consider all of them in parallel, unfortunately, ja? And I just introduced the Pliocene and the Miocene and all these, ah… stupid names, er… geologists have developed, ja, simply because this is our reality lab, ja? I mean, if I cannot see under comparable conditions, a major shift in the state of the planet, in the back, er… in the… in the… back in fifteen-million years, when I have no evidence, actually. So, this is just in order to underpin some of the things. And looking forward, I mean, I excuse for… I apologise for that, but… we have actually ended the ice age cycle, the, er… the glacial dynamics for good, or for bad, or for whatever – that’s how it is. But your question is of course extremely important, because… I… I once coined… We had a meeting at the Belgian Academy of Sciences and I coined this expression, which became quite… quite, er… sort of seminal, actually: ‘Avoiding the unmanageable and managing the unavoidable.’ So you see, avoiding the unmanageable would be three, four, five, six degrees. I’m, I’m pretty sure we cannot adapt to that. But if the world warms by one… it has warmed already by one degree, and actually half of a degree is masked by air pollution. So if you would clean the air over China and India and so on, you immediately would… you get another half degree. So, one-and-a-half degree – we are there already, ja? But if we stop it at two, er… two-point-five degrees maybe… and actually CO₂ stays within the carbon cycle for more than twenty-thousand years. People think this is a matter of a hundred years. Yes, it goes into the sediment, but it’s re-mineralised and goes back into the air, and so on. So it’s longer lived than plutonium, actually, ja? Atmospheric CO₂!”
0:48:29: Schellnhuber: “So, yes… can we survive those five-hundred years, if we… hold the two-point-five- or two-degrees line? Yes, we could – not everybody. But we would need to introduce real instruments for adaptation.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK2XLeGmHtE
I’d suggest you see/hear the full Schellnhuber address and Q&A that follows.
What I find astounding is this session occurred more than 5¼ years ago, and it seems to me the mainstream media still haven’t reported what was known then. IMO, the media has a lot to answer for…
Julian: – “4. Lastly, what do?”
Reduce. Remove. Repair.
Paul Beckwith uses the analogy of the three-legged bar stool – without all three legs in place (i.e. “slashing fossil fuel emission, carbon dioxide removal, that includes methane removal; and solar radiation management“) the bar stool (i.e. a habitable planet for civilisation) will fall over.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818785
Geoff Miell: “I presume this was you – see link? There’s an extensive comment thread that follows…”
Yeah, that’s me. I wrote this post in distress, because I felt utterly hopeless that anything can be done at the time. Frankly, now whenever I hear more bad news I just fall back to nihilism – I just can’t constantly worry about things outside of my control, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something about them.
GM: “Models don’t do well with non-linear phenomena.”
Seems like the mantra was correct yet again.
GM: “and actually CO₂ stays within the carbon cycle for more than twenty-thousand years. People think this is a matter of a hundred years.”
If I’m not mistaken, this is sometimes called the long tail or the forever legacy of climate change, i.e. there’s a fraction of CO₂ that will sink immediately (on geological timescales) after the emissions cease and then there’s a fraction that will last for some eternities.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/
GM: “Reduce. Remove. Repair.”
While I agree that we should cut emissions as fast as possible (I still hold the opinion that Business-As-Usual, i.e. neoliberalism, won’t continue past 40s, simply because there’s not enough cheaply recoverable oil), I have a really hard time believing efficient (and scalable!) CDR and SRM methods will exist, let alone be deployed in the future; not only once you start them you have to do them essentially forever, but also because they require cheap energy that we’ll no longer have. I’d like to be proved wrong, but on geological timescales it’s looking quite hopeless.
Either way, thank you for your reply. I’ll watch that keynote when I have some time.
Tomas Kalisz Feb. 4: “Such comparisons can create a false impression that carbon dioxide is something very endogenous, something completely unnatural, dangerous and harmful.
Is there a climate change denial cliché you haven’t promoted yet? The “Co2 is completely natural and therefore cannot be possibly dangerous and harmful” must be one of the oldest one.
Let’s hope that nobody offers you a hemlock soup and tells you:
“ Trust me, Tomas, hemlock is completely natural, so it cannot be dangerous or harmful. It has been used by people for millennia, with Socrates among most notable hemlock users.“
GM said:
That’s phrased incorrectly. Models can do just fine with non-linear phenomena, but more problematic is the process of solving the models to generate unique results. The fact is that through history, humans have developed powerful mathematical techniques to solve linear systems, Once in a linear regime, just about any system can be solved, very often in closed form or using matrix math. Consider that all semiconductor amplification operates in a non-linear fashion, yet electronic circuit designers make certain that feedback and operating conditions are such that it operates in a linear regime.
The problem comes about when we are trying to understand nature and its behaviors, which may be non-linear. There are theoretically infinitely many more non-linear formulations possible than linear, as this is just a result of combinatorics of interactions, adding squared, cubed, etc infinitely, with many of these not chaotic. Humans are helpless in being able to solve even a fraction of these as straightforwardly as in a linear system. Not only is it challenging to arrive at a correct solution, but the solution may not be unique, as many distinct non-linear model formulations may give the same answer. Yet, humans are the stubborn types and keep trying to frame models in linear terms so they can be easily solved, much like the drunk who is looking for his missing car keys under the street=lamp because that’s where the light is.
Alas, machine learning is stubborn in a different way. Neural networks are powerful non-linear solvers that don’t try to frame problems in linear terms. Instead, they will keep trying different combinations in conjunction with cross-validation methods that can zoom in on the most unique parsimonious solutions. So that once a non-linear model is identified and validated as being deemed correct, there should be less problems with it being inherently non-linear (see above regarding semiconductors).
In summary, I would gladly deal with a non-linear model that I knew was correctly mapped to some natural behavior as then I could put effort into solving that, knowing that I wasn’t chasing down some blind alley maze of non-linear combinatorics. For tricky aspects of climate such as natural climate variability and the non-linear geophysical fluid dynamics that drives this, machine learning may be just the approach that finds a plausible and parsimonious working model.
Here is a ChatGPT4 response to the above, input as a prompt:
https://chat.openai.com/share/8a6d16c1-9e7b-4968-a817-13c4ac8faf3d
BTW, there is a paper under open discussion review that I added comments to, related along these same lines
“Moving beyond post-hoc XAI: Lessons learned from dynamical climate modeling”
https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2023-2969/
If you have something to add, feel free, as the non-linear phenomena don’t reveal their secrets easily and certainly won’t get solved on their own.
In Re
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818872
Dear Geoff,
If professor Schellnhuber indeed compared carbon dioxide with plutonium, then he makes a poor service to the general public and to a reasonable debate about human influence on Earth climate, I am afraid.
Such comparisons can create a false impression that carbon dioxide is something very endogenous, something completely unnatural, dangerous and harmful. I do not think than an “education” like this is helpful.
Greetings
Tomáš
I think it’s quite clear that the comparison relates specifically to longevity–not endogenicity, or toxicity, or public image.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818992
Hallo Kevin,
all these possible associations are inevitably present in such public statements.
Even though one has an idea that carbon dioxide is not as toxic nor as endogenous in the environment as plutonium, the association will act subconsciously, I am afraid.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz: – “If professor Schellnhuber indeed compared carbon dioxide with plutonium, then he makes a poor service to the general public and to a reasonable debate about human influence on Earth climate, I am afraid.”
Per Wikipedia (bold text my emphasis):
I’d suggest most people probably think plutonium is only a synthetic (i.e. manmade) element, produced in fast breeder reactors, or reprocessed from spent nuclear fuel.
Main plutonium isotopes:
²³⁸Pu: nature trace amounts _ _ _ _ _ 87.7 y half-life _ _ α-decay to ²³⁴U
²³⁹Pu: nature trace amounts _ _ _ 24,110 y half-life _ _ _α-decay to ²³⁵U
²⁴⁰Pu: nature trace amounts _ _ _ _6,561 y half-life _ _ _α-decay to ²³⁶U
²⁴¹Pu: synthetic only _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 14.329 y half-life _β-decay to ²⁴¹Am / α-decay to ²³⁷U
²⁴²Pu: synthetic only _ _ _ _ _ _ _375,000 y half-life _ _ _α-decay to ²³⁸U
²⁴⁴Pu: nature trace amounts _81,300,000 y half-life _ _ α-decay to ²⁴⁰U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
Prof Schellnhuber states: “…CO₂ stays within the carbon cycle for more than twenty-thousand years.” I’d suggest that’s comparable with the half-lives of some isotopes of plutonium.
Tomáš Kalisz: – “Such comparisons can create a false impression that carbon dioxide is something very endogenous, something completely unnatural, dangerous and harmful.”
Um… Human-induced carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of carbon-based substances (e.g. petroleum fuels, coal, fossil gas, wood products) is completely unnatural, dangerous and harmful already, and will get progressively worse. Per the Hansen et al. (2023) paper (bold text my emphasis):
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
Geoff Miell:
“ Prof Schellnhuber states: “…CO₂ stays within the carbon cycle for more than twenty-thousand years.” I’d suggest that’s comparable with the half-lives of some isotopes of plutonium.
Schellnhuber analogy may work ONLY if you are talking about PERMANENT removal of anthropogenic CO2 from the ocean-atm. system – mostly by the uptake of CO2 by weathering (~= dissolution of) CaCO3 and sillicates on land and in ocean – which happens on a geological scale
e-folding time scales of ∼10 kyr (range 8–12 kyr) for carbonate weathering and ∼240 kyr for silicate weathering (G. Colbourn, A. Ridgwell, T. M. Lentone, 2015). Half-life is ~70% of e-folding time, so we are talking somewhat below < 7kyr.
However, in the discussion of climate in the next several 100s of years – we don't care about permanent removal of extra CO2, but about its removal from the atmosphere – as CO2 accumulated in the deep ocean no longer affects the climate. So most of the extra CO2 will be gone into the deep ocean (assuming no reduction or shut-down of the AMOC) and most of it would be kept away from the atmosphere for several 100 to 1,000 years when that deep waters comes back into the surface via vertical mixing and upwellings.
Note that the other currents sinks of atm. CO2 – CO2 absorbed by the surface ocean and increased sequestration of C on land – primarily by boreal forests and soil – why slowing CO2 rise on the way up, would likely slow the drop of CO2 on the way down:
– once atm. CO2 drops the surface ocean, equilibrated with the previous, higher atm. CO2, instead net sink of atm. CO2, becomes a net source
– the same goes for the terrestrial sink, at least to the extent of CO2 fertilization – if rising atmCO2 helped plants to sequester atm. CO2, dropping atm. CO2 would cause the opposite.
The deep ocean uptake may get over time slower, but it does not reverse sign
like the surface ocean and terrestrial sinks do, at least as long as the extra CO2 taken in the past does not start resurface via upwelling and vertical mixing
(100s to 1000 yrs)
But while all this is relevant to the timescale of natural restoration of natural levels of atm. CO2 – it is NOT needed to challenge the old denier cliché that our young Tomas swallowed, hook-line and sinker, and now regurgitates here: that only " “something completely unnatural [can] be dangerous and harmful.“. To falsify this claim all one need is to point to anthrax,
malaria, or the plague – all perfectly natural …. Or as I wrote in my response to Tomas on which he remains … uncharacteristically silent:
– Let’s hope that nobody offers you a hemlock soup and tells you:
“Trust me, Tomas, hemlock is completely natural, so it cannot be dangerous or harmful. In fact, it has been used by humans for millennia, with Socrates among most notable users“
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819309
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your remarks, which in my opinion added the right context that was unfortunately missing in the cited part of professor Schellnhuber’s speech.
I noted that contrary to me, Geoff Miell have seen the comparison of carbon dioxide with plutonium appropriate even without this explanatory context. I accept that people may have such view on this topics. Therefore, I have seen no ground for any further comments from my side, also not to your previous address to me
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819183
As you keep mentioning me and Socrates repeatedly, I would like to add that I have not said that carbon dioxide is completely harmless. Inhaled in high concentrations, it can be even deadly.
I just think that its comparisons with plutonium as well as with hemlock were superfluous.
Regards
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb.15: “Thank you for your remarks, which in my opinion added the right context that was unfortunately missing in the cited part of professor Schellnhuber’s speech.”
Seeing a tree, missing the forest? My comments re Schellnhuber’s analogy were a minor clarification – unlike my unequivocal rejection of your denialist claim. See my post you portray as a validation of your position:
Piotr Feb 14: “But while all this is relevant to the timescale of natural restoration of natural levels of atm. CO2 [i.e. Schellnhuber’s analogy] – it is NOT needed to challenge the old denier cliché that our young Tomas swallowed, hook-line and sinker, and now regurgitates here: that only “something completely unnatural [can] be dangerous and harmful. […] Let’s hope that nobody offers [Tomas] a hemlock soup and tells him: “ Trust me, Tomas, hemlock is completely natural, so it cannot be dangerous or harmful. In fact, it has been used by humans for millennia, with Socrates among most notable users“
TK Feb.15:”I have not said that carbon dioxide is completely harmless. Inhaled in high concentrations, it can be even deadly.”
Aga-baga? Nobody discussed here inhalation of CO2. We are talking about climatic effect of CO2 for which you chastised Schellnhuber for:
“ creating a false impression that carbon dioxide is something very endogenous, something completely unnatural, dangerous and harmful” TK Feb 4.
If these are “false impressions” then what you do imply is that climatic effect of CO2 emissions is NOT dangerous nor harmful. You just lack the balls to own up to it. Another characteristic of a denier.
Tomáš Kalisz,
First, look up the definition of ‘endogenous’, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Well, I think that’s the way you read it. But that’s not what was said. What you were saying, however, gives the impression of being in line with the rhetoric used by people who peddle snake oil. In any case, it added nothing to the conversation. That is what was superfluous..
This reminds me of objections to the EPA using the word “pollutant’ in relation to dangerous levels of atmospheric CO2. Denialist word play.
to Barry https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818814
You highlighted complex process based logics with mm and micron scales to debunk an alternative simpler rational approach. I will re-iterate the logics of the simple.
Assuming the change in ocean heat content is a measure of EEI (which I think is the convention):
The summarized simplifying hypothesis is that Ts – Tr is bound to sustain maximum thermodynamic power * (that is, an optimum – not too much, not too little – a T dependent limit).
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-818113
The rate of radiative cooling to space is bound to Ts and the slope of the vapor pressure saturation curve. This is normally expressed as a somewhat linear relation between Ts and Tr^4. Exceptions occur, as you have noted.
Ultimately, atmosphere finds a configuration to optimize Ts – Tr in such a way that emission to space increases with Ts in a fairly predictable way. That is, in a way which is linearly correlated to the change in Ts.
The rate of OLR change is about 1 or 2 W/m2 per K Ts (or something). Specifics are unimportant, rather, that it must be positive relation. Without a positive OLR with Ts, the maximum power limit could not be optimal *.
Models unable to show this behavior (increasing OLR with Ts), irrespective of initial forcing, should be tossed out of practical application according to the summarized hypothesis. The complex internal processes of those models must be wrong automatically, and from that learning could occur.
Irrespective of the initial radiative force, Ts – Tr maximum power optimization continues. EEI can then be thought of as a consequence of that, i.e. the nature of the maximum power optimization schema; those underlying processes in mm, microns, and surface skin ins and outs..
In the current forcing regime – with radiative force, drying, and associated atmos temperature profile – cloud fraction or thickness seems to be decreasing, Ts is increasing, and OLR is increasing too.
It will get me boatloads of flak here, but the initial forcing effect appears to be cancelled by increasing planetary emission. However, it is that force response which sustains the EEI planetary configuration.
Ultimately, the anomalous accumulation of heat as EEI (the ocean heat uptake) must be in the SW. The Ts – Tr surface-atmos max makes it so; there is no getting around it when using these simpler logics. The actual atmos LW effect must appear negative because it’s bound to Ts – Tr. Only SW could be a positive contributor to EEI aka ocean heat uptake. FOr this reason people like Clauser must be automatically wrong.
As a PS – the Ts should be thought to be somewhat distinct from EEI, especially on shorter scales; the EEI is that which is not involved in the Ts – Tr max. The Ts response associated with the EEI depends on how that ocean heat content is mixed over time. I think this is what is called the surface climate response function.
patrick o twentyseven,
From the January UV thread
Generally kind of a blank area for me and out of my depth, but you piqued my curiosity about what happened and when on the ground, and I found this. Maybe I should have looked harder, but it included the shift from anoxigenic to oxygenic photosynthesis so…
Graph
https://journals.physiology.org/cms/10.1152/physiol.00024.2015/asset/images/large/phy0011603120001.jpeg
Source
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physiol.00024.2015
Whoever labeled the graph was apparently color blind, the line for oceanic H2S is green (not orange).
Re Radge Havers – Thanks, that looks interesting.
Geo Girl has interesting videos (eg.: “5 Times Plate Tectonics Caused Global Climate Change!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv3zxOiUHl4 (haven’t watched that one yet), “The “Boring Billion”- What Really Happened 1.8 to 0.8 Billion Years Ago?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cb5kOjTFIE ); Alexis Dahl talks geology in some of hers, too (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu-4L_MLY5Q – Although, offhand, I don’t recall a climate connection in that one).
—– —–
also
Re Susan Anderson
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-818703
Thanks! (I was afraid no one saw it.)
RE: Geo Girl
Thanks!!
You’re welcome! (There’s also PBS Eons https://www.pbs.org/show/eons/ and PBS Terra https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpxYSWgxVt3Pyn1ovXsGQ0g , though I haven’t watched them much (yet), esp. Terra)
My fellow space travelers, I hope you survived the cold blast that broke many cold records for the date across North America in January.
Some of the hard hit places were:
North Dakota:
https://www.kfyrtv.com/2024/01/15/records-set-over-weekend-recapping-coldest-part-our-arctic-blast/
British Columbia:
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/17-more-low-temperature-records-broken-in-b-c-on-saturday-1.6725569
Mississippi:
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2024/01/17/mississippi-weather-cold-temperature-records-broken/72252826007/
Now, the Pineapple Express is poised to dump up to 7 feet of snow in the mountains of California. Be safe out there, particularly if you are less than 7 feet tall! :)
https://www.wunderground.com/video/top-stories/multiple-rounds-of-rain-and-mountasin-snow-moving-into-california
Check out these wild 100 degree temperature swings in Montana. That is 100 degrees during the month, not in one day, but still, pretty wild weather:
https://www.wunderground.com/video/top-stories/montana-cities-saw-100-degree-swings-in-january
Even wet, mossy, Juneau got in on the fun:
https://www.wunderground.com/video/top-stories/alaska-capital-breaks-january-snow-record
It reminded me of the Arctic blast of ’21:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2021_North_American_cold_wave
However, it is warm down in Vostok. On December 5th it got up to -11 F, and on January 31 it got up to -18 F. Toasty for Vostok! But it is the height of summer there…..
