The month’s open thread on climate topics. More record monthly warmth, but only the second lowest Antarctic sea ice though (growing since 2023!).
Reader Interactions
447 Responses to "Unforced variations: March 2024"
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: “ NY Times headline screams out: “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures”
Are you seriously using a … newspaper’s click-bait headline as …if it were a scientific argument ? ;-)
Second, even if “freaking out” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out: “ Good God! Paul Pukite was right – we do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so lets divert the scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “,
but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of that year’s of ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions. _This_ would be the grounds for freaking out, and have made climatologists study, NOT ENSO, but AGW even more intensely.
“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real. …. It’s quite scary, ….”
The climatologist Brian McNoldy seems to be adding to the hyperbole. Why is he having a hard time separating reality from some fantasy in his mind? That is a definition of the slang freaking-out — to enter a reality-altering state of mind.
If we don’t want journalists to hyperbolize, scientists shouldn’t egg them on with their own scare quotes. After all, the headline writer at the NY Times could have titled the piece “Scientist says Ocean Temperatures Don’t Seem Real, and It’s Quite Scary”.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: “ This is a direct quote from the article:
“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real. …. It’s quite scary, …. ”
Here is my post to which you “reply”:
===== Piotr Mar 2:
“even if “freaking out” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out: “ Good God! Paul Pukite was right – we do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so lets divert the scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “, but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of that year’s of ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions. _This_ would be the grounds for freaking out, and have made climatologists study, NOT ENSO, but AGW even more intensely.
=============
Would you be so kind to indicate which part of the above your “direct quote” does falsify?
Get a journalist to quote me. I’d tell them that science is close to being able to model and cross-validate all these seemingly erratic natural cycles.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite Mar 7: “ science is close to being able to model and cross-validate all these seemingly erratic natural cycles”
So what? Who cares about your natural oscillations around the mean – unless you can demonstrate that they significantly affect what we care about: the climate CHANGE, i.e. the slope of the climatological TREND (conditions for which I listed in my other post you didn’t address), and which humanity can do something about (which we can’t).
I can’t believe that Piotr Trela marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to a blog subtitled Climate science from climate scientists by stating this:
“So what? Who cares about your natural oscillations around the mean – unless you can demonstrate that they significantly affect what we care about: the climate CHANGE, i.e. the slope of the climatological TREND (conditions for which I listed in my other post you didn’t address), and which humanity can do something about (which we can’t).”
I am absolutely certain that a significant fraction of climate science researchers actually care about natural oscillations around the mean. This field isn’t like pre-school soccer where all the kids run toward where the ball is.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite Mar 8: “ I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to a blog subtitled Climate science from climate scientists”
Wrong, I marginalize the value of the contribution by you, Paul, and your short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) to the understanding/predicting/ mitigating the slope of the global warming climatological TREND.
And to make it easy for you, I have provided you with the blueprint how to prove me wrong:
Piotr Mar 7: “you can demonstrate that {ENSO oscillations around the mean] significantly affect what we care about: the climate CHANGE, i.e. they
1. change the slope of the climatological TREND (for which [the CHANGES in the ENSO would have to be systematic, asymmetric (the “up” increasing more than the “down” part) and the asymmetry to be large enough to significantly affect the slope of the AGW trend]) and
2. that humanity can do something about ENSO (which we can’t) ”
You, unable to demonstrate either somehow managed to combine in one sentence two different fallacies: “the argument from incredulity” fallacy with “the appeal to authority” one: “I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to [some] blog ;-)
Not knowing your “many climate scientists”, I see two possibilities:
– either you misconstrued? misrepresented? their opinions as supporting yours
– or if indeed they claim that ENSO does have a significant influence on the slope of the AGW trend, and that the humans can modify ENSO for their benefit – then … I would love to see their reasoning.
After all, if they did so – how hard would it be for you to summarize it here?
And yet … not a trace of that in your writings so far, Paul, other than … hiding behind semantics and appeal to relativism (PP: “there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“). Why is it so, Paul?
The fact is that RealClimate.org has always paid attention to climate indices such as ENSO, AMO, and PDO (among others). Go back in the archives and in the first month of blog posts, November 2004, there were dedicated posts to each of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (“ENSO”), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (“AMO”), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (“PDO”).
So this is nearing the 20th anniversary of off-and-on discussion of these climate indices, and no one can say any of these are fully understood and nailed down. But I try to keep the faith & hope alive that further progress can be made. Of course I know I won’t make much progress by commenting here, as this isn’t a great forum for writing math equations or posting charts or highlighting software snippets. but perhaps new stragglers will realize that it is challenging science to consider taking up, or at least follow. Most of the work I do is on my own blog, in which my latest post on modeling ENSO, PDO, and AMO is here: https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/08/dynamic-time-warping
I know this doesn’t answer Piotr’s questions, which I consider rhetorical.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: The fact is that RealClimate.org has always paid attention to climate indices such as ENSO, AMO, and PDO
paid attention as the short-term oscillations around the mean, i.e.