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/antarctica/vostok-station/historic
mkia out!
mika has noticed once again that in late January/early February, it’s winter in the northern hemisphere and it’s summer in the southern hemisphere. Will wonders never cease?
On the topic of Vostok station, -11ºF (-24ºC) is a little above the average range for December, when the temperatures are expected to range between -35ºF and -15ºF (-37ºC to -26ºC). As for January, -18ºF (-28ºC) is in the expected range, -37ºC to -26ºC. It’s cold at Vostok, even in summer.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/antarctica/vostok-station/climate
Due to weather systems, Arctic air sometimes gets advected south and tropical air sometimes gets advected north. People notice one or the other when it happens over populated landmasses.
Here in the UK we’ve just smashed the record high temperature for January, aided by a foehn effect in the Scottish highlands on top of a very mild tropical maritime airmass:
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-weather-warmest-ever-january-temperature-record-rises-to-nearly-20c-13059503
In Spain, they have recently had a ridiculous 30.7C:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/spain-temperature-january-record-climate-change-b1134970.html
Last month in central SC, we indeed saw some unusually cold weather (though not record cold)–but six days after a daily high in the mid 30s on January 20th, we hit the mid 70s.
So it goes.
Ha! Test it against reality and abandon it and construct another if it didn’t match the observable facts?
Yeah whatever, I’d like to see that!
The key was to have a “bold conjecture” to test it against reality and abandon it and construct another if it didn’t match the observable facts. This was the progress of scientific knowledge, said Popper. Not a matter of certainty or absolute truth, but of what “worked” in the real world.
Popper famously wrote: “Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.”
In other words – and I think this is a key insight – you can be rational without being certain.
While for most people it comes much easier to be certain and yet be totally irrational while doing it!
But there is a problem. Philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn explored how scientists actually behaved, and found that they did not meet Popper’s ideal of rational behaviour. They clung to their theories long after anomalies and problems had emerged.” […]
Eventually, problems emerge – phenomenon that don’t fit the theory. Usually, these will at first be dismissed as mistakes on the part of the researchers. Gradually the tensions increase to a point of crisis. Then, there will be revolutionary science, and a new theory will replace the old.
Which is exactly what is happening now!
UAH has posted its global TLT anomaly for January at +0.86ºC, this a rise on December’s +0.83ºC but below Sept-Nov of last year (+0.90ºC, +0.93ºC & 0.91ºC), these five months Sept-Jan head-&-shoulders above the first eight months of 2023 (which ran -0.04ºC, +0.08ºC, +0.20ºC, +0.18ºC, +0.37ºC, +0.38ºC, +0.64ºC, 0.69ºC).
The previous record January anomaly in UAH TLT was jointly 2016 & 2020, both with +0.43ºC.
The SAT re-analyses suggest a significant fall in the SAT anomaly.NSEP CFSR show January dropping closer to the Jul-Aug values and the ERA5 daily numbers are showing similar – with a handful of days yet to appear in the UoMaine’s graphs, the Jan anomaly would be running at +0.67ºC, this below Jul & Aug 2023 (+0.72ºC & +0.71ºC).
Dr Pinhsin Hu shows that high diversity systems stabilize terrestrial climate in a wet and cool state via maximizing terrestrial water recycling.
Assessing the Impact of Plant Diversity on Terrestrial Climate
https://earthsystem.org/2023/12/08/agu23-assessing-the-impact-of-plant-diversity-on-terrestrial-climate-join-us-at-agus-fall-meeting-to-explore-our-poster/
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1344602
“We found that terrestrial climate converges toward a wetter and cooler state with increasing diversity. Because high-diversity ecosystems that naturally have more resource-optimal strategies tend to exploit environmental resources (e.g., water) more effectively, we found that high-diversity ecosystems develop deep roots that secure more soil water and enhance evapotranspiration throughout dry seasons.”
What to do? All of us have to do everything possible to stop the extinction and the destruction. All the solutions exist, if they don’t, invent them today and let us all know about them. Just keep in mind that we are running out of time.
1. Abandon fossil fuels. Seems impossible? The fossil industry, the intentionally or unintentionally ignorants, the limited in their imagination and knowledge decision-makers want us to believe it’s impossible. It’s not. Here is one way to do it: https://campaign.fossilfueltreaty.org/cities/toolkit
2. Go electric. Here is one way: https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/personal-electrification-planner
3. Change your diet for your health and the health of every living thing: https://eatforum.org/learn-and-discover/the-planetary-health-diet/
4. Difficult or not, every decision we make must consider the consequences on climate, on biodiversity, on social justice, on all planetary systems. Here is how to set our targets: https://www.sgr.org.uk/projects/living-targets
5. Change your job, your residence if they do not allow you to solve the climate emergency.
6. Vote for every elected office and choose people who understand and know how to solve all our crises. They exist. If none in your area, run for office.
7. Help all the people and organizations who are taking legal action against the fossil industry: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/
8. …..
I would add, consider degrowth. Or at least, reducing the rate of commercialization and growth of useless or unnecessary marketing and entertainment. The trickle-up of pennies and exploitation of an out of control marketplace is adding to our climate obesity.*
* That is, first stop the rate of increase, slow it down, level it off. Acknowledge that slowing the rate of increase is not a reduction (hense obesity metaphor). We can’t afford all this.
Completely agree, thank you Susan.
The first thing to degrow is the role of the economy in society, in our lives, in politics. The second is the economy itself, as it should be obvious by now that we cannot consume ad infinitum on a finite planet. A planet that it’s not only ours, but must be shared viably and respectfully with all the other millions of species. The third to degrow is the number of economists who do not understand and do not apply the laws of nature and their disproportionate impact on policy, on business, on almost all our decisions.
For those who want to learn more about the economics of degrowth, I recommend Thimothee Parrique’s book “Ralentir ou Perir” (Slow down or Perish). An excellent and clear description on why we are in an existential crisis, due to bad economics, and how we can solve, with biospheric and social based economics, if we act fast and orderly.
Or you can read his blog or watch his many online presentations in excellent English:
https://timotheeparrique.com/sufficiency-means-degrowth/
8. Degrowth until humanity gets back within the planetary boundaries followed by a stable state e.g. steady-state economy) that keeps us there.
I finally got my round tuit on this. THANK YOU!
Great link, repeat: https://timotheeparrique.com/sufficiency-means-degrowth/
9. Reduce & Reuse. Stop buying things you don’t need (I might be privileged to say this, but you don’t need all that much besides food and water). A lot of garbage isn’t really garbage when you think about it creatively (for instance, “single-use” plastic or paper bags are usually durable enough to be reused multiple times). Ideally, when you need to buy something, just bring your own packaging – buy your groceries locally (i.e. directly from farmers or, better yet, grow them yourself) and package them into bags you brought. Granted, this doesn’t really get rid of the elephant in the room, but at the very least it reduces the plastic waste that wouldn’t be recycled either way. And less plastic waste = less microplastics in the soil and aquifers = cleaner environment = happier humans.
Completely agree, Julian, thank you for adding to the list. I would add one more R, Refuse or what I like to call necessariness in my work on sustainable design and circular economy. This should be the first criterion for every decision we make, from designing a product, to making it to buying it and if the answer is no, than Refuse. The answer will be no for almost everything, as what we have can be kept in use for a long time or the new thing will deepen our multiple crises or it’s a want heavily marketed by “The Men We Made Us Buy” (see the BBC documentary). And mainly because we have absurdly too much stuff, with no evolutionary benefit and destructive consequences. Should we become extinct for some plastic duck or any of the other myriad of trinkets we make?
We are the only species that creates waste, so we should learn how to minimize it, to postpone it, through the cycles you mention, if not eliminate it in as many instances of possible.
It is exactly the people who are aware of their privilege who should set an example on how to live sustainably and within the planetary limits.
I think you will be happy to know that I have been using the same two cloth grocery bags for over twenty years. The grocery chain where I received them from is not in business anymore, unfortunately, but the bags are in good hands. I also buy first and foremost from farmers and bulk stores. I am also an enemy of fossil-based plastic, so I find substitutes for it for everything I can.
Every action counts, small or large, so let’s do more of the good work in larger numbers.
Scripps just had a new record reading of 426.50 ppm on February 3rd (the old record was 424.66 ppm). NOAA’s daily average isn’t available for that day because their intra-day variability was too high, but their most recent hourly averages are above 426 ppm as well. If we remain anywhere near that level for even a few days then we may finally see the 4+ ppm/year rises
The January average of Mauna Loa CO2 for 2024 is available.
January 2024: 422.80 ppm
January 2023: 419.48 ppm
January 2014: 397.85 ppm
Last updated: Feb 05, 2024
The annual increase for January 2024 is at +3.32 ppm.
This is higher than the 10 years’ average of 2.50 ppm, and #17 in the rank of the increase rates since 1959 (meaning 16 out of 780 months since the measurements began had higher annual increase rates than Jan 2024).
The increase rate is also by far higher than the expected rate which should be (linearly fitted 1958-2024) at 2.44 ppm/a.
Some might notice how ML/Global CO2 graphs how the 12 month change peaked around or just after the El Nino of 1997-98 and 2015-16. Maybe 2024-25 will see some awesome monthly changes as well. There appears no stop in the ever increasing increase rate of CO2 concentration.
Individual gas concentrations. There is more radiative forcing of the “NOAA gases” (CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6) in October 2023 than in October 2022, but less than in May 2023.
The values [W/m²], change to Sep. 2023, change to Oct. 2022 and change to Oct. 2013 (in brackets:)
CO2 2.193 (+ 0.004) (+ 0.040) (+ 0.312)
CH4 0.541 (+ 0.002) (+ 0.005) (+ 0.041)
N2O 0.218 (+ 0.001) (+ 0.003) (+ 0.033)
SF6 0.0060 (+ 0.0000) (+ 0.0002) (+ 0.0018)
Sum 2.957 (+ 0.006) (+ 0.047) (+ 0.386) (rounded)
The relative annual increase is 1.61 %, higher than in October 2022 (+ 1.11 %).
Compared with 1980 [average was 1.578 W/m²] the increase since then sums up to 87.4 %.
This recalculates to a CO2eq of 483.1 ppm (annual increase of 4.3 ppm).
Increase of increase rate = Acceleration and not Mitigation.
Global temperatures have already exceeded the +1.5 °C global mean surface temperature threshold, relative to pre-industrial, with the pre-industrial defined by nearly constant (less than ±0.1 °C variation) temperatures from 1700 to the early 1860s, per Nature climate change article by Malcolm T. McCulloch et al. titled 300 years of sclerosponge thermometry shows global warming has exceeded 1.5 °C, published 5 Feb 2024. The Abstract concludes with:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01919-7
[Response: This is weak tea. There is real uncertainty about the pre-industrial temperature as we’ve discussed here before. This is one data point, not a global mean, and so it’s a huge overreach to claim that a single point can define the pre-industrial change. – gavin]
These findings also have important implications for near-term projections of global warming. As already described, relative to the 1961–1990 reference, OML and land temperatures (Fig. 5a) and hence GMSTs (Fig. 5b) increased by ∼0.9 ± 0.1 °C since the 1700–1860 pre-industrial period. This compares with only ∼0.4 °C when HadSST4 and land temperatures are estimated relative to the IPCC 1850–1900 pre-industrial period10, a difference of 0.5 °C (Fig. 5b). The additional 0.5 °C in global warming above IPCC estimates1 also implies that GMSTs were ∼1.7 ± 0.1 °C above 1700–1860 pre-industrial levels by 2018–2022, compared to the IPCC estimate1 of ∼1.2 ± 0.1 °C (Fig. 5b). Thus, the opportunity to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 °C by emission reductions alone has now passed and at current emission rates, the 2 °C threshold for GMSTs will be reached by the late 2020s (Fig. 5d).
We have shown that the late-twentieth-century land-air temperatures have been increasing at almost twice the rate of the surface oceans and are now ∼2 °C above pre-industrial levels. If these current rates of warming continue, mean land temperature will exceed 2.5 °C by about 2035, with GMSTs expected to follow in early 2040 (Fig. 5c,d). Consequently, the overriding aim of the UN Paris agreement to keep the combined land and ocean global surface temperature increase to below 2 °C is now a much greater challenge, emphasizing the even more urgent need to halve emissions by 2030.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01919-7
Concerning the uncertainty with the sponge proxy data, one very interesting correlation that seems to have been overlooked is that to global sea-level readings via tidal gauges. This is an overlay of SL data posted recently by Sal @25_level, note the red line matches the sponge data over the entire range after scaling and offset in amplitude
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/9070/8vhM7V.png
Is it possible that the sponge is that sensitive to sea-level change, or is that a coincidence? The important part is the start of the rise in the 1800’s which is what has given consternation to other climate scientists:
So the sponge data is just as confusing as sea-level change in the 1800s?
Hi, that is a very interesting overlay of SLR. Is Sal @25_level a twitter name?
I see where your quote comes from
https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-challenge-flawed-communication-of-study-claiming-1-5c-warming-breach/
And the scientist quotes there, were taken from here
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-sponge-skeleton-data-and-passing-1-5c/
Including a comment from Gavin Schmidt
Everyone quoted on that page focuses upon the idea that remaining under the 1.5C goals doesn’t really shift even if there was greater warming in the pre-1900 period human caused or not than was previously accpeted. It’s the time frame and what the temperatures then 1850-1900 actually were, and not whether or it is called the preindustrial period or not. And I can understand this point.
But isn’t the more important issue what the actual global mean temperature is set at (assumed it is from data) during this period 1850-1900? Where does the IPCC and others base this temperature upon? I can’t remember now. How much are physical records, how much is proxy data?
What is interesting to me however is that none of these climate scientists raised any doubts about the methodology used by the authors of this research study. Link https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01919-7
Or about their Calibration methods where they specifically state: (quote)
Calibration of the sclerosponge Sr/Ca palaeothermometer against global temperature changes thus provides strong empirical evidence that the Caribbean OML has warmed proportionately to the average global increase in SST, over the last ∼50 yr. This finding is supported by modelling9,17,29 which shows that, across this broad central western Atlantic region, SSTs have also increased at approximately the same rate as the global average (Extended Data Fig. 2)17. This can be understood as anthropogenic imposed radiative heating being an essentially passive tracer in the Caribbean OML29, whereas in the northern Atlantic, global warming plays an active role in modifying AMOC17 and hence heat uptake in that region. Thus, our empirical findings are consistent with the Caribbean being ideally positioned to monitor at-scale global greenhouse warming with minimal superimposed changes from AMOC 17, whilst still registering the broader effects of ENSO teleconnections 28. Importantly, modelling 17 also provides a strong physical basis for extending the modern (1964–2012) calibration of the sclerosponge Sr/Ca palaeothermometer back to the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, when still rudimentary instrumental measurements of SSTs were either absent or, at best, limited in geographic coverage (Extended Data Fig. 1)8,9.
You’ll notice several references to other papers here which they appear to be relying upon to assert their findings and their mathematical calibrations (as well, I assume.) None of the quoted scientists or the peer review is challenging this work. But they are challenging the idea that a ‘single proxy location’ cannot be used to draw conclusions about global temperatures. Yet that is precisely what this section of their paper is openly presenting reasons why this should be accepted.
Maybe I have it wrong, but Malcolm T. McCulloch et al are presenting their findings that this proxy sclerosponge thermometry and the Caribbean location is representative for “at-scale global greenhouse warming”. How then do these other scientists so casually dismiss this paper as being not good enough without addressing this specific underlying data analysis in the paper? Or even look at it in detail, or run their own analysis on it?
Furthermore, surely this data and analysis could be compared with other Proxy work on temperature? Take for example Mann’s Hockey stick reconstructions for the northern hemisphere temperatures. The Caribbean is part of the NH. See Fig 1 here https://skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick-intermediate.htm and Fig 3 here http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/mann1999.pdf Mann’s proxy sources are not all global / NH in scope but use narrow cast regional proxies. Together they add up to a whole using analysis and calibrations or whatever.
I am only roughly eyeballing these graphs with the ones from the sclerosponge thermometry paper, but it looks to me the OML anomalies fit quite inside the uncertainty (grey area) of the Mann proxy records data from 1850-1900 as well as from 1800-1900 for the NH. Which I think is 2 standard deviations, but I’m unsure exactly about that, because in the paper Mann calls it ‘two standard error limits (shaded)’.
Naturally, a visual is insufficient to draw any definitive conclusion, because the underlying data is what needs to be accurately compared here. Yes? My thinking, which may well be faulty, tells me this papers proxy records does fit into Mann’s proxy records, and given what they have presented themselves in the above quote then why cannot this paper be considered a reliable enough proxy to be applied (or included) to at least the NH Temperature record?
It is quite possible this Proxy method is superior to those used by Mann in the late 1990s. If so, they should celebrated and praised for their work.
Gavin Schmidt says: “Paleo-climate records are essential to extend the temperature record beyond the instrumental era, and these proxies are a useful addition to that database.”
see https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-sponge-skeleton-data-and-passing-1-5c/
Then why not check this data in detail, and if robust use this Proxy Data and their scientific peer reviewed conclusions instead of automatically dismissing it out of hand as “overreaching” or “weak tea”? This peer commentary is all so overwhelmingly negative doomerism. Without anyone providing any evidence to prove their negative conclusion – unlike what the authors of the paper have done.
Any insights on this Paul or anyone?
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819125
Dear Sir (or Madam),
First, I would like to join your questions that sound reasonable to me.
Especially if there is a good agreement of the “sponge thermometer” with global sea level trend that may, according to Dr. Benestad
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/a-distraction-due-to-errors-misunderstanding-and-misguided-norwegian-statistics/#comment-815682
be perhaps considered as the best “global thermometer” at all, I would see as desirable to investigate this potentially valuable option for further improvement of historical temperature records carefully.
I have an additional question in this regard:
If the Ca/Sr ratio in combination with U/Th dating works in this sponge, could this “paleothermometry” method be perhaps extended to other regions, exploiting other organisms (e.g. corals?) that metabolize / storage Ca from sea water as well?
Second, a personal plea:
Could you do me a great favour and change your nick?
For me, the name Lavrov is linked to one of most unscrupulous men in this world and I feel sick any time when I read it on this website.
Third, a fine joke I noted in today Czech media reporting new temperature records with headlines comprising the sentence “Nejtepleji bylo v Lednici” (It was the warmest in Lednice [today]):
https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/pocasi/teplotni-rekordy-padly-na-tretine-stanic-v-lednici-bylo-155-stupne-345919
Lednice is a small city with a beautiful castle in southern Moravia, however, the meaning of the word “lednice” in Czech is “ice chamber”.
Greetings
Tomáš
Reading L-Dog’s response, should mention that many of the equatorial Pacific coral ring proxy data records show very little discriminated temperature increase (compared to the Caribbean sponge data) but show extreme sensitivity to ENSO variations. That makes the coral records of little use in hockey stick reconstructions. So sponge data would be an excellent candidate
Paul Pukite Feb 12: Pacific coral ring proxy data records show very little discriminated temperature increase (compared to the Caribbean sponge data) but show extreme sensitivity to ENSO variations. That makes the coral records of little use in hockey stick reconstructions.
Again. Paul? ENSO is at the “weather” time scale, while hockey stick is about “climate” (its time-scale is 1000 yrs or more). I have explained to you the difference between the two, but since obviously you haven’t believed me, how about NASA:
“ Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more.” NASA for Kids webpage
Consequently – over 1000 years, the short-term oscillations (like ENSO) are merely noise around the climatological average, and therefore AVERAGE EACH OTHER OUT, not affecting the slope of the stick – hence contradicting your dismissal of coral records as having “little use in hockey stick reconstructions ”
Furthermore, ENSO has this large short-term impact on corals only in areas where its effect on water T is large (say, around Guam). In places when you don’t experience much ElNino noise – presumably in your Caribbean sponges location, the Caribbean corals growing next to the sponges, would experience identical temperature. Thus corals should be as AS USEFULL for the hockey stick as your sponges. You don’t suggest that sponges somehow … filter-out the short-term temperature noise, right?
So the question is still whether a WATER temperature record in a SINGLE site in Caribbean is MORE representative of the GLOBAL surface air temperature than
– the instrumental (?) record of AIR temperature from 1850-1900
– various types of proxies from various locations, used in more than dozen previous hockey stick reconstructions?
Tomas Kalisz Feb 10, to “Lavrov’s Dog”:
“ Second, a personal plea: Could you do me a great favour and change your nick?
Perhaps “Goebbels’ Dog” was already taken?
But I second your request – on the grounds that it misrepresents Lavrov – who would NEVER argue that the actual warming is worse than IPCC has stated: this would have implied the need for faster decarbonization – and without the world buying Russian oil and gas – the Russian economy and, therefore, their ability to wage wars, would collapse.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819499
Thank you, Piotr, for supporting my plea.
I guess that the combination of the L-word with “dog” was perhaps meant as a kind of parody.
Nevertheless, I think that although some dogs can be really evil, these animals certainly do not deserve to be generally associated with the name of a war criminal.
I hope that LD will reconsider the choice of his or her nick.
Greetings
T
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819239
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819498
Dear Paul, dear Piotr,
Thank you both for your comments.
Do I understand correctly that – if we let aside the question if (and if so, how) (quasi)periodic natural oscillations like seasons or ENSO have to be considered as a part of Earth climate – further calcium-processing marine organisms like corals could perhaps expand the applicability of the method for reconstruction of the past temperature record described in the article to other locations than the Caribbean?
If so, I suppose that exploring such reconstructions could be interesting and potentially useful, despite they may show also the natural oscillations such as ENSO.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb.27: if we let aside the question if (and if so, how) (quasi)periodic natural oscillations like seasons or ENSO have to be considered as a part of Earth climate
There is nothing to “set aside” – to quote from the source more commensurate with the depth of your climate science background:
“ Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more” (NASA for Kids webpage)
Hence, the short-term (2-5 years) oscillations around the mean are NOT a part of the CLIMATE change TREND shown in the hockey stick reconstructions over 1,000 years.
At most – ENSO is a statistical noise – but too weak to obscure the strong signal of the current global warming (you know, the angled part of the hockey stick).
TK: “Further calcium-processing marine organisms like corals could perhaps expand the applicability of the method for reconstruction of the past temperature record described in the article to other locations than the Caribbean?”
Thank you for reinventing the wheel – MOST of the paleoclimatic information from the ocean does come from
your “calcium-processing marine organisms” – primarily forams, and are NOT limited to a single location in the Caribbean.
One (Caribbean) swallow does not a spring make.
Hence Gavin’s comment:
This is weak tea. There is real uncertainty about the pre-industrial temperature as we’ve discussed here before. This is one data point, not a global mean, and so it’s a huge overreach to claim that a single point can define the pre-industrial change.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819603
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your comment. Indeed, some older studies of sea surface temperature based on the Ca/Sr ratio in calcium minerals that form in marine organisms are mentioned in the disputed McCulloch et al. 2024 article (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01919-7).
Nevertheless, it appears that none of them pertains to exploitation of this method in Foraminifera. If you know such studies, I will appreciate some references that might provide broader context for the McCulloch article.
You are right that Earth (global) climate and its trends should be by definition independent from short term fluctuations or oscillations. Proxy temperature records like marine ortganisms, however, reflect the local climate which is certainly characterized not only by average values of temperature and further parameters, but also by further characteristics of the temporal distribution of the observed / recorded values, such as dispersion of this distribution.
I think that this dispersion, reflecting local weather variability and/or seasonability, may be also an important characteristics of the climate at the given place. My understanding to the message of McCulloch et al was that in their Caribbean sclerosponge, they have found a local climate probe that seems to exhibit a particularly low “noise” and a particularly straightforward link to global trends.
Greetings
Tomáš
The best global analysis of GMST for 24,000 years from 24,000 years ago until 2010 CE is “Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum” by Matthew B. Osman, Jessica E. Tierney1, Jiang Zhu, Robert Tardif, Gregory J. Hakim, Jonathan King, and Christopher J. Poulsen and is shown quite well at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqtZdnpfgIc at 5:55, 6:05 and 7:00 As shown in video it uses 524 proxy analyses at a variety of locations around Earth rather than your classically-cherry-picked single proxy, single location. Cherry picking has been stock in trade for the coal-oil-gas-wealth-only-interested disinformers for the 1`1 years I’ve been following the topics. Obviously, it works well for purpose.
Barry E Finch: – “As shown in video it uses 524 proxy analyses at a variety of locations around Earth rather than your classically-cherry-picked single proxy, single location. Cherry picking has been stock in trade for the coal-oil-gas-wealth-only-interested disinformers for the 1`1 years I’ve been following the topics. Obviously, it works well for purpose.”
Except it’s not my “classically-cherry-picked single proxy, single location.” My name is not on the list of authors to the referred paper.
I think the referred paper raises some interesting questions about where the “pre-industrial baseline” should be. This issue is dependent on having adequate data. That’s where the arguments continue to be.
I’d suggest what the paper doesn’t change is:
1. The Earth System is warming;
2. The Earth System will continue to warm while the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) remains in a net energy gain state;
3. The EEI has doubled since the first decade of this century. That means the warming rate is accelerating;
4. Unless the EEI is reduced to a zero net energy gain state planet Earth will continue warming;
5. As the planet warms more locations on Earth will become progressively unlivable;
6. Observations from space show that the rate of sea level rise (SLR) is increasing, and has “more than doubled” since 1993;
7. Glaciologists have found, in study after study, that both of the planet’s remaining ice sheets are losing overall mass at an accelerating rate. Both the North Greenland and West Antarctic ice shelves are destabilizing;
8. Multi-metre SLR is now unstoppable unless the planet cools. SLR will change every coastline.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816647
To avoid civilisation collapse before the end of this century, we/humanity must: Reduce, Remove, Repair.
https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/06/three-climate-interventions-reduce.html
Barry, I think you have misunderstood my comments, and have thus overreached to arrive at false conclusions.
land air temps are getting increasingly more sensitive relative to non-land.
“Understanding how greenhouse forced warming has affected land-air temperatures relative to the much larger heat sink of the upper ocean remains a challenge.”
other than high northern latitude warming, the authors mention the increasing hydrological and temperature extremes everywhere.
“This change also coincides with the increased frequency of both Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere heatwaves2 and associated extreme events, such as droughts and wildfires40. Wildfires and more frequent bushfires are also an additional source of atmospheric CO2, providing an enhanced feedback mechanism. Although the relative importance of the regional and global processes driving the increased frequency and intensity of land-based heatwaves is still uncertain39, our revised record of industrial-era warming now clearly shows that terrestrial environments have been subject to a much faster rate of warming since the 1990s, compared to those in the more stable OML of the upper surface oceans.”
That dry times and places are more hot and extreme is not controversial. It is widely known and recognized by top scientists at NOAA and NASA, indicated using both words and agreeing head nods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4vJ_cazyM
13:14
and then um el ninos can cause droughts in other areas and when it’s dry it’s easier for surface temperatures to heat
13:19
up which also helps make it warmer
what else can cause dryness and surface moisture limitation? Massive huge drainage and watershed desiccation directly by humans?
There’s a couple of disparaging narratives that we hear about renewable energy, including sometimes on these very threads. One has been that there is no real-world example of RE displacing carbon-emitting generation to a meaningful extent. That has long been a false assertion, as several smaller nations have done just that, with Uruguay and Norway in particular reaching near 100% RE generation. But hey, both are smallish countries (demographically, at least) with excellent hydropower resources, and so can be (and have been) dismissed as atypical.
It’s a little harder to dismiss what’s happened now at continental scale. The EU has long seen uneven but overall declining emissions trends. But last year saw “a monumental shift”, with emissions down 19% from the previous year (which, admittedly was the second of two years of smaller emissions increases):
https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind-and-solar-ascend/
I found the underlying report here, for those who would like more detail:
https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/
Of course, part of this is politics–tactically, the turn away from Russian gas in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. But more strategically, there appears to be a much more durable, and increasing commitment to decarbonize:
Separately, the EU has just set a goal to reduce emissions by 90% from the 1990 baseline. But note that this is the low end of the scientific policy recommendation, and that they’ve punted on addressing agricultural emissions due to protest by farmers. So the story is still, as usual, a mixed one.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/06/eu-lays-out-plan-to-cut-greenhouse-emissions-by-90-by-2040
Still, the EU has provided a clear example of modern RE directly displacing FF generation capacity and cutting emissions–which brings us back to the second of the narratives about RE that we hear, namely that decreases in emissions in the developed world are due to offshoring of manufacturing. This appears not to be the case; while manufacturing has grown disproportionately in the developing world, as we are all aware, it doesn’t appear that the result has been a decrease in manufacturing in the EU, at least:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Industrial_production_statistics
I didn’t find directly comparable stats for North America, but scanning this detailed report supports the idea; most developed countries showed growth in manufacturing, albeit at rates below many developing nations:
https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935700
Climatereanalyser has SATs to 31 Jan
ARCTIC.
2024 showing some real temperature increases. Suddenly end of Jan 2024 hits the 2016 record temperature level.
Arctic Amplification
The graph of daily variation from the 1979-2000 clearly that Arctic Amplification is at the minimum in the period April to August – not usually in January
So far this year the 2020-24 variation from the 1979-2000 average is 2.07 degrees celsius compared with the World variation of 0.71 degrees celsius, but in the fall the Arctic daily variation can easily reach wellove +5.
2024 Antarctic
SATs showing a modest increase in recent days. As yet an obvious uplift in SATs is hard to distinguish over the satellite record. Still hitting a new record high for late January.
2024 Tropics.
At record highs for 31 days out of 31 so far.
2024 World
SATs at a record high for 20 out of 31 days. 2016 was higher in early Jan. Not now.
The Y-axis in the graphs showing variation from the 1979-2000 average looks imperiled in both cases.
I believe SSTs are more compelling. Record Temps and the Y axis is overwhelmed.
Lavrov’s Dog: – “Record Temps and the Y axis is overwhelmed.”
It seems to me that many graphs will continue to need increasingly bigger Y-axes as the Earth System warming accelerates…
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1755218600351203724
The SH SAT has reached an average temperature of 17 °C for the first time in observational history!
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1755567555777892469
It seems the World (60°S-60°N) SST graph will also need a bigger Y-axis soon…
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
When will +2.25 °C on the Y-axis be insufficient for a graph of global 2 m surface temperature anomalies (relative to pre-industrial baseline)?
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1755623313274290315
The January ERA5 report from Copernicus is showing another ‘scorchyisimo!!’ month but with the strong ‘bananas’ flavouring looking much diminished. The January global anomaly of +0.698°C pushes Jan 2020’s +0.581°C down into second-warmest January on record.
The last seven months (Jul 2023 – Jan 2024) now hold the top seven places in the ERA5 monthly anomalies record. And down in 16th spot is June 2023 which was the warmest June on record. Thus the last eight months have been ‘scorchyisimo!!!’. The advance on previous monthly records shows Jan 2024 with the smallest increase which may hold some pointer to the future. (Jun23-Jan24 increase on previous monthly record run:- J +0.16°C, J +0.33°C, A +0.31°C, S +0.50°C, O +0.40°C, N +0.32°C, D +0.31°C, J +0.12°C.)
Highest monthly anomalies in ERA5 global record
1st … 2023 Sep … +0.93°C
2nd … 2023 Nov … +0.85°C
3rd … 2023 Oct ,,, +0.85°C
4th … 2023 Dec … +0.85°C
5th … 2023 Jul … +0.72°C
6th … 2023 Aug … +0.71°C
7th … 2024 Jan … +0.70°C
8th … 2016 Feb … +0.69°C
9th … 2016 Mar … +0.63°C
10th … 2020 Feb … +0.60°C
11th … 2020 Jan … +0.58°C
12th … 2016 Jan … +0.55°C
…
16th … 2023 Jun … +0.53°C
It surely would be premature to be thinking the ‘bananas’ are behind us, so my ‘bananas’ watch will continue, as will the updates to the graphs (white & green) FIRST POSTED 15/12/23.
And be it ending or on-going, what is the cause of the ‘bananas’?
Many point to the SST numbers (Copernicus show the year-on-year SST for 60°S–60°N with the comment that “extra-polar waters were persistently and unusually high through most of 2023 … [and] have remained exceptionally high. … The exceptional warmth of the oceans is a key factor behind the record global surface air temperatures for January.”) But I still see something odd in the NH anomalies. Are NH temperatures reacting strangely to the ENSO cycle? Note the 2016 El Niño response was bigger and a couple of months earlier than seen in 1998 & 2010. Or perhaps declining aerosols (mainly a NH phenomenon) are resulting in warmer NH summers that have in 2023 gone particularly bonkers?
I would add the message “Your guess is as good as mine” but given the lunacy I read here in the RC comments threads these days, I could be wrong on that.
MAR.
Copernicus have made some interesting comments on last years very high NH temperatures particularly related to sea surface temperatures and aerosols : A few selected paragraphs to get the general idea of what they are saying:
“Aerosols: are SO2 emissions reductions contributing to global warming?”
“The question of whether reduced aerosol loading contributes to global warming is not new to atmospheric scientists, but it has recently resurfaced with the extreme heatwaves across the North Atlantic and many areas of Europe. In this analysis, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) scientists conclude that it is too early to attribute the recent exceptional warming to a reduction in shipping emissions undertaken since 2020.”
“In 2020, the International Maritime Organization adopted its ‘IMO 2020’ regulation to drastically reduce shipping-related sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Studies have concluded that the drop in emissions significantly reduced the formation of clouds over shipping lanes. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimated that that “the likely side-effect of the 2020 regulations to cut air pollution from shipping is to increase global temperatures by around 0.05C by 2050. This is equivalent to approximately two additional years of emissions.”
“However, linking SO2 reductions directly to the recent extreme marine heatwaves omits part of the complexity of using models to calculate sulphate aerosol interactions in the atmosphere or estimating the effective application of the IMO 2020 regulation, and, more generally, the complexity of climate and atmospheric chemistry.”
“Reviewing the record North Atlantic Sea surface temperatures in June 2023, a preliminary analysis from CAMS scientists found a significant negative anomaly in Saharan dust aerosol transport over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, and an increased anomaly in biomass burning aerosol over the North Atlantic, coming from the massive Canadian wildfires. These aerosol anomalies are much bigger than the sulphate change from shipping emission reductions. This makes the estimation of the impact of reduced sulphate aerosol emissions on the sea surface temperatures very challenging.”
“The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also suggested that, among other factors, the reduced winds of a weakened Azores anticyclone – an extensive wind system that spirals out from a centre of high atmospheric pressure – could have reduced the ocean-atmosphere exchange and the vertical mixing of the ocean between colder and warmer waters, as well as reducing Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, all of which has the potential to increase the ocean surface temperature.”
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
(I came across their commentary a few weeks back. However for me it still doesn’t offer a definitive quantified explanation for the very warm months mid to late last year. But it does suggest things its unlikely to be.
While the general reduction in anthropogenic aerosols in recent years would clearly cause some increase in warming especially longer term its a bit hard for me to see why it would cause the sudden warming spike from July to december last year. I would expect a smoother more gradual effect over time surely.)
Its also hard to see why reductions from aerosols in shipping made quite abruptly in 2020 with a big drop in that very years would suddenly manifest years later in mid 2023, quite apart from not apparently being enough to explain the high temperatures.
Its a bit unsatisfying hearing explanations that 2023 high temperatures are “likely a combination of xyz”. Things generally have precise causes and effects maybe multiple, that need to be actually nailed down and convincingly quantified.
Although they say weather and climate have elements of chaos theory, so maybe that’s the explanation for 2023’s temperatures. However I’m a layperson so I’m really just guessing on that.
With regard to explaining the ‘bananas’ of 2023, I think we can dismiss chaos theory as our culprit.
And I cannot see at work some giant ‘forced’ wobble. Because if it were such a wobble where is the giant thing that is forcing it? Likewise, breaking it down into “likely a combination of xyz” with the “xyz” comprising a list of smaller ‘forcings’? You’d need a bit more of the alphabet than “xyz” and all working in unison. The old nonsense saying “many a mickle maks a muckle” springs to mind. Sounds good but means nothing.
I think I would argue that the 2023 “bananas” must result from a climate wobble rather than any ‘forcing’, likely the response to El Niño.
And the reason this response is so “bananas”? Perhaps it is the effect of the on-going AGW, the effect of increasingly reduced aerosols in the northern hemisphere, or a mix of such factors. It may even be simply a “bananas” El Niño (because we have very few good exemplar El Niños).
At a global level, a very simplisitic description of the “bananas” is that it is an El Niño response which is somehow 3 months earlier than normal and so running +0.2ºC ahead of the 2016 response (and this in 2023 for a weaker El Niño). And peering at the recent monthly numbers, is the “bananas” peaking? Or perhaps plateauing?
Going nerdy…
The southern hemisphere shows a meaty wobble in 2023 worthy of a full El Niño but it arrived five months early. While this contributes 28% to today’s global anomaly (averaged Aug-Dec using NOAA numbers), the SH anomaly has not been warming for the last three rolling-monthly periods so is only responsible for 9% of the strong global rising wobble, the “bananas” being 4 months long using a 5-month rolling average.
The northern oceans did warm on time in 2023 as per previous El Niños but looking at those previous El Niños (1998. 2010 & 2016) they do show an apparent trend in the shape for this El Niño wobble. 1998 was a simple plateau, a twelve-month-long flat-topped wobble. 2010 was similar but with perhaps a bit of an early peak on top of the plateau while 2016 had a massive early peak on the plateau. 2023 has now also peaked, the timing as per those 2010 & 2016 peaks. This anomaly peak is even bigger than the 2016 one, AGW-adjusted +0.2ºC warmer than 2016. Northern oceans thus contribute 36% to today’s global anomaly and 22% to the “bananas” wobble.
There remains the northern lands anomaly which, presumably responding to ocean wobbles, is ever the wobbliest component of all. The NH-land El Niño wobble was quite small in 1998 & 2010 but it was 4x bigger in 2016 and peaked two months earlier. This big-&-early 2016 NH-land wobble was perhaps due to the massive ‘early’ peak seen in the 2016 NH-ocean anomaly. NH-land peaked in Feb 2016, four months behind the NH-ocean peak. So far in 2023, NH-land continues its big upward movement. It has only contributed 23% to today’s global anomaly (it being negative at the start of the “bananas”) but its big rise, even with it being only 40% of the NH area, has contributed 66% to the global upward wobble of the last few months.
So, all very nerdy, but it does sort-of stack up in the NH.
So MA, I asked about this previously, no answer, so let me put it in a different form:
Is GMST climate or weather?
zebra,
Assuming that ‘previous asking’ was here, it is a little nuanced in that ‘previous’ version and I hadn’t entirely grasped it enough to get round to responding.
And mention of Spencer reminds me I still haven’t read properly his last pile of nonsense.
zebra, Feb.13: “Is GMST climate or weather?
“Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more”
https://climatekids.nasa.gov › menu › weather-and-climate
MAR,
Yes, it is a bit nuanced, and zooms right over the head of some people. But it is the kind of discussion that might better educate interested readers.
MAR
Thanks. Very thought provoking and useful comments.
“I think I would argue that the 2023 “bananas” must result from a climate wobble rather than any ‘forcing’, likely the response to El Niño.”
“And the reason this response is so “bananas”? Perhaps it is the effect of the on-going AGW, the effect of increasingly reduced aerosols in the northern hemisphere, or a mix of such factors. It may even be simply a “bananas” El Niño (because we have very few good exemplar El Niños).”
To claim the bananas are not the result of a forcing in paragraph one followed by suggesting they could be a result of AGW and aerosols reduction in paragraph two seems like a contradiction. Or maybe Im misreading you. (Having said that the foundation of last years high temperatures is clearly AGW and el nino. Its the fact they were so unusually high thats a bit of a puzzle.)
“Going nerdy…’
Your comments on the southern hemisphere, northern lands and northern oceans look logical to me. It just leaves the mystery of why the southern hemisphere warmed so early but perhaps that is largely the effect of the Tongan Volcano water vapour issue.
Regarding the northern hemisphere ocean bananas Copernicus did offer this explanation:
“The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also suggested that, among other factors, the reduced winds of a weakened Azores anticyclone – an extensive wind system that spirals out from a centre of high atmospheric pressure – could have reduced the ocean-atmosphere exchange and the vertical mixing of the ocean between colder and warmer waters, as well as reducing Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, all of which has the potential to increase the ocean surface temperature.”
That would seem to be a possible explanation and an alternative to a bonkers el nino. Although it doesnt explain why there were reduced winds and a weakened Azores anticyclone. Perhaps that is in turn due to the el nino but I couldn’t find anything on that.
nigelj,
The idea that ‘forcing’ is not responsible (that is ‘directly responsible) for the 2023 “bananas” is not incompatible with saying ENSO will be more wobbly under a warmer/warming world, warmed by a ‘forcing’, or that the removal of aerosols, a negative ‘forcing’, operating over the NH could also be causing bigger ENSO wobbles.
I’ve up-loaded a graphic HERE – Posted 14/2/24 showing these numbers (& await the NOAA Jan24 numbers to add another month’s-worth of data).
Splitting the Global into SH, NH-ocean & NH-land does suggest that ENSO’s response in the NH is the main cause of the 2023 “bananas” and particularly NH-land.
I’d suggest that the 2015-16 El Niño NH numbers will need explaining with the same argument as 2023. So invoking sandstorms over the Serengeti would have to be consistent with both.
The Tonga eruption? Southern hemisphere surface temperatures? Beyond my pay grade!!
MAR
“The idea that ‘forcing’ is not responsible (that is ‘directly responsible) for the 2023 “bananas” is not incompatible with saying ENSO will be more wobbly under a warmer/warming world, warmed by a ‘forcing’,”
Understood. Recent study you may not be aware of: “Global heating has likely made El Niños and La Niñas more ‘frequent and extreme’, new study shows” seems to confirm what you say.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/18/global-heating-el-nino-la-nina-weather-climate-pattern-more-frequent-extreme
My instinct back in the early 2000’s was that AGW would make el ninos and la ninas more intense. You cant put all that extra energy in the oceans and affect circulation and winds and not mess up ENSO in some way.
The concept of “forcing” as applied to immature scientific disciplines such as climate science is one of my pet peeves. There are essentially 2 classes of responses to a stimulus as described by mathematical physics — a natural response and a forced response. IMO, too may scientists are infatuated with the natural response even though that is rarely observed in isolation, as most observed responses are a mix of primarily a forced response that is filtered by the natural response. Sometimes the natural response is barely detectable, as in pushing a baby stroller where it just moves as you push it. In climate science, the main forced response is in the daily response to the sun rising and setting and in the seasonal cycle. The natural response to these two is primarily described as a lag or delay until the forced energy of sunlight kicks in. Of course one can consider a GHG such as CO2 as a “forcing” but it is dwarfed by the strong forcing of the daily and seasonal cycles; it should be better considered as a forcing modifier or forcing feedback term.
The observation of the response to a stimulus such as Hunga Tonga volcano provides an excellent but rare chance to watch the evolution of a natural response almost in isolation. In science and engineering, natural responses are always best characterized by measuring the response to an impulse, such as with a volcanic eruption. I predict that in a few years time, the H-T event will provide some dividends in increasing our understanding of the roles of water vapor and aerosols in the stratosphere.
More problematic, and this is where my pet peeve comes in, is in reference to climate variations. Anytime a climate scientist mentions chaos or the Lorenz butterfly effect, it is almost always in the context of a natural response, and nothing to do with a forced response. In fact, many times a predicted chaotic natural response will be easily made deterministic by the application of a synchronized forcing. Think about it — the seasonal forcing will always override any extended chaotic tendency. That’s not to say that the forced response of a non-linear solution of fluid dynamics is necessarily straightforward. Just that the majority of the studies of natural chaotic responses published in the climate science literature are useless taken in isolation — i.e. without the proper forcing terms applied.
The forcing, including daily, seasonal, and GOD forbid tidal, is the heartbeat and metronome in what will keep all the erratic climate cycles such as ENSO in check. Yet, no one in climate science is actually really looking at this aspect.
In case anyone chips in, this is the ChatGPT4 response to what I wrote above: https://chat.openai.com/share/bf0a810a-6bea-40d4-829e-6936a3f4de20
PP: immature scientific disciplines such as climate science
BPL: Look again:
https://bartonlevenson.com/ClimateTimeLine.html
Nigel said:
How can anyone make that claim as long as the origin and predicted behavior of ENSO can’t be explained? Take as an example and replace “ENSO” in the above with “ocean tidal cycles”. If you claimed that extra CO2 would mess up tides, most people would consider that crazy because they know the origin of tides and the behavior of tides is easily predictable — and that it has virtually nothing to do with the temperature of the ocean or air.
I don’t mean to single you out, as this claim is widespread in the research literature. There are just as many peer-reviewed research papers making claims of what AGW will do to ENSO as there are papers on the origins and models of ENSO. This may have more to do with how climate science is funded then in a quest for fundamental knowledge.
This is why it’s an immature science, as there are significant gaps in the understanding, especially in regards to something as fundamental as natural climate variation. This is not a value judgement, but a comparison to a mature scientific discipline where one can simply solve for an answer as formulated in a textbook, If you don’t like the term immature, replace it with speculative. And replace mature with established. The maturity levels can then range from speculative to established. Sorry for using a trigger word.
A plea in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/not-just-another-dot-on-the-graph-part-ii/#comment-818978 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819285 ,
and many other posts discussing “bananas”, “nuts” and like.
Dear Sirs,
I suppose that what you discuss is not food but some temperature effect, however, I have no idea where these terms came from and what is their exact meaning.
Could you do me a favour and explain, or refer to the original thread introducing them?
Many thanks in advance and best
regards
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Is puzzled about what “going bananas” means.
Google search of the phrase “things have gone bananas”:
“go bananas”
“1. To become irrational or crazy.”
I’ll end up going bananas if I have to work in this cubicle for one more day!
“2. To express great excitement about something in an exuberant manner.
The kids are going to go bananas when we tell them about the trip.”
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+gone+bananas
“What Does Going Bananas Mean? “Going bananas” is a really popular idiomatic expression, and it means to become super excited, emotional, or even irrational about something. You can also use the phrase to talk about someone who is acting wild and unpredictable. And you can say it in a few different ways.”
https://grammarist.com
Last years unexpectedly high, crazy, and puzzling temperatures are thus well described as bananas. Not sure why the word bananas evolved to mean crazy, irrational and unpredictable, but it did. Maybe it just sounds good.
nigelj says
22 Feb 2024 at 1:04 PM
Oh dear nigelj, it was a phrase deployed by James Hansen about last years rapid temp rise. (smile) that was then picked up and used here last year, and MA being like he is ….. well
Groundhog Day. Another Gobsmackingly Bananas Month. What’s Up?
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2024/Groundhog.04January2024.pdf
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819466
Hi Nigel,
Indeed, I have not recognized that “bananas” is a short form of an idiom. Thanks a lot for your kind explanation.
Now, I would like to return to your post of February 20 addressed to me
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819439 .
Let me shortly comment on your four points.
1) “The science isn’t settled.” In fact its settled enough to know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is at least the main cause of the warming.
TK:
Just to be precise, we speak about our perception of present climate science. I rather tend to understand the word “settled” analogously as Paul Pukite. I tried to explain it with my example of the successful space probe launch. In my opinion, present climate science has not reached this level of reliability and practical applicability yet.
As regards CO2, I fully agree that it is a greenhouse gas, that it surely participates on the greenhouse effect of Earth atmosphere, and that rising CO2 concentration surely must contribute to warming earth climate.
I have, however, still problem with assigning the rising atmospheric CO2 level as “main cause” of the observed climate change. I even afraid that such an assignment might in fact work as a potentially dangerous self-deception. It is because I strongly doubt that various “causes” or “forcings” driving Earh climate and its changes can be treated separately, isolated from each other.
Let me try to explain by following metaphor. You have a square or round table with four legs. You remove one leg, and the table still stays upright. Even if you remove two opposite legs, the table may still stay upright. Then a weak wind blow or any other impuls shakes it, and the table turns over. What was the “main cause” of its fall? Was it the last impuls, your previous actions that destabilized it, or both?
Putting one perpetrator in the jail without captupring his accomplices may not work. IPCC executive summaries, media and politicians portrait our present knowledge about Earth climate and its regulation mechanisms the way that if we return the concentration of atmospheric non-condensing greenhouse gases to the preindustrial level, the observed climate change will decelerate. Furthermore, it seems to be silently assumed that later, the climate should slowly return toward its preindustrial state.
I doubt that any individual climate scientist would honestly say that he or she is sure what will indeeed happen in a such case. Personally, I am somewhat afraid that it is well possible that we may still have something like the turned table with two legs, because I do not believe that just rectifying the supposed “main cause” of a change in a complex system is a guarantee of its return to its initial state.
2)”Political decisions won’t work” (carbon tax, cap and trade, subsidies, etc., etc.), meaning by definition that only individual initiative will work, a typical right wing and libertarian meme. (This also conflicts with your claim that you are not a libertarian.)
TK:
I have not said that. I think that political decisions may work, provided that they are smart. Unfortunately, I do not see much smart political decisions in present climate policies. For example, subsidizing in parallel fossil fuels, renewable energy and nuclear energy can hardly work.
You certainly remember that we spoke about direct CO2 capture from air. I am not alone who thinks it is a total waste of effort and resources. Pushing towards “Hydrogen economy” is, under present economical circumstances, purely a huge success of the powerful lobby lead by fossil fuel industry, and another big deal therefor. In such cases, I would indeed say that an absence of a policy could make less harm than promoting any of such would-be “solutions”.
3) “We must not ‘damage’ the economy!” An emotive statement that could mean anything. The energy transition proposed will cost society money in the short term and will save money in the long term. We are not going to solve the climate problem at no additional cost, but apparently you oppose spending ANY extra money and redirection of resources to mitigate the problem.
TK:
Again, I have not said that. In fact, I am using to say “Economy matters”.
Reasonable investments cost money, however, they bring a benefit in return. I am afraid that above mentioned policy examples will cost lot of money but will not bring any short or long term benefit at all. In some cases, they may rather bring significant damages either indirectly (by consuming resources for other needs that will be neglected due to “climate emergency”) or even directly.
This has been, unfortunately, already the case, see e.g. large deforestation and soil destruction for nonsensical mass production of “biomass” and/or “biofuels”, economically driven solely by the respective subsidies. That is what I would like to avoid.
4) “The water cycle perturbed by humans could be the main cause of the warming” (paraphrasing what you appear to be saying). Typical attempt to blame a scapegoat and create doubt in people’s minds about official explanations without providing any actual analysis and calculations and quantification, despite your many posts on the issue.
TK:
As regards the “main cause” and its “official explanations”, see above.
As regards the support for my view – I indeed think that the water cycle and its anthropogenic perturbations may play an important role in present climate change – I admit that I very appreciated the attempt made by Barton Paul, with the aim to quantify (and eventually disprove) the effect.
Unfortunately, I have not recognized for quite long that the main assumption in his simple model (that latent heat flux can be increased purely on the expenses of the upwelling longwave radiation, without any sensible heat flux decrease) is unrealistic, and recognized it, thank to JCM, only when Barton Paul by his correction seemingly confirmed my assumptions.
Now, the article Lague 2023 cited by JCM seems to me as the most qualified estimation of the effects that anthropogenic changes in land hydrology may have on global climate.
It was the reason why on February 7
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819062
I tried to explain how I understand the article, why I tried to add an additional explanation to Piotr on February 8
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819074
and asked him once again on February 12
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819145
in which aspects he understands this article differently from me.
I have not obtained any reasonable answer yet.
If you would like to show me in which aspect(s) I contradicted myself in my previous posts, I propose that you tell me, first of all, what is incorrect in my understanding to Lague 2023.
This could be a good starting point, I think.
Greetings to New Zealand
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz
Thanks for the comments , although I disagree with several of them as follows:.
Regarding whether climate science is settled you say: “Just to be precise, we speak about our perception of present climate science. I rather tend to understand the word “settled” analogously as Paul Pukite. I tried to explain it with my example of the successful space probe launch. In my opinion, present climate science has not reached this level of reliability and practical applicability yet.”
Your opinion that “present climate science has not reached this level of reliability and practical applicability yet” is devoid of hard evidence and climate science does not need that level of precision where a space probe has to land on a tiny little target in space. We just need to know approximately how much warming will be caused. Your analogy has been quite well rebutted by patrick o twentyseven and Radge Havers.
Your statement that climate science has not reached a level of reliability and practicability hasnt stopped your promotion of certain types of climate solutions, eg: cooling the climate by irrigation and using solar cells and sodium batteries. If you have doubts about the reliability and practical applicability of the science why promote solutions? Or are you playing safe in case the science is indeed correct? I dont believe you really believe in your own ‘doubts’ about the science. Or maybe you are contradicting yourself.
“I have, however, still problem with assigning the rising atmospheric CO2 level as “main cause” of the observed climate change.”
Unsubstantiated evidence free opinion.
“I even afraid that such an assignment might in fact work as a potentially dangerous self-deception. It is because I strongly doubt that various “causes” or “forcings” driving Earh climate and its changes can be treated separately, isolated from each other…..Putting one perpetrator in the jail without captupring his accomplices may not work….I do not believe that just rectifying the supposed “main cause” of a change in a complex system is a guarantee of its return to its initial state.”
You haven’t provided any evidence of how things would interact, and nobody has suggested we should reduce ONLY CO2 emissions. Its recommended to reduce methane and certain other greenhouse gases, and reduce deforestation, etc, etc, all the significant anthropogenic factors implicated in warming. So your have created a rather large strawman.
“Furthermore, it seems to be silently assumed that later, the climate should slowly return toward its preindustrial state.”
IT IS NOT BEING ASSUMED. Your categorisation is missleading. A great deal of investigation, research, physics and calculation has gone into this conclusion. You have not debunked it. You have not provided any detailed evidence that is required on these forums.
“I think that political decisions may work, provided that they are smart. Unfortunately, I do not see much smart political decisions in present climate policies. For example, subsidizing in parallel fossil fuels, renewable energy and nuclear energy can hardly work. You certainly remember that we spoke about direct CO2 capture from air. I am not alone who thinks it is a total waste of effort and resources. Pushing towards “Hydrogen economy” is, under present economical circumstances, purely a huge success of the powerful lobby lead by fossil fuel industry, and another big deal therefor. In such cases, I would indeed say that an absence of a policy could make less harm than promoting any of such would-be “solutions”.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense to equally subsidise fossil fules, nuclear and renewables for obvious reasons. I think its a bit too early to say a hydrogen economy is impractical. New Zealand is already running long distance truck freight using hydrogen fuel cell technology because it works well for that. My point is hydrogen is not a major solution but might have niche applications.
I have my doubts about DAC because of the vast number of plant required and thus the resource availability but again its probably too early to reject it completely. Innovation might get it efficient enough to be useful – and you constantly talk about innovation. The problem is that people are assuming it will work at huge scale – and thus delaying emissions reductions at source. The technology is not convincing enough to do that.
However and importantly going back to the issue of political solutions do you support having a price on carbon such as carbon taxes, or cap and trade schemes? (fwiw this seems like a good policy to me) I have asked you this before several times but never got an answer.
“Reasonable investments cost money, however, they bring a benefit in return. I am afraid that above mentioned policy examples will cost lot of money but will not bring any short or long term benefit at all. In some cases, they may rather bring significant damages either indirectly (by consuming resources for other needs that will be neglected due to “climate emergency”) or even directly.This has been, unfortunately, already the case, see e.g. large deforestation and soil destruction for nonsensical mass production of “biomass” and/or “biofuels”, economically driven solely by the respective subsidies. That is what I would like to avoid.”
Agreed about biofuels. However your own schemes to cool the climate by irrigation at reasonably large scale and greening of the sahara would without doubt be massively expensive and have huge downsides and very debatable benefits as has been explained already. Although BPL found it would cool the surface without being negated by additional greenhouse effect this doesn’t change the other problems. So can I assume you have abandoned your irrigation scheme given it contradicts your own stated criteria?
“If you would like to show me in which aspect(s) I contradicted myself in my previous posts, I propose that you tell me, first of all, what is incorrect in my understanding to Lague 2023.”
I do not intend to give my own version of why I believe you made some contradictory statements. Piotr has ALREADY highlighted a list of three of your contradictions and given a justification for his views. At least one of his contradictions sounded correct to my recollection of the related posts. I find your rebuttals to his very hard to follow and convoluted and not particularly convincing and the issue does not hinge around your interpretation of Langue. There’s nothing more I can say.
TK: In my opinion, present climate science has not reached this level of reliability and practical applicability yet.
BPL: Look again:
https://bartonlevenson.com/ClimateTimeLine.html
TK: As regards CO2 . . . I have, however, still problem with assigning the rising atmospheric CO2 level as “main cause” of the observed climate change.
BPL: It is:
https://bartonlevenson.com/CO2%20Evidence.html
https://bartonlevenson.com/CO218502019.html
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819503
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your kind feedback.
My ten-month effort on this website was motivated mostly by the desire to find out if anybody knows how the present climate would have looked like if we had the same record of fossil fuel consumption as we have, combined with another level of water cycle interference (deforestation, soil degradation, etc.) in the past.
I do not have a feeling that anybody is able to reply this question, although it is in my opinion of an utmost importance. If we knew the reply, we could also know better if policies proposed for climate change mitigation are reasonable or not .
As we do not know this reply, there is a significant uncertainty if the proposed measures succeed and achieve the desired goal, or if they perhaps fail and miss the goal. This is my personal view, and I am aware that this view is not shared on this website, because majority of readers is convinced that economy decarbonisation must automatically work and will certainly help. In this optics, there is no risk of failure that should be taken into account.
In my view, this risk, unfortunately, does still exist, and should not be neglected. On the other hand, I think that the other risk – that increased greenhouse gas concentrations indeed are the main cause of the observed climate change, and that stabilization of their level at a presently unknown level is necessary for climate stabilization – is significant and should be no way ignored as well.
That is why I seek way how the economy decarbonisation, which could mitigate the second risk, could be accomplished while minimizing the risk of failure. By the failure, I mean the situation that the desired climate stabilization will not come, and the invested resources and efforts get wasted. I think that it could be achieved if the spent resources and effort will, parallel with the decrease of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions, bring further benefits that will, ideally already alone justify the investments made.
Providing reliable technology for large scale electricity storage that would have been so cheap that no reserve electricity sources had to be built and maintained is an example of this approach, because it could make the economy conversion towards renewable energy sources economically attractive per se, and could produce the desired climate stabilization as an additional benefit, if the stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration achieved this way will indeed work as presently supposed. In this sense, I do not see any contradiction between measures I am promoting on one hand and my doubts about maturity of present climate science and reliability of its projections on the other hand.
A small technical correction:
What I promote specifically is rather sodium as an “electrofuel” than electricity storage in sodium “batteries” which you keep to mention, although no kind of batteries can enable the given task.
I understand that the proposed “economy matters” approach may look too humble to all the people who see present climate trends scary and feel endangered therewith. Nevertheless, it may have the advantage that there might be much lower resistance against such a humble approach from the side of all people who doubt about the present evidence for a “climate emergency” and doubt that huge costs of proposed measure are justified.
Even the deniers who refuse to admit that any climate change does exist or that it may be caused by human activities could be willing to participate on the benefits offered by this alternative. For this reason, I think that this compromise approach between “we cannot harm economy, we must continue in the business as usual” and “decarbonize at any costs, because the planet burns” may be a relevant option which could deserve a serious consideration.
As regards the details of the previous discussion, I would like to correct your opinion that Barton Paul showed that artificially managed global latent heat flux increase will indeed result in the decrease of the global average surface temperature. Although I long time believed it is true, I finally recognized that his model was incorrect in assuming that latent heat flux increase is possible without a significant sensible heat flux decrease. The overall balance of these two fluxes and the net radiative flux thus remained unclear after BPL analysis. Now, it seems to be well possible that this balance will not change significantly under “clear sky” conditions – which, however, are unrealistic again.
Should the modelling results offered by Lague 2023 be correct, then it looks like that, actually, just the cloud feedback (and not the direct surface cooling by latent heat flux increase) might finally be the decisive mechanism through that the anthropogenic changes in land hydrology might indeed significantly influence Earth climate. It is, however, my feeling that this work is rather a sign that a research in this direction indeed started than a final conclusion on which some practical steps could rely.
For this reason, I certainly cannot recommend practical realisation of the thought experiment with Sahara covered by evaporatively cooled solar power plants now. I would like, however, make you aware that what I proposed was actually an urban experiment with evaporatively cooled solar cells, which could perhaps exploit urban heat islands as a model of hot deserts and provide an opportunity for a practically feasible and economically affordable comparison of model predictions with observations.
Greetings
Tomáš
additionally to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819503
Dear Nigel,
I am sorry for omitting your question regarding carbon tax and related tools.
My reply is yes, I think that creating a taxation system or another tool that would incentivize economical and societal transformation towards clean energy and, generally, to a sustainable develoment, may be desirable.
I am, however, not able to comment on achievments made in this direction so far, as I still looked only very superficially in this direction. It is, for example, my feeling that “emission trading” may be counter-productive, because there are reports that it rather serves as a means for postponing or circumventing transformative efforts, but I cannot generalize. If you have a deeper knowledge in this direction, please do not hesitate to share.
Greetings
Tomáš
TK: It is, for example, my feeling that “emission trading” may be counter-productive, because there are reports that it rather serves as a means for postponing or circumventing transformative efforts, but I cannot generalize.
BPL: Circa 1990 the USA put an emissions trading scheme in place to control sulfate emissions, with respect to dealing with the acid rain crisis. Interestingly, this law was signed by a conservative president, George H.W. Bush, because at that time the Republican Party had not yet become totally opposed to science and pollution controls.
It worked very well. I remember driving on Route 279 North and I-76 (the Pennsylvania Turnpike) in the 1980s. I would pass mile after mile of dead, white trees–and not just in the winter. When I followed that route in the 2000s, live, green trees covered the hills.
The trick is to begin with the amount already being emitted, then decrease the allowable level every year. Those who can put in emissions controls with the least expense do that to avoid the fines for noncompliance, and then sell permits to other companies to emit the amount they’re no longer emitting. But the next year the cap is smaller, and more companies are in danger of having to pay fines for noncompliance. So more companies put in emissions controls. Because more companies are emitting less, they have fewer permits to sell. The supply of permits decreases and the price goes up. The incentive to put in emissions controls increases every year, until pretty much all the companies are complying.
Sorry, TK, I got that wrong. The companies having fewer permits to sell has nothing to do with how much they’re emitting–emitting less means they have more permits to sell. The supply of permits goes down because the government issues fewer of them every year.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819518
Dear Barton Paul,
Thank you for the links to your website providing useful evidence for the important role of carbon dioxide in present global warming.
None ot these graphs, however, provides a clue to the question how these correlations would have looked like if we managed to keep Earth water cycle that works as an “air condition” in its pre-anthropocene (rather than pre-industrial) state.
I think that the reply to this question may be very relevant for the assessment in which extent climate change mitigation measures oriented basically on anthropogenic emissions of non-condensing greenhouse gases may help to achieve the desired goal, what is the rik of failure, and if there is a such risk, if parallel measures for Earth hydrological cycle repair may be desirable or necessary.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb 25: None ot these graphs provides a clue to the question how these correlations would have looked like if we managed to keep Earth water cycle that works as an “air condition” in its pre-anthropocene state.”
They don’t have to – your water cycle ideas have already been quashed by another paper – Lague et al 2023, ironically brought up in support of you by JCM, and one that you have claimed to have read “full-text”.
I already explained it on Feb.23 https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819496,
but since yu post as if you haven’t read it – here are main points:
Piotr Feb. 23: ” see [Lague et al., 2023] Fig.5b – even MUCH LARGER increases in evaporation than theoretically possible today (i.e. going from ZERO evaporation from continents (DesertLand simulation) to the MAXIMUM evaporation from continents (SwampLand simulation)) – produced …. only small net global cooling: the net TOA outgoing energy flux increased by …. 0.3 W/m2 (=12.8+16 – 14.1).
Which means that your restoring “ water cycle to its pre-anthropocene state “- by being only tiny fraction of the water cycle change range evaluated by Lague – would result at tinyfraction 0f that 0.3 W/m2.
Now compare this tiny fraction 0f 0.3 W/m2 with … 2.72 W/m2 of the net forcing of human emissions (2019 relative to 1750) [IPCC, 2021]…
TK “ I think that the reply to this question may be very relevant
Wrong again – a tiny fraction of 0.3 W/m2 is …opposite of being “very relevant”
Hence the old denier narrative defending the use of fossil fuels
by claiming that we can just compensate for the warming part of their effects by intensifying global water cycle – remains a watercyclist’s wet dream.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819578
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819583
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for clarifying your view on Lague 2023.
To be honest, I considered your arguments but I am not convinced that your interpretation of the article is correct.
With respect to the Figure 9 you discuss, the authors write in the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph on page 10:
“Both the DesertLand and SwampLand simulations are in equilibrium, so the net TOA energy balance (the sum of the bars in figure 9) is near zero.”
In other words, I tend to agree with JCM that the small difference 0.3 W/m2 which you emphasize as essential, may not be that what actually matters in this article.
Although the summary provided in the abstract does not contain any numerical value for the surface cooling achieved in the swamp land scenario, nor for the surface heating achieved in the desert land scenario, it is still my understanding that these effects shown by the tested models were significant and that they may represent the core message of the article rather than the 0.3 W/m2 TOA balance correctly reported by you.
I think that in this regard, interesting may be also the chapter 4 Conclusions:
“In a global model with realistic continental geometry, reducing terrestrial evaporation increases the total amount of atmospheric water vapor over most land and ocean regions. The residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere increases by roughly 50% from the simulation with fully saturated land to the simulation with desert land. Suppressing land evaporation has a direct warming effect on the land surface by reducing latent cooling of the surface, but also drives atmospheric feedbacks including reductions in terrestrial cloud cover. The anomalous surface energy fluxes driven by atmospheric cloud, water vapor, and temperature feedbacks are larger than the initial change in latent heat flux driven directly by suppressed terrestrial evaporation. The cloud feedback is critical for increasing near-surface MSE and generating anomalous atmospheric circulations throughout the depth of the troposphere. Simulations conducted in
a cloud-free model still show surface warming with suppressed terrestrial evaporation, but also show a decrease, rather than an increase, in near surface MSE. Anomalous atmospheric circulations over the continents in cloud-free simulations are much shallower, and the atmosphere shows reduced atmospheric water vapor with suppressed terrestrial evaporation. This extreme experiment raises the question of how real-world changes to the land surface
(e.g. land use, agriculture) may be contributing to climate change by altering atmospheric water vapor and cloud cover, and how terrestrial evaporation modulates climate on other planets or in past continental configurations of Earth’s history.”
Shortly, it is my feeling that the entire content of the article rather contradicts your interpretation.
Nevertheless, I do not think it will be helpful if a layman like me would have tried to analyze this highly sophisticated article in more detail. I have another proposal instead:
With respect to exactly opposite interpretations of this peer-reviewed article by informed readers that already appeared in this discussion forum, I think that it would be definitely useful if someone of the moderators could summarize and interpret the article the way that is more comprehensive for the broad public than the article itself.
It could prevent an endless discussion on these pages what the true message of Lague 2023 actually is. A qualified critical assessment of the article by an expert could, moreover, enable a better insight into reliability and value of the published results.
Would you join this plea?
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Feb 28: “To be honest”
Why start now?
TK: I considered your arguments but I am not convinced that your interpretation of the article is correct
Who cares? I gave up long time ago writing for you, now I write about you.
TK: “ I tend to agree with JCM that the small difference 0.3 W/m2 which you emphasize as essential, may not be that what actually matters in this article”
The blind leading the deaf: Neither you nor your Master have a clue what you are talking about – you both don’t understand your own source – the Lague et al. 2023 paper that you both are clinging to as your last chance at relevance, nor the arguments demonstrating your misunderstanding of Lague et al., e.g.:
JCM 24 Feb: “ To Piotr, Lague 2023 attempted to get near-equilibrium simulations, achieved to within 0.3 W/m2 at TOA, to highlight the climate differences. You distort or misunderstand that. ”
Tomas agreed wholeheartedly, and added his own effort along the same lines:
TK Feb 27: “ Both the DesertLand and SwampLand simulations are in equilibrium, so the net TOA energy balance is near zero”
So you are both confusing 0.3 W/m2 from Methods with 0.3 W/m2 from Results – the former was decided by the author – Lague run individual simulations until they came arbitrarily close enough (~ 0.3 W/m2) from reestablishing the equilibrium after the initial departure.
The authors DID NOT decide a priori that the magnitude of different effects in the RESULTS section of their paper have to be such that they will cancel each other out to within 0.3W/m2. The fact that they did on their own (Fig.9b) – is an important RESULT – it proves that ramping up global evaporation as alternative to reduction of human emissions is nothing more than deniers wet dream.
Since you and JCM are referring to Fig 9 let me explain what it means:
EVEN going from ZERO evaporation over land to MAXIMUM evaporation from land – would have … negligible impact on the Earth’s TOA fluxes – the effect of clouds and albedo would be ~ cancelled by the non-cloud effects, so the NET change in energy fluxes at TOA would be … 0.3 W/m2 cooling. The actual cooling would be only a fraction of that 0.3 W/m2 – since the real world has much less room for extra evaporation than the one where all land is a desert.
TK: Would you join this plea?
What for? Which part of the Fig. 9b – you didn’t understand? For going from DesertLand to SwampLand:
– cooling by clouds: 12.8W/m2, cooling by snow albedo:1.6 W/m2
warming by the non-cloud effects: of 14.1 W/m2:
The net result: 12.8+1.6 – 14.1= 0.3 W/m2. And the actually POSSIBLE change (from Todays Earth to Swamp Land) would be only a fraction of that 0.3 W/m2.
If it still went over your head – then do your damn homework: take a course in climatology, read a textbook. And if the course or textbook are too difficult for you, that’s a hint – so will be the answer of your expert. One could have a better chance to teach calculus to a toddler.
Congratulations to Prof. Mann on a battle well fought. We may hope that the forces of antiscience will think twice about defaming scientists in the future.
Congratulations, Dr. Mann!!
Indeed!
It’s interesting that shortly before the verdict the WSJ published an article criticizing Dr. Mann for being “litigious.” The underlying message was that it’s perfectly fine to slander respected scientists who disagree with the MAGA consensus … that they should simply grin and bear it when trolls compare them to child molesters and call their work fraudulent. Hardly surprising that the WSJ would publish something of this sort. Not long ago they shelled out $787.5 million of settlement dollars to compensate for their having participating in the slander campaign against Dominion voting machines. In the Fox/Murdoch perfect world nobody would have recourse against publishers of defamatory material.
This information could also fit in other sections here, but here is probably best as a curiosity.
The Bet:
“An annual average temperature anomaly value above the 1850-1899 baseline will be published in the Berkeley Earth Global Temperature series as 2.0C or higher on or before the 2037 value (published in 2038).”
Hausfather’s Argument:
The latest generation of climate models (CMIP6) suggests that anthropogenic warming will pass 2C warming relative to preindustrial levels between 2038 and 2072 in a current-policy-type scenario (SSP2-4.5). However, ENSO-driven natural variability results in +/- 0.2C annual temperatures compared to the long-term average, so it would be possible to see a single year above 2C even if the human contribution to warming will not exceed 2C for another decade or so. That said, I am still willing to take up this bet, in part because I’d win the wager under most individual CMIP6 model projections, and because I’m hopeful that the world will reduce emissions to a greater extent over the next few decades than under a SSP2-4.5 scenario.
https://longbets.org/883/
That is 14 years from now.
Copernicus 2024 January report:
https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-january-2024
January 2024 was the warmest January on record globally, with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 13.14°C, 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average for January and 0.12°C above the temperature of the previous warmest January, in 2020.
The global temperature anomaly for January 2024 was lower than those of the last six months of 2023, but higher than any before July 2023. The month was 1.66°C warmer than an estimate of the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.
The global mean temperature for the past twelve months (Feb 2023 – Jan 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.64°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.52°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average
In the media Schmidt says:
But the specifics of what happened in 2023 are a little mysterious.
– What should we expect for 2024? –
We don’t know! And that’s problematic.
https://www.rawstory.com/2023-s-record-heat-partly-driven-by-mystery-process-nasa-scientist/
re: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819084
A useful way to interpret the situation is that unnaturally limiting ET is compensated by an initial global temperature increase.
ET is the acronym for evapotranspiration, or the sum of water evaporation from the soil and transpiration through plants.
Due to a large proportion of the Earth surface comprised of the moisture unlimited ocean, the temperature increase caused by unnaturally-inhibiting ET sustains a higher global water vapor pressure, and a genuine globally averaged warming.
Without the oceans, the initial temperature increase by ET suppression could not be sustained.
Above ocean, the rate of moisture input is limited by the temperature dependent saturation, known as equilibrium evaporation.
The mechanism of ET-suppression is compensated by a temperature increase and the associated increase of equilibrium evaporation.
Practically, the global average change in LE could be unchanged after ET suppression. That is, simplify using an unchanged global average precipitation massvolume.
LE is the acronym for latent heat of vaporization times the sum of oceanic evaporation and ET.
Consider, however, precipitation is to be condensing out in less fractional area. This is a natural-consequence of a constant LE in warmer air. This suggests also a change to absorbed solar radiation and increasing hydrological extremes.
Benestad provided a framework to understand this using area based hydroclimatological indicators (“Two obvious global hydro-climatological indicators are the total mass of water falling on Earth’s surface each day P and the fraction of Earth’s surface area on which it falls Ap.”) https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/07/area-based-global-hydro-climatological-indicators/
There it is highlighted how precipitation intensity is increasing while the fractional area is decreasing. This reinforces the surprisingly stable LE while hydrological extremes increase.
Naturally, suppressing continental ET warms the situation. The opposite applies to cooling the situation.
Prior to massive human intervention, Earth was becoming increasingly more biodiverse, building up soils, and retaining increasingly more moisture on land. The accumulation resulting in more spongy watersheds with increasing duration of ET. Dr PinhsinHu showed how this promotes moist and cooler climates. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-818958
In the blink-of-an eye, however, the trend has been reversed by substantial watershed process disruption.
To understand this, and for analysis, it’s unreasonable to prescribe pre-conceived turbulent flux magnitude changes in advance. I recommend against that.
In fact, total LE may change very little after unleashing ET, with the associated change primarily to be observed in the magnitude of H, Ap, water vapor, and temperature.
H is the symbol for sensible heat flux.
It is perfectly reasonable to estimate at least a 10% reduction in continental ET since before preindustrial time.
This is a large change in heat budget, displayed by ocean region increase in evaporation and the required global warming involved in that.
In contemporary conceptualization of climates, this would be quantified as an increasing sensitivity to trace gas concentration. More specifically, in terms of the perceived feedback effect to tracegas concentration. In other words, the feedbacks would appear to become increasingly less-stabilizing with ET suppression. I have tried the place the issue within this preferred context for quite some time.
How much global cloud cover?
I know it is kind of a stupid question, but there seems to be some confusion, at least on my own account. There are publications typically arguing some 60 to 70% cloud cover based on satellite data. For instance King et al 2013..
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6422379
Next to naming an average cloudiness of 67%, in Fig.1 it shows large tropical areas with a 90 to 100% cloud coverage during the day in July 2006. I checked a couple of cities within these red zones, like Lagos, Nagpur (India), Manila – and they all have quite a healthy share of “sun shine hours” in July in general (3.2h, 3.7h, 4.3h respectively). That seems a bit inconsistent with a 90%+ cloud coverage, but it could have been just 2006, who knows..
If you look at a satellite (or astronauts-) image of Earth, you would not say 2/3s of if are covered by clouds. It looks more like maybe 1/3.
Then I checked some weather records from various German places reporting cloudiness in oktas. Indeed these were typically in the 5-6 okta range on average (out of 0-8 obviously). There will be a little bias though, as those oktas should be rounded up in theory. For instance, if the sky is clear but there is just a trace of a cloud, that will not be okta 0 but 1. Needless to say most okta 0 conditions are reported in the night, when such traces of clouds are easily overseen. Anyway, you can compare these results with global maps on cloudiness for that region, and it kind of adds up, though it is hard to tell for sure.
But then there is a much bigger problem. If let’s say the global cloud albedo effect was like 50W/m2 (and some etimates are lower) and 2/3s of Earth were covered by clouds, then this would equate to 50 / (2/3) = 75W/m2 of cloud albedo per cloud coverage, so to say. Relative to solar intensity of 342W/m2, the average cloud albedo would then be a mere 22%, That is completely implausible for two reasons. A) If cloud coverage was a 100%, global albedo would actually decrease(!!). B) Depending on cloud type, cloud albedo is usually named to range between 40 to 90%, with ice clouds at the low end. Either way, this can’t be.
There is one solution left that I can imagine. It seems the 67% is to be understood as “covered by some clouds”, partly just low optical thinkness cirrus, partly just scattered clouds. That would allow us to combine those opposing dimensions. Then yes, effectively clouds cover just 1/3 or less of the globe, but 2/3s would be covered by “some clouds”.
But even if this pragmatic approach was true, we would still have a problem. The estimate of the atmospheric window, as I just learned, is simply based on reducing the clear sky atmospheric window by about 2/3s, as if a 67% global cloud cover was to be understood as being deeply opaque.
Ja, things don’t add up. Any ideas?
[Response: This is a much more subtle question than most people realise. What is a cloud? Condensate (ice or liquid), right? But it turns out that cloud is ubiquitous – there is always some condensate in the column, but different sensors have different thresholds for detecting it. Thus it’s been said that cloud cover is actually 100%, you just don’t notice it. For a sensor that is very sensitive to cloud (i.e. can detect very low cloud optical depths), you will necessarily have a greater cloud fraction. For less sensitive sensors (like our eyes), you’ll have less. This has been a problem with comparing models to satellite products since the first ISCCP products, and the solution is tie all cloud comparisons to specific sensors (like CloudSat/CALIPSO). There isn’t one definitive global cloud fraction, but rather a GCF|sensor that will vary across sensors. – gavin]
It was established by studies in 2010 and 2020 (I don’t have the citations offhand, but I can probably find them) that satellite estimates of cloud cover suffer from finite resolution bias. The creation of a new MISR product from MODIS and MISR series, correcting for this bias, reduced the mean global cloud cover from 65% to 47%, which is a huge change (and requires that we calculate cloud albedo differently to maintain the observed overall figure). Cloud cover is one of the least well determined facets of planetary climate. I have an appendix dealing with this in an article I’m about to have published in Planetary and Space Science.
In addition to Gavin’s reply which probably cover most of the story. i.e a large fraction of the sunshine can still penetrate thin clouds, the article you cite also show that the the clouds are thicker and more widespread towards the pole, so calculating cloud albedo based on a global average is a poor approximation. Also the high cloud fraction over Arctic and Antarctica with high albedo from ice and snow only add a small increment to the totoal albedo.
Well, thanks, I can only agree. I also love the presentation by Charles Long on the subject of increasing subvisual cirrus clouds and what he (almost) dared to say.. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoGZrwzWHJI&t=1815s
Yet we are still left the challenge of quantifying clouds, and a challenge it seems to be sometimes. I mean what has led climate scientists to believe clouds were cooling, when their forcing SFA is actually exceeding their albedo effect? Overdetermination and causation are tricky issues..
Anyway, Trenberth 2011 endorsed King, Shine 2011 with the claim of an atmospheric window of only 22W/m2. There, with regard to KT97:
“The estimate was based on their calculation of the clear-sky OLR in the 8–12-mm wavelength region of 99 W m-2 and an assumption that no such radiation can directly exit the atmosphere from the surface when clouds are present. Taking the observed global-mean cloudiness to be 62%, their value of 40 W m-2 follows from rounding 99 x (1 – 0.62)”
and..
“The effect of clouds is to reduce the STI from its clear-sky value of 66 W m-2 by two-thirds to a value of about 22 W m-2”
In both instances the assumption is 62%, 66% (whatever) cloud cover were totally opaque to surface radiation. It is a very simplistic understanding opposed to the complex reality. And because of it, I think they hugely underestimate the atmospheric window.
Sorry, I meant to say Costa, Shine 2011
GISTEMP has published their January numbers with a global anomaly of +1.21ºC, down on the last four months of 2023 but still the warmest January on record, ahead of second-warmest Jan 2016 (+1.18ºC) and third-warmest Jan 2020 (+1.17ºC), but not by much. The rest of the top-ten Jan anomalies run 2017 (+1.03ºC), 2019 (+0.94ºC), 2022, 2015, 2023, 2018 & 2021 (+0.81ºC).
The Top-20 of all-month GISTEMP anomalies run:-
1st … 9/2023 … +1.47ºC
2nd … 11/2023 … +1.42ºC
3rd … 2/2016 … +1.37ºC
4th … 3/2016 … +1.36ºC
5th … 12/2023 … +1.35ºC
6th … 10/2023 … +1.33ºC
7th … 2/2020 … +1.24ºC
8th … 1/2024 … +1.21ºC
9th … 3/2023 … +1.20ºC
10th … 8/2023 … +1.19ºC
11th … 7/2023 … +1.18ºC
12th … 1/2016 … +1.18ºC
13th … 12/2015 … +1.17ºC
14th … 3/2019 … +1.17ºC
15th … 3/2020 … +1.17ºC
16th … 1/2020 … +1.17ºC
17th … 3/2017 … +1.16ºC
18th … 2/2017 … +1.14ºC
19th … 4/2020 … +1.13ºC
20th … 4/2016 … +1.10ºC
Front page headline on the New York Times today:
Ross Gelbspan, Who Exposed Roots of Climate Change Deniers, Dies at 84
I’d been vaguely aware of this guy’s name, but nothing else about him. That might be because he was active early in the political struggle against denial. I heard about anthropogenic global warming when everyone else did, in 1988, while working as a contractor for NASA. I never had any doubt that Hansen’s claim was true, since it’s just a working out of basic physics. “The Heat is On” was published in 1995, when I wasn’t yet aware of the organized disinformation campaign of denialism already being funded by fossil carbon producers and investors. That was the Usenet period, before the blogosphere emerged. I overlooked the book. “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then” (R. Seger).
I’m pleased to say that the NYTimes has largely abandoned the journalistic false balance Gelbspan called out in the early aughts;
In a second book, “Boiling Point” (2004), Mr. Gelbspan was tough on his own profession, accusing reporters of laziness in falling for the “manufactured denial” of the fossil fuel industry.
Many journalists, he said, were undermined by their ethic of even-handedness, which added false balance to stories that reflexively included climate skeptics.
“For many years, the press accorded the same weight to the ‘skeptics’ as it did to mainstream scientists,” he wrote. “The issue of balance is not relevant when the focus of a story is factual. In this case, what is known about the climate comes from the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history.”
The guy should be more famous, IMHO!
Gelbspan was definitely a strong voice early on. The false-equivalency and even-handedness of the media has been known for a long time. The Nobel economist Krugman highlighted this with his famous passage he wrote in the NYT in 2000:
That’s a great point for media when it’s reporting longstanding consensus science, but it can also swing the other way when considering cutting-edge research. When the consensus is not established yet there are scientists wielding a heavy hand to dismiss any potential theories — because of the fear of flat-Earth crackpots and denialists entering the discussion — it does not help in advancing climate research. It becomes rare for any interesting ideas to surface in that kind of stifling environment.
From my experience, this does not happen in other scientific research disciplines. No one is afraid of crackpots in, say, solid-state physics research because the proof is always in the pudding. So last year, when the news of a novel high-temperature superconductor was making the rounds, scientists welcomed the potential discovery … and then promptly did the experiments to debunk the findings over the span of a few weeks. So it’s not in the news any longer.
That’s not the atmosphere in climate science research, as everyone is on guard for bizarre claims — thus the saying “poisoning the atmosphere for useful discussion”. Once mentioned, the claims take on a life that can extend for years because of the toxic politics involved.
The key may be in AI and machine learning in climate science. When unbiased and non-political AI algorithms are involved in a new discovery, the consensus may not treat it with the same suspicion. Time will tell.
Gelbspan’s historic exposure of manufactured denial was by the methods of investigative journalism, and that tradition persists into the 2020s. Unfortunately, so does the political impact of the climate-change denial industry. It’s now 35 years after Hansen’s announcement to Congress, and the best collective action to cap global warming the US has managed to enact so far is the “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022: non-trivial and better than nothing, but inadequate on its own, and its climate-policy provisions may not survive the next round of elections.
With annual profits to oil and gas corporations exceeding $4 trillion dollars in 2022, it’s not hard to imagine the magnitude of the power accruing to the individuals, families and corporations who wish to hold off decarbonization. As RC regulars know, this isn’t a conspiracy theory, because it’s effectively legal in the US for private interests to deceive the public about climate science and climate-change mitigation policy; and since the parties to the campaign aren’t afraid of legal consequences, much of its inner workings are matters of public record, accessible to academic scholarship as well as investigative journalism. Concealment has been chiefly by misdirection. But just how well-documented are the key elements of the denialist propaganda campaign? Sociologist Robert Brulle is known for 20 years of peer reviewed research on, the connection between fossil-carbon wealth and conservative politics. In a recent book chapter, Brulle proposed an analytic framework for scholarly investigation of the influence of professionally crafted disinformation on public policy. He concludes the chapter with the following:
I, for one, would love to see more coverage of these findings in the mainstream meejuh!
Journalists working in the media as reporters are taught to report what is said. So it can work both ways. Recently there was a statement made in the article https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Aramco-6-Million-Bpd-of-Global-Oil-Production-Is-Being-Lost-Every-Year.html, where the Saudi Aramco CFO Al-Murshed was reported to say at a meeting:
The reporter quoted it, so I went to watch the video and verified that he indeed said it. Logically, if the world discovered a brand-new Saudi Arabia every two years, that would much more than compensate for any depletion. That would include a massive Ghawar oil reservoir every 2 years — imagine that. These analogies have to be thought out carefully. He probably meant something else, maybe 6 million/day loss per year means the world needs the annual production of a SA every 2 years to make up the loss. That’s completely different. Yet, the article is frightening in its implications in that the Saudi Aramco CFO is essentially warning of the ending of SA as an oil supplier. The reporter exaggerated the concern by reporting exactly what was stated.
Remember that reporters just report what is being said. So when Gavin Schmidt says a climate behavior is a “mystery”, it gets reported, as in https://www.rawstory.com/2023-s-record-heat-partly-driven-by-mystery-process-nasa-scientist/. They don’t typically try to interpret the [sensible | crazy | ambiguous] statements made. That’s up to the reader, or some pundit in an editorial to explain, or someone in a blog comments section.
Clearly, no, obviously the deniers in corporate think tank and WUWT land are much smarter and far more effective public communicators.
NK: the deniers in corporate think tank and WUWT land are much smarter and far more effective public communicators.
BPL: Then why is acceptance that the globe is warming and we’re doing it increasing?
Barton Paul Levenson … ask robert brulle, or Mal Adapted
21 Feb 2024 at 1:25 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819446
“The job of journalism is not stenography. It is getting the full story and the meaning of that story,” Bob Woodward
__________
Some outlets are better than others on that point, but I’d say there are a number of structural reasons for sketchy reporting, click bait and eyeballs to advertisers for instance, and also time constraints can lead to hitting just the highlights. Regarding climate:
I think it’s true that reporting has all too often significantly lagged events, like how long it has taken mainstream outlets to take seriously the threat of [you know who and what]. The culture and conventional wisdom of the DC bubble has particularly been a part of the problem. That and IMO, there has been a blissful obliviousness to how the rightward shift of the Overton Window might be distorting perceptions of balance.
Most of you won’t need this, but it’s a good looking collection so sharing here, particularly for those seeking raw data. I can’t evaluate its usefulness, but from my POV it’s just a great single source for graphics.
Found at Tamino’s, by Hernando Cortina.
https://cortinah.github.io/hockeystick/
Interesting. I’ve used the “climate” package on CRAN (also at https://github.com/bczernecki/climate). If you’ve used both how do they compare?
Hear Dr. Mann on the latest Science Friday.
Climate Scientist Michael Mann Wins Defamation Case
https://www.sciencefriday.com/episodes/february-16-2024/
That is a very good thoughtful interview. The opening segment is quite fun (Odysseus mission, batteries, and some other stuff) but the next one with the Mann interview provides a deeper dive and moderate toned discussion of research and consequences. I have been so upset to see my friends and colleagues fight with each other when Mann has worked so hard on the issues and has such a good deep understanding of all the issues and putting climate science and other scientific work in context.
The hate and/or absolute condemnation of him as a villain turns my stomach: it is so wrong. I hear it form people I like a lot, and sometimes they even attack me for regarding him as a friend to all people who care about our hospitable planet.
The old Japanese proverb: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” comes to mind here.
There’s a bit of shoddy peer-review here with respect to human-caused climate change on an article by a couple of darlings of the climate change denialsphere, Clifford Mass and John Christy.
“The Pacific Northwest Heat Wave of 25–30 June 2021: Synoptic/Mesoscale Conditions and Climate Perspective
Clifford Mass, David Ovens, John Christy, and Robert Conrick
Abstract
An unprecedented heat wave occurred over the Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada on 25–30 June 2021, resulting in all-time temperature records that greatly exceeded previous record maximum temperatures. The impacts were substantial, including several hundred deaths, thousands of hospitalizations, a major wildfire in Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, and severe damage to regional vegetation. Several factors came together to produce this extreme event: a record-breaking midtropospheric ridge over British Columbia in the optimal location, record-breaking midtropospheric temperatures, strong subsidence in the lower atmosphere, low-level easterly flow that produced downslope warming on regional terrain and the removal of cooler marine air, an approaching low-level trough that enhanced downslope flow, the occurrence at a time of maximum insolation, and drier-than-normal soil moisture. It is shown that all-time-record temperatures have not become more frequent and that annual high temperatures only increased at the rate of baseline global warming. Although anthropogenic warming may have contributed as much as 1°C to the event, there is little evidence of further amplification from increasing greenhouse gases. Weather forecasts were excellent for this event, with highly accurate predictions of the extreme temperatures.”
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/39/2/WAF-D-23-0154.1.xml
They seem to completely gloss over the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study that has stated that the heat wave as it happened would be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. The authors suggested that only 1 Celsius degree of extra warmth can be explained by human-caused climate change, yet Lytton, BC, broke the Canadian national maximum daily temperature record by 5 Celsius degrees, a record established over 80 years earlier. The WWA study stated that double the warmth than Mass et al suggest was added to the system, yet Mass et al seemingly discarded these robust findings.
While the paper was likely finalized before the summer of 2023, that summer also produced all-time records, including temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius in the central Mackenzie Valley of Northwest Territories, thereby refuting their claim that no trend in record-setting has been observed. This increasing amplitude of the jet stream, a jet stream that reached as far north as Tuktoyaktuk and Paulatuk, NWT, is a clear indication of how warming has immeasurably altered the circulation system.
Their focus really on Washington and Oregon also seems to be a cherry-picking, in that they did not seem to pay much attention to BC or other Canadian regions, which saw even greater record-breaking in 2021 than did WA and OR.
Do you, especially the moderators, have any comment on this paper?
Thanks.
[Response: The issue is one of framing, and this is a long-standing debate. We’ve discussed this in general terms many times, for instance, “Extreme Metrics” and in other places. Basically, if you are interested in whether climate change is affecting impacts, you should look at probabilities of exceeding some threshold (which is clearly increasing in cases like this). Worrying only about the total magnitude of an event (like in this paper) is a bit arbitrary since the baseline for what you are trying to judge the change by is a bit arbitrary and neglects the highly nonlinear impact of increasing intensity. – gavin]
Referred Abstract included:
Tamino confirms that:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2024/02/16/adjusted-global-temperature-data/
Prof Eliot Jacobson tweeted on Feb 21:
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1759961728199045121
I’d suggest this is another graph that suggests global warming is accelerating.
Gavin…as well, focussing only on extreme values (whether monthly, annually, all-time or of a single heat wave) by definition means that the vast majority of the data is thrown away–all data but a single value in the all-time high case. This vastly inflates the error variance as the N of the sampling distribution is so small compared to examining all the data and is surely why statistically literate propagandists use extreme values routinely.
This, of course, is why so many deniers focus on extreme values. Statistically, they lack power to identify true differences..
Examining a number of values over some cutoff, as you suggest, is a far more powerful method and is used by actuaries routinely as they are stuck with examining extreme values as their primary data of interest since that is the nature of the insurance beast.
j: focussing only on extreme values (whether monthly, annually, all-time or of a single heat wave) by definition means that the vast majority of the data is thrown away–all data but a single value in the all-time high case. This vastly inflates the error variance as the N of the sampling distribution is so small compared to examining all the data and is surely why statistically literate propagandists use extreme values routinely.
BPL: Good point; I hadn’t thought about that. I do notice that deniers very often don’t get the whole concept of sample size.
Actuaries deal with extreme value analysis all the time and have worked out many methods. ANY actuary who analyzed future risk by looking at single values/decade or century–as our resident denial crowd consistently and often does here (vic’s “it was hot for a couple of days in 1930” comes to mind)–would be fired on the spot and likely sued as well if the analysis was done by a consultant rather than an employee.
Added: Single values–even single record extreme values–are the PRODUCT of the generating processes. The risk comes from the expected behavior inherent in the generating processes themselves.
Basically our resident deniers basically get it bass ackwards.
Thanks, Gavin, for the great response! I agree completely.
Gentlemen (an elastic term), language please. No doubt the battledore and shuttlecock exchange of insults gives pleasure to some, As I understand it, the purpose of RealClimate is to present science as she should be practiced, with evidence, in a format accessible to a range of interested people, with rebuttals to some of the more egregioius and publicized fake skeptic arguments. Sadly, these latter are gaining ground in the world of policy, as the weather and nature, no respecter of persons, reflects reality rather than party. It should be obvious by now that an ever growing accumulation of wealth and power is no excuse for ignorance when the future of humanity and our (sometimes) brilliant history are at risk.
For all the techniques of denial, Schopenhauer provided a useful compendium of techniques: The Art of Being Right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
Karl Rove and the US Republican party (thanks Gingrich) refined this down, but the tactics have not changed. Do not be a gullible fool, please.
Maybe we could have a special place for silly and/or stupid contrarian argumentation.
Unforced Shenanigans
Re Paul Pukite & Tomáš Kalisz
As for the science being immature because you can’t just calculate the response from the forcing with a textbook formula… well, for GMST, you can, actually, it just lacks precision as of yet. I think it’s worth noting that understanding can advance ahead of prediction capability. Climate science is ultimately built on physics, (particularly mechanics (F=ma), thermodynamics, optics, some quantum mechanics in the microphysics), and some chemistry and biogeochemistry, astrophysics and celestial mechanics and maybe a few other things… A lot we already know is put into formulas and you can get the answers – it just takes some time and powerful computers and approximations have to be made given limited resources, etc.
Is the science settled? – well it depends on what part and to what precision or accuracy, and see also https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/ . We know, or at least have just cause to expect** eg. doubling CO2 will cause significant global warming and more than just temperature will change. There are details and levels of precision to be worked out.
**-there is a point to make here: it’s not just a matter of advancing the science – I mean, there’s the practical matter that decisions need to be made in a timely manner, and this should be based on what we know and what we can reasonably expect.
There is some actionable level of intelligence, AFAIK/IMO, which has been well-exceeded, to justify a tax on CO2 emissions, etc. (CH4), or equivalent policies (simply mandating reductions in coal power plants, etc. would also send a price signal) and public support for clean energy infrastructure deployment, and efficiency. (Few would argue we should ignore economics). Note that innovation continues (solar cells, batteries and other storage, wind, nuclear (thorium-based fuel cycle, molten salt, fusion of course)… even as already developed tech is being deployed (few would argue that we should stop innovating). It’s not like launching space probes before knowing F= GMm/r^2 + relativistic corrections, etc. It’s like launching space probes without knowing … um… some level of detail … with a really, really, really large target area (reducing emissions and eventually going net negative is not exactly a matter of surgical precision). I mean sure, you might run into a small asteroid that hasn’t been identified yet, I suppose…
Patrick, a very coherent comment.
PO27:
The immaturity of climate science isn’t directed at the GHG models as much as directed at the fluid dynamics. The formulas for predicting temperature rise with elevated CO2 won’t be wildly wrong. Same can’t be said for the formulas that will ultimately describe ENSO behaviors. These range from using the full primitive equations of Navier-Stokes to using simplified recharge oscillator models such as Kane and Zebiac. These are miles apart and are not even close to what one can do with (say) Kirchoff’s formulas for modeling an electrical circuit, which is very mature by comparison. Actually, it’s worse than that, and the topology of the ENSO phenomena isn’t yet clearly understood. Some think it may be in a reduced dimension state because of the equator symmetry, similar to a topological insulator, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26400932.pdf
So the predicament is in asserting that CO2 will have any predictable impact on ENSO. If it was analogized to an electrical circuit, the CO2 would be a parameter value and the ENSO response could be predicted with a change in that value. But we don’t even know what the correct ENSO formulation is to begin with, so it becomes a moot point. That’s what I was saying in comment-819355 above.
Paul Pukite Feb 23: “ So the predicament is in asserting that CO2 will have any predictable impact on ENSO […] But we don’t even know what the correct ENSO formulation is to begin with, so it becomes a moot point ”
So … a moot point precluding the assertions nobody has made about a subject of no practical importance^*? ;-)
^* (ENSO is an oscillation around the mean – hence no part of global change, and is natural, i.e. not affected in any direct way by humans)
No, it’s like arguing about whether the tone of David Gilmour’s guitar is better depending on whether the finish is black, white, or red. A moot point means it is arguable — in that case music geeks will have subjective opinions on every last detail — but it doesn’t mean it has any validity. Replace guitar with ENSO, and color with CO2, and it’s almost certain that CO2 has no bearing on ENSO, it’s just a cosmetic effect on a machine that produces waves.
Paul Pukite: Feb. 28: “A moot point means it is arguable, in that case music geeks will have subjective opinions on every last detail — but it doesn’t mean it has any validity. ”
Why are you explaining this to me? I didn’t question your words, I used your own words against you:
Piotr: Feb. 27 “ So … a moot point precluding the assertions nobody has made about a subject of no practical importance^*? ;-)
I know that the ability to pick up irony is not your strength, so let me explain it “straight“:
I used your words to point that YOU _are _ LIKE your David Gilmour geeks, discussing which finish of his guitars was the best, and bitterly complaining that the world does not care about their interests.
In other words, word “moot ” is a good description of the irrelevance of your favourite subject, ENSO, to the climate change, which unlike ENSO, is crucially important to the future of humanity, and about which, unlike ENSO, scientists can offer the society practical, actionable, information.
See also my previous footnote:
P, Feb. 27: ” ^* (ENSO is an oscillation around the mean – hence no part of global change, and is natural, i.e. not affected in any direct way by humans)”.
You should check out Newfoundland’s memorial uni ca Paul … they do oceans and biology :)
Piotr said:
I like the winking audacity of this latest post on the NOAA Research web site:
“50 Years of Getting ENSO Predictions *Mostly* Correct”
https://research.noaa.gov/2024/02/27/50-years-of-getting-enso-predictions-mostly-correct/
Apparently what *Mostly* Correct means is that given the data up to the current year that they can mostly predict for the rest of the calendar year. This includes information on a currently forming El Nino or La Nina. So it’s essentially a dead-reckoning estimate for the season. Nothing said in the article about skill in any long-range predictions — which is essentially none.
I would suggest a better title would be “50 Years of ENSO research — we know it when we see it”.
That said, it’s not surprising that climate scientists really do care about sudden climate variability, as this NY Times headline screams out:
“Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/climate/scientists-are-freaking-out-about-ocean-temperatures.html
First it was a mystery, and now they are freaking out?
re https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819479
Actually, on the space-probe analogy – it may apply to some extent in the technological and economic/sociological/etc. aspects of transitional to clean energy and other changes we may make to halt and reverse global warming and manage other environmental concerns. But it also applies, via climate science, to the burning of fossil fuels and other climate-changing activities. Uncertainties in how the climate will respond to our actions are a contributing reason to stop emitting CO2, etc. – to stay ‘closer to home’ in the phase space of climate.
“ because I do not believe that just rectifying the supposed “main cause” of a change in a complex system is a guarantee of its return to its initial state.” – Well, you are correct because of hysteresis. As I understand it, if we lose too much ice sheet mass, it will require an overcorrection in GMST* or GMSAT (Global Mean Sandwich – I mean Surface – (air) Temperature) to restore them, unless some other action is taken. It could be even more difficult to reverse species extinctions. Ecological succession also takes time. (Scientists know these things.)
*-Did demand for paninis go bananas in 2023 or what?!
If human alterations to hydrology (and/or directly to ecosystems eg. wetland drainage, deforestation, irrigation, aquifer depletion, dams) has also contributed to climate change – besides effects on CO2, CH4, N2O (of course it has, but how much, and which way?), why should that stop us from managing our CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs emissions? (and also, remember ocean acidification). Surely a 3-legged table l is better than 2-legged. The 4th leg may be more difficult to fix due to the need to eat. Now also consider the timings of deforestation, wetland drainage, and rise in irrigation in various places, verses the timing of climate changes, and CO2 etc. emissions. How were things, climatogically speaking, in the 1970s, 80s, even 90s?. Note that changes in H2O cycling and distribution should tend to equilibrate to forcings rather quickly (aside from OHC (ocean heat content) + maybe soil+vegetation+…+ice sheet etc. feedbacks?).
You do mention some examples of bad or at least questionable policies, and yes, lobbying from special interests for U.S. corn ethanol is not a good climate solution (The EROEI sucks) – however there may be other purposes (reducing reliance on foreign oil?) – but anyway, I won’t argue that governments are always making good decisions – see TX and FL, also I lean towards agreeing with Sabine Hossenfelder that it was not a good idea for Germany to try to get off nuclear power several? years ago (“Good News: Small Nuclear Thorium Reactors are Coming to Europe” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf4XahwtJUk ). But that is not an argument to not generally support solar, wind, nuclear, etc., within reason (don’t put turbines in wildlife refuges, etc.). And yes, we should have good policies about mining and land-use, etc. (part of the problem is companies will pursue the cheapest option if they can. We don’t necessarily need to pollute as much as we do to get what we want – Li could be extracted from seawater; Al ore is only a little enriched relative to the average rock – yes it would be more expensive, but some purposes might easily justify the expense if needed). Biofuels based on certain types of crops in certain places, or algae, or waste (sometimes food goes to waste due to disease concerns) (sewage gas), may make more sense.
PS I took your comment about comparing CO2 to Pu as a caution that such a comparison risks feeding into denialist talking points eg. the strawman that ‘CO2 is a carcinogen’ (I remember seeing on TV rep. (OH) John Boehner (sp?) asserting that CO2 is not a carcinogen, as if that had anything to do with the matter.) But I can see why others jumped on you, given some other things you’ve said.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819511
Dear Patrick,
Thank you for your detailed comments.
I agree that the uncertainty in the climate response to our fossil fuel consumption is a sufficient ground for concerns and for reasonable preventive measures, ideally such that do not bring a further benefit, e.g. economical, or at least do not bring another damage. More details regarding this approach in my reply of today to Nigel.
As regards the comparison of carbon dioxide with Pu, I thought it was unfortunate because people like me tend to see usage of such shortcuts (without putting the appropriate context of the “permanent” geological storage, as explained by Piotr) as an attempt to manipulate.
I learned, however, from teh following discussion that on the other hand, many people, like e.g. Geoff Miell, see such argument as fully justified. I have understood that they feel really endangered by the climate change and perceive it as directly and unequivocally linked to fossil fuel consumption.
I think that the difference between me and Geoff Miell is in that he evaluated the available information the way that the link between anthropogenic non condensing greenhouse gases and climate change is straightforward and undoubted, whereas I still take it as a serious risk with an unknown likelihood.
In his view, there is no risk of failure if we undertake the proposed mitigation actions, whereas I am still afraid that such risk does exist and may not be negligible.
Greetings
Tomáš
a correction to my post of 20240225, 7:26 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819538
The first sentence of the second paragraph in this post had to read
“I agree that the uncertainty in the climate response to our fossil fuel consumption is a sufficient ground for concerns and for reasonable preventive measures, ideally such that bring a further benefit, e.g. economical, or at least do not bring a colateral damage.”
I apologize for the confusion.
“ We don’t necessarily need to pollute as much as we do to get what we want – Li could be extracted from seawater; Al ore is only a little enriched relative to the average rock – yes it would be more expensive, but some purposes might easily justify the expense if needed).”
– clarification: other things being =, production from lower grade ore would of course tend to use more energy, effort, pollute and disturb more, and the expense requires some trade off – we get less of something (depending on slope of PPC (production possibilities curve) … eg. what fraction of Li-battery cost is Li?)… . But other things are not always =.
I took Paul’s “immature” remark to be rather meaningless when it comes to the classification of disciplines, aside from being a pejorative reflection of their socially assumed ranking. Since mathematics and physics are at the top of that hierarchy, he can reap the status of belonging to a “mature” discipline.
I suggest that any science concerned with the actual environment as it exists, (e.g. meteorology, geology, ecology) will remain messy and “immature.” All of these contain important interactions on a large range of spatial and temporal scales that are not all conducive to controlled studies in the lab. Therefore, the are never “settled” or “proven” in the mathematical sense.
Real life is messy.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819527
Hallo John,
Thank you for this remark.
I think no discipline has a such “maturity” privilege when it comes to its frontiers (that, as you said, contain important interactions on large scales etc.). Certainly it applies to physics which remains messy and speculative in fields like cosmology, quantum gravity and likely in many others.
Paul Pukite might perhaps better comment on predictive power of current theory in fluid mechanics, which is also not perfect, I think.
Real life and our understanding thereto are messy.
Greetings
Tomáš
Some things in geophysics and geophysical fluid dynamics are not that messy and quite mature, even though they may appear quite challenging to the uninitiated. I picked on ENSO prediction as being “immature” because it is — no one can predict the dates of the next several future El Ninos with any certainty. Whereas tidal prediction (a 1st-order model of fluid dynamics) is quite “mature” — one can easily predict the timing of the next several hundred high & low tides in some region with sufficient accuracy for practical applications.
In geophysics, earthquake prediction with any long lead time is also “immature”. Nobody knows when the next big one will occur. That’s not a value judgment, just the way it is, as the stress tipping point to a fault release can’t be anticipated. On the other hand, the forces applied by the sun and moon to the rotating earth can be characterized and calibrated finely enough that small deviations of the earth’s rotation rate can be predicted years in advance. You can try it yourself — take the measurements from 1960 to 1980 and one can extrapolate the finely varying rate up to the current date. That’s a pretty mature analysis, only the leap second that will occasionally need to be added to clocks is the “messy” complication.
Yet, IMO I think there is hope that the ENSO analysis will mature in the coming years. As a related example, I am convinced that the cycles of AMO — both long term and the seemingly erratic inter-annual cycles are likely deterministic. It is only slightly messy to apply a known forcing to an ocean dynamics model and reproduce a realistic emulation of the AMO time-series. I have done it, documented it, and wait for others — most likely a machine-learning experiment — to report similar results. Never bet against AI as it will just get better and better.
Re John Pollack https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819527 “I suggest that any science concerned with the actual environment as it exists, (e.g. meteorology, geology, ecology) will remain messy ”… “Real life is messy.” – great point, I tend to agree. And…
Re Paul Pukite https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819497 Okay;
…(although in case it helps anyone, here’s something from my originally planned re Paul Pukite https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819326 ):
_______________
Natural vs Forced responses – This language makes me think of systems with natural frequencies eg.: masses connected with springs, LCR circuits – which, if underdamped, will exhibit oscillations at their natural frequencies which (if damped at all) decay over time unless excited again by some perturbation. Such systems will also oscillate at the frequency of a forcing. I believe there will be a transient response (decaying toward sustained response) to a change in forcing if I remember correctly.
…
The climate system obviously has transient responses to changes in forcing over time (generally, the decay of disequilibrium, toward a new equilibrium state – for the most basic conceptual model, the e-folding time scale should be equal to equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) * effective heat capacity (Ceff). (for ECS > Planck response sensitivity, the ‘life’ of the energy imbalance EI (disequilibrium) is prolonged via net positive feedback (setting aside Planck response).) This assumes all feedbacks are essentially instantaneous and Ceff is constant; both are actually time-scale dependent.
(slope of exp(-r*t) is -r at t=0, so a linear extrapolation from time 0 reaches equilibrium at the time 1/r. Initial slope for a forcing ΔF (change in forcing from what was maintaining the climate in equilibrium) which is turned on and then held constant) is that forcing if response is measured as net heat gain (or enthalpy), and the equilibrium response per unit forcing is ECS (defined by GMS(A)T) or ECS*Ceff (heat uptake to reach equilibrium given a constant effective heat capacity Ceff; note ΔF and Ceff may be given as averages per unit area); So the time period to equil. in the linear extrap. is ECS*Ceff*ΔF/ΔF = 1/r).)
This is analogous to a damper on a spring.
_____________
Regarding fluid mechanics, though, I would not describe the understanding as immature – see John Pollack @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819527 ; There are various conservation laws, including some I haven’t yet learned (too busy with other stuff) but eg. I’ve gotten the sense that there is one for ‘wave activity’ (ie. with PV anomalies(?), where an opposite sign would have to be applied across a gradient reversal, presumably).
Perhaps you are looking for parameterizations for large-scale emergent phenomena. Some emergent phenomena behave very predictably and precisely, simply, eg. surface tension, thermal expansion. Could we expect the same of the occurrence of blocking patterns? I have doubts.
Re you vs Piotr https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819590 A change in climate generally could result in a change in modes of internal variability.
——————
Speaking of innovations:
Ziroth “Why Solid Carbon is the Future of Energy Storage” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwDly9pjSJg
Tetracene PV: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/physicists-develop-new-solar-cell-design-for-better-efficiency/ar-BB1iBMPf?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=2bf1efc7a4584282ae9d00865c58c551&ei=53
That’s the problem with responses such as from PO27 , as they are closed in their world view. My career has covered every SciTech discipline apart from biology, and they all share in common the separation of forced and natural response. It may not always be called a natural response, as for example, in physics it’s often referred to a Green’s function (the response to a delta impulse, named in honor of George Green, a largely self-taught mathematician and physicist). It started in electricity and magnetism and then expanded to various fields, including quantum mechanics, acoustics, and fluid dynamics, among others. A Green’s function formulation is intended for linear systems, but that doesn’t mean something equivalent doesn’t exist. Again, this is one of the big failings of many mathematical climate models that get published — so often the models are solved for their effective natural response, with all these pretty double-lobed limit cycle diagrams — yet no acknowledgement is made as to what happens when a cyclic forcing is applied. In reality, that is the only response that matters.
Correction/clarification: “There are various conservation laws, including some I haven’t yet learned (too busy with other stuff) but eg. I’ve gotten the sense that there is one for ‘wave activity’ (ie. with PV anomalies(?), where an opposite sign would have to be applied across a gradient reversal, presumably). ” – I was trying to convey a sense of the level of sophistication that (I believed/maybe?) has been achieved; however, my own knowledge is not sophisticated enough to do so. I think there’s something about flow symmetry … anyway, … Obviously I cannot know of conservation laws that I haven’t learned at all. Probably should have held back on this point.
I was not trying to change the subject with blocking patterns vs. ENSO; I was thinking they are both subject to chaotic behavior.
Just found a Tweet from Gavin Schmidt about a science fiction short story he wrote and thought others might be interested too. imho it’s a fine bit of writing, and his choice of a female narrator works as well (some men can do it, others can’t). Since I saw independent reporting that Vice is shutting down, thought others might like to see it in case it disappears:
Under the Sun: One of the world’s leading climate scientists has written a work of fiction about his latest blockbuster paper—on the possibility that intelligent life may have preceded humans on Earth.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kj4y8/gavin-schmidt-fiction-under-the-sun
also referenced in article, link:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/silurian-hypothesis-would-it-be-possible-to-detect-an-industrial-civilization-in-the-geological-record/77818514AA6907750B8F4339F7C70EC6
Does anybody know if the climateprediction.net project is still going? I just installed the BOINC client on a new computer, and it’s not receiving any work units. The last news item on the site was posted a year ago, and even though the servers are reported to be up, the “Tasks ready to send” metric is 0. So it seems like the project has been abandoned.
I also ran it since 2011, great project . My computer stopped receiving tasks about a year ago. I keep the project in my BOINC manager, just in case my contribution will be needed in the future.
The message boards are active, so you might find a better answer on the status of the project there.
I did not find any other climate project available on BOINC, so I am running a medicine project.
Climate Prediction is still ongoing. Not quite as active as years past but there are still tasks that pop up.
UPDATE: I asked this question on the CPDN message board – where I should have gone first, d’oh – and got this reply:
I wasn’t getting any work units for along time but lately out of the blue they’ve started arriving again.
Correct, I just checked and I’ve been running for 5 days a wah2 task, but did not notice, as the task filter was on the World Community Grid project tasks. Your comment prompted me to check, thank you.
@Jim Galasyn you might also be getting tasks soon.
Tomas Kalisz @ 25 feb 11.31 and 26 feb 11.39
“My ten-month effort on this website was motivated mostly by the desire to find out if anybody knows how the present climate would have looked like if we had the same record of fossil fuel consumption as we have, combined with another level of water cycle interference (deforestation, soil degradation, etc.) in the past.I do not have a feeling that anybody is able to reply this question, although it is in my opinion of an utmost importance. If we knew the reply, we could also know better if policies proposed for climate change mitigation are reasonable or not .”
I dont know of anyone that has quantified the total human interference in the water cycle going back to the pre industrial age. But neither is anyone suggesting we get back to the pre-industrial climate. Only that we keep warming under 1.5 degrees. To that end the climate organisations like the IPCC and NASA have tabulated the warming contributions of co2, and water cycle effects of deforestation, etc,etc and have concluded CO2 is the big one. . I think if you dig into the IPCC reports you would find details on their methodology behind their findings. On that basis its logical that appropriately addressing each factor would at least keep warming under 1.5 degrees.
“Providing reliable technology for large scale electricity storage that would have been so cheap that no reserve electricity sources had to be built and maintained is an example of this approach, because it could make the economy conversion towards renewable energy sources economically attractive per se, and could produce the desired climate stabilization as an additional benefit,….”
This psychological strategy sounds ok. However I recall checking out the costs of liquid sodium storage for electrofuels and it was about half that of other options so its cheaper but not a breakthrough technology on costs. However I get your point. I use a similar psychological strategy of pointing out that fossil fuels are very finite and we will run out and sooner than people think, so we have no realistic option but to develop renewables and storage. So we should do it now and fix both the climate problem and the peak oil problem.
FWIW I believe the climate problem is serious, but I dont believe we should mitigate the climate problem regardless of cost and destroy our living standards in the process. Ultimately the issue rests on a cost / benefit analysis – but the costs benefit analysis has to include the very real possibility of massively dangerous levels of climate change. The evidence I’ve seen based on known current technology finds that we can solve the problem adequately without incurring such massive costs as to create serious poverty ( Stern, Jacobson,etc,etc) and this uses known storage technologies, not very cheap ones. But clearly the lower the mitigation costs the easier it is to convince the public.
“For this reason, I certainly cannot recommend practical realisation of the thought experiment with Sahara covered by evaporatively cooled solar power plants now. I would like, however, make you aware that what I proposed was actually an urban experiment with evaporatively cooled solar cells, which could perhaps exploit urban heat islands as a model of hot deserts and provide an opportunity for a practically feasible and economically affordable comparison of model predictions with observations.”
OK. Makes sense.
“My reply is yes, I think that creating a taxation system or another tool that would incentivize economical and societal transformation towards clean energy and, generally, to a sustainable develoment, may be desirable.I am, however, not able to comment on achievments made in this direction so far, as I still looked only very superficially in this direction. It is, for example, my feeling that “emission trading” may be counter-productive, because there are reports that it rather serves as a means for postponing or circumventing transformative efforts, but I cannot generalize. If you have a deeper knowledge in this direction, please do not hesitate to share.”
It depends on how cap and trade is structured. The ozone problem was solved with a type of cap and trade scheme but it was quite a strong scheme and it only had to deal with one issue phasing out flourocrabons. The current cap and trade schemes have a low price on carbon and have had just modest effects, unsurprisingly. The schemes need to have stronger settings.
The other issue is cap and trade to solve the climate problem has more complicated components. New Zealand has a emissions trading scheme:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Emissions_Trading_Scheme
Essentially companies can meet their requirements by cutting emissions or buying forestry sink credits (simplifying a lot). This has meant planting of forests rather than cutting emissions much at source. The economists put the argument that this doesnt matter because you use the cheapest option first and planting forests is cheapest option. IMHO the problem is the the more you delay cutting emissions the harder it gets to do this. We are kicking the can down the road and not leaving enough time to scale it up.
The other problem is the NZ ETS scheme allows forests to be planted on farmland ( although only lower quality farmland) however this still seems like an unwise use of productive land in a world with a growing population needing food. The ETS is also diabolically complicated and opaque and susceptible to behind the scenes lobbying by the corporates and it all smells a bit bad. It’s almost like its been artfully designed to look like a solution while it actually achieves very little. It could work properly, but for these reasons I believe the NZ ETS needs considerable modifications, or alternatively we move to a carbon tax (possibly carbon tax and dividend like Canada). Carbon tax is more transparent than an ETS.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819564
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your kind feedback and, particularly, for your comments regarding the emission trading schemes in general and specifically in New Zealand.
Back to your comments, I have an additional question with respect to your sentence:
“However I recall checking out the costs of liquid sodium storage for electrofuels and it was about half that of other options so its cheaper but not a breakthrough technology on costs.”
I think it might have been very helpful, if you could find and share the details of this check. An independent external view, possibly assessing the topics from another perspective, is valuable any time. It does not hurry, however, I will be really grateful if you find time.
Best wishes
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz,
Nigel: “However I recall checking out the costs of liquid sodium storage for electrofuels and it was about half that of other options (eg carbon neutral methane) so its cheaper but not a breakthrough technology on costs.”
Tomas Kalisz: “I think it might have been very helpful, if you could find and share the details of this check. An independent external view, possibly assessing the topics from another perspective, is valuable any time. It does not hurry, however, I will be really grateful if you find time.”
Nigel: Technically we mean molten salt as a storage medium to deal with renewables intermittency. I cant remember or find the source material on the costs sorry. However when you look at the molten salt technology it seems intuitively unlikely it would be really dramatically cheaper than other electrofuels options:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage#:~:text=a%20constant%20temperature.-,Molten%20salt%20technology,method%20to%20retain%20thermal%20energy.
https://www.tycorun.com/blogs/news/molten-salt-energy-storage
https://www.man-es.com/energy-storage/campaigns/mosas
One problem is molten salt can be stored at hot temperature for only about one week. This seems good for typical periods of insufficient wind, although it wouldnt work for two week periods that do happen, although I suppose it might be possible to extend the technology to this at a cost. It does not look suitable for long term seasonal storage unless its frequently reheated, which would add costs (essentially). These are things you have to consider.
However molten salt is apparently 33 times cheaper than lithium battery storage:
https://solarthermalworld.org/news/molten-salt-storage-33-times-cheaper-lithium-ion-batteries/
And we have this unusual molten salt battery:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rechargeable-molten-salt-battery-freezes-energy-in-place-for-long-term-storage/
Based on all this I doubt we would have a 100% renewables (no overbuild) plus comprehensive storage system (of whatever type) that is so low cost it beat fossil fuels on costs, at least in the short term. Although it might come close.
However Jacobson is convinced that overbuilding renewables and use of demand management and small quantities of storage can equal or better the costs of fossil fules system especially when you factor in health costs of particulate pollution) . This would still fit your idea of making renewables desirable overall for various reasons with climate mitigation as just one benefit. A sort of psychological strategy. I’ve often thought we should spend more time promoting the wider benefits of renewables.
The Antarctic minimum ice has come and gone for 2024 which now sits in second-lowest place (using JAXA data). But while we saw crazy low numbers for Antarctic SIE last year, it was well behaved through the period of the minimum. (See graph of Antarctic SIE anomalies year-on-year Fig 3a HERE.) So the rest of 2024 is anyone’s guess.
Antarctic annual minimum daily Sea Ice Extent (M sq km)
Recent years shown
1st … … 2023 … … 1.95
2nd … … 2024 … … 2.09
3rd … … 2022 … … 2.13
4th … … 2017 … … 2.15
5th … … 2018 … … 2.21
…
10th … 2019 … … 2.42
…
17th … 2016 … … 2.66
…
25th … 2020 … … 2.76
…
30th … 2021 … … 2.79
…
42th … 2014 … … 3.54
…
45th … 2015 … … 3.59
46th … 2013 … … 3.69
Up in the Arctic, the Maximum annual SIEs occur over a longer period, the five weeks from the middle of Feb thro’ to the third week of March. The state of play is tabulated below. If you were to graph the 46-year record, it is pretty linear, the trend running at -400,000 sq km/decade, the wobbles along this trend measuring +/-500,000 sq km (2sd).
2024 to-date has so far managed to wobble its way into 11th spot in the maximum annual daily SIE table.
1st … … 2017 … … 13.88 (6th Mar)
2nd … … 2018 … … 13.89 (17th Mar)
3rd … … 2015 … … 13.94 (15th Feb)
4th … … 2016 … … 13.94 (28th Feb)
5th … … 2023 … … 14.12 (3rd Mar)
6th … … 2011 … … 14.13
7th … … 2006 … … 14.13
8th … … 2007 … … 14.21
9th … … 2021 … … 14.24 (10th Mar)
10th … 2019 … … 14.27 (13th Mar)
11th … 2024 … … 14.27 (to date)
12th … 2022 … … 14.39 (23rd Feb)
13th … 2005 … … 14.40
14th … 2020 … … 14.45 (3rd Mar)
15th … 2014 … … 14.45 (20th Mar)
The last day of the month is here so the first indication of the full Feb TLT & SAT will be arriving from tomorrow, although the ERA5 daily numbers are already given to 22nd Feb (see UoMaine’s Climate Analyser) allowing a sneak preview.
The average for Feb 1st-22nd gives an ERA5 global SAT anomaly of +0.80ºC, this up on the Jan anomaly (+0.70ºC) but a little down on previous months (Sept-Dec ran +0.93ºC, +0.85ºC, +0.85ºC & +0.85ºC).
Feb 2024 will again be ‘scorchyisimo’ (previous hottest Febs 2016 +0.69ºC, 2020 +0.60ºC, 2017 +0.50ºC, 2019 +0.31ºC, 2023 +0.29ºC) this giving about the same margin of ‘scorchyisimo’ as there was in January.
(Jan 2024 was +0.70ºC, the previous record for Jan being +0.58ºC in 2020 with Jan 2016 +0.55ºC.)
The 2024 ‘scorchyisimo’ is not as marked as in late 2023, indeed not exceeding the 2016 ‘scorchyisimo’ with an add-on of eight years of AGW (+0.16ºC, +0.18ºC over the eight years?), although 2016 did see a stronger El Niño. Indeed, the margin of ‘scorchyisimo’ in 2024-so-far is not looking anything like the ‘bananas’ anomalies through the second half of 2023. (The ΔT from 2015/16 to 2023/24 run J +0.06ºC, F +0.10ºC, M +0.31ºC, A +0.09ºC, M +0.34ºC, J +0.36ºC, J +0.54ºC, A +0.56ºC, S +0.69ºC, O +0.58ºC, N +0.41ºC, D +0.46ºC, J +0.15ºC, provisional F +0.11ºC.)
Mind, given the unprecedented nature of those ‘bananas’ anomalies last year, there should be no rush to declare all as being back to normal.
MA Rodger: – “Mind, given the unprecedented nature of those ‘bananas’ anomalies last year, there should be no rush to declare all as being back to normal.”
It seems to me those ‘bananas’ anomalies are refusing to “all run off” with more inconvenient data accumulating for your “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming” narrative.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/not-just-another-dot-on-the-graph-part-ii/#comment-818317
Apparently, Feb 2024 saw the second warmest monthly average global SAT in the last 100,000 years.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1763923913032237475
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1763973421585883468
And the daily average world (60°S-60°N) SST has been mostly at or above 21 °C so far this year (to Mar 1), and currently at its hottest level in the instrumental record.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Those saying we can still keep global warming below the +1.5 °C ‘Paris limit’ are living in fantasyland..
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1762447374004232286
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819511 : …“If human alterations to hydrology (and/or directly to ecosystems eg. wetland drainage, deforestation, irrigation, aquifer depletion, dams [and reservoirs] ) has also contributed to climate change – besides [via] effects on CO2, CH4, N2O [… , surface albedo and roughness, …] (of course it has, but how much, and which way?),”…
Re Piotr https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819583 , JCM and Tomáš Kalisz :
On Lague et al 2023 “Reduced terrestrial evaporation increases atmospheric water vapor by generating cloud feedbacks” https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1
I cannot claim to have read much of this, (however, enough to note that even prior to land plants, Desert land might not have been the case (presumably there would be some ponding of water)), but anyway, Fig. 1 stands out:
Using average ΔSSTeq (~4.5 K) and Δland-surface Teq (~12.5 K) from fig. 1 (est. from graph):
(note: would this be different for ΔSATeq land?)
4.5*.71 + 12.5*.29 = 6.82, so ΔGMSTeq = ~ 6.8 K (Desert land – Swamp land)
Note: land area covered by ice is not changed. If this is excluded from the land area for Δland-surface Teq, there would be some small effect on my calculation…
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
(“ Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2019) – “Land Use” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/land-use’ [Online Resource] “):
Of 141 M km² land, 10% (14 M km²) is covered by “Glaciers” (I take this to include ice sheets), 14% (20 M km²) is barren, 3% (“3 km²”- presumably the missing M is a typo) is water, 45% (48 M km²) is agricultural, including (6 feed + 8 direct human consumption food + 2 non-food) = 16 M km² for crops, which is ~= 12.6 % of the 127 M km² not covered by non-seasonal ice. And, … OMG, there’s a lot of info here…
Cropland and total agricultural land have expanded a lot since 1700, but (globally) not much since 1960. Of course (*presumably*-I haven’t gone through the fine print at the end) this doesn’t include land that has been degraded by agriculture that is no longer used as such – how much is this?
Anyway, if (**and this is just a trial guess; I don’t know**) on average, effectively 1/3 (??) of cropland were functionally ‘desert’ due to lack of leaf cover (after harvest, between then and the time for the next crop to cover the ground, not including periods of snowcover (but trees…?), setting aside evaporation directly from soil**, setting aside the seasonality of evapotranspiration from a natural ecosystem**), that would by 12.6%/3 * 6.82 K = 0.286 K ≈ 0.3 K (**??**). Not that it would be such a simple proportionality, this is just a start. And this is before accounting for irrigation or accounting for corn’s (maize’s) tendency to keep its stomata open, AFAIK from what I’ve heard – and construction of reservoirs (but also the shrinking Aral Sea, … and Salton Sea but that wasn’t there before… etc.). And of course there’s surface texture and how this affects wind and mixing, etc (also pertains to wind turbines).
(I anticipate a dependence of the effect of irrigation on location and timing, and similarly for land-cover change).
Cool, you might be right.
if a characteristic is not a consequence of temperature change, such as direct interference with catchment hydrologies, it behaves more like a forcing than a feedback. Initiatives like LS3MIP tend to diagnose changing terrestrial flux characteristics as a response to atmospheric forcing alone.
Underestimating the impact of ET suppression (force) in the coupled land surface models could result in TOA peculiarities. SW trends that are more positive in observations compared to models (destabilizing), and/or LW trends that are more negative in observation compared to models (stabilizing).
The popular working hypothesis for the known (large) model-observation discrepancies in recent TOA trend components is to suggest unnatural aerosol changes. I submit to consider additionally other information gaps. I notice that atmosphericists do not scrutinize the land surface (force) to the same degree as other system forcing and feedbacks (generally).
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/1202161/fclim-05-1202161-HTML-r1/image_m/fclim-05-1202161-g002.jpg from Schmidt 2023.
CESM coupled with Lague’s Simple Land Interface Model (SLIM) offers valuable insights with their equilibrium simulations. Current issues call to refocus on inputs and forcings, and disentangling forcings and feedbacks. The model physics works.
Additionally, there is concern about overlooking local circumstances, considering that practically every place is someone’s locale, and it’s there the impacts are most intense. A 0.3K hypothetical globe can look like >1K in spot climatologies, with associated temperature and hydrological extremes.
ΔT in the equilibrium simulations relate to the climate response parameter α. Lague notes the 1.5 W/m2 per K associated with existing literature for insolation changes (forcing), which is less stable slightly compared to the snappy CESM demo.
Added complexity beyond SLIM ET suppression include soil ecologies, biophysical feedbacks, and “shock” events such as chemical biocide emergence in the 1980s and associated natural aerosol disruption. Additional lines of investigation include cooling optimization rather than total swampland configuration. Does dry patchiness offer relief compared to total saturation? I think so, and nature selected these ecologies historically. Nature also chose biodiverse species exhibiting a range of root depths and stomatal conductance within the same footprint. The subject works according to thermodynamic optimization and freedom.
thanks
A new service called Climate Pulse is being provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. (C3S). Its purpose is to offer climate monitoring to a broad audience, close to real-time.
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/
We should have weather-climate bulletins and forecasts available everywhere for public and professional use and decision-making. This new tool will help the necessary integration.
Is NASA’s LANCE offering the equivalent service? If so, I wish it made it easier for the general public to find the same graphs as in the Climate Pulse.
It might help some of the perplexed, ignorant politicians and business people in particular, understand what weather and climate mean. And hopefully, make them concerned enough to take action and change the trends visualized by Climate Pulse, before we run out of time.
Is this an example of a new UK climate?
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-01/british-farmers-say-shocking-levels-of-floods-are-pushing-them-to-the-brink
I looked at the HadUKP records going back to 1766 and the 12 month period from March 2023 to February 2024 is the third wettest consecutive 12 month period on record. The southern half of the UK has been particularly wet relative to climatology with much of England recording double its normal February rainfall last month. This contrasts sharply to a couple of years ago where the UK was experiencing drought conditions and a record breaking temperature of over 14C in July 2022.
https://www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-media/blogs/why-we-are-still-drought-despite-recent-rain
Is this what we are going to have to adapt to in the near future, windscreen wiper weather consisting of months of drought followed by months of deluge?