– a statistical noise we may need to correct for in discussing how a one-year temp. fits the long-term AGW TREND (see Gavin using a correction for the the stage of ENSO in evaluating the _individual year_ temp.),
– oscillations around the mean that …. cancel each other over long-enough time-average (that’s the reason why for climate we use 30-year moving average: this averages out your short-term oscillations)
So it is still up to you to defend your
a) claims that a better prediction to the ENSO timing could … “save countless lives”
b) implying that we should shift our attention and research resources away from AGW, which you claimed is already known well enough and thus research resources should be redirected to your interests (ENSO)
c) implying that knowledge of ENSO is NECESSARY to predict the AGW trend, and that not accounting for ENSO effect on the AGW trend made the AGW climatologists to “freak out”. – see the footnote ^*
I have challenged repeatedly your claims a), b) and c) – so far your response was to hide behind:
– semantics (that by “ saving countless lives” you have meant …unknowable number (maybe many, maybe none) of lives; or refused to justify your claims by “There is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
– fallacies: e.g. “the argument from incredulity” combined with “the appeal to authority” in: PP “I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to [some] blog ;-)”
If you grow some, and are ready to stand behind your claim, by demonstrating that ENSO oscillations:
=== “1. can change significantly the slope of the climatological TREND – for which the CHANGES in the ENSO would have to be systematic, asymmetric (the “up” increasing more than the “down” part) and the asymmetry to be large enough to significantly affect the slope of the AGW trend], and
2. that humanity can do something about ENSO the way can do about GHG concentrations ” ====
… then let me know.
==== Footnote to point c) ==================
– Paul Pukite Feb 29: “ NY Times headline screams out: “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures”
– Piotr Mar 2: “Even if “freaking out ” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out:
“ Good God! Paul Pukite was right! We do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so let’s divert our scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “,
but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of 2023 ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO), but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions..
======================
I’ve decided not to try to answer to rhetorical questions any longer. I stand by the math and physics applied to the models of natural climate variability that I published over 5 years ago. Consider writing a critical review in PubPeer.com if you are seeking to force a retraction.
Radge Haverssays
Paul,
“…as this isn’t a great forum for writing math equations or posting charts or highlighting software snippets…”
fwiw, at one point there was talk of setting up a space for that at overleaf.com — perhaps that’s not out of the question now
Radge saiid: “fwiw, at one point there was talk of setting up a space for that at overleaf.com — perhaps that’s not out of the question now”
I got involved in natural climate variability research around the same time that John Carlos Baez started up the Azimuth Project over 10 years ago. He had a lofty goal => “The Azimuth Project is designed to create a focal point for scientists and engineers interested in saving the planet“. Saving the planet is perhaps over the top. But he did start with trying to solve the El Nino puzzle, which is also challenging. That eventually wound down to just a few of us participating as most of the project members lost interest, and then Baez deleted the entire project — fortunately, the remnants are archived on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190130165945/http://azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Azimuth+Project
The forum had equation markup and one could easily post graphs, but that’s all gone. The vestige that’s left is a GitHub repository, which I got control of before he could delete it. The Azimuth Project discussion for that is below, which also allows equations and charts https://github.com/orgs/azimuth-project/discussions
If you have a GitHub account, anyone is free to comment or discuss.
Piotrsays
patrick o 27 Feb.29: “A change in climate generally could result in a change in modes of internal variability”
The discussion is not whether “could”, but whether the change would be systematic, asymmetrical AND large enough to matter.
– Systematic, because if the change a random – then it is just a noise most? all? of it removed by the 30-year averaging.
– Asymmetrical: affecting the “up” part more than the “down” part – if not: both parts are amplified comparably, or if the change is just in frequency – then the changes cancel each other.
– Large enough – that it significantly changes the slope of the climate trend (timescale of 30 years or more).
The onus of the proof of an unlikely thesis is on the proponent. So far Paul offer nothing. Instead he assured us the better predictions of the timing of the next Le Nino could “save countless lives“. When asked how – he tried to get out on a technicality – that by “saving countless lives” he meant … unknowable number – maybe many, maybe not.
“The onus of the proof of an unlikely thesis is on the proponent. So far Paul offer nothing.”
First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical sciences (certainly, proofs exist in mathematics). Secondly, I enjoy working on models of climate variability, even though no proof is available.
So the way it should work (in lieu of a proof) is that all candidate models should be tallied and cross-validation results compared for these models, based on plausibility, precision, and parsimony. Plausibility is a subjective measure as many valid models may not make intuitive sense on first glance (see quantum mechanics, relativity, etc) but is not an immediate disqualifier (see neural networks). Precision/accuracy is quantifiable as a minimum error of model compared to results. Parsimony is quantifiable as the number of degrees of freedom in the model, and a guard against over-fitting.
I have plenty to offer but there is no process in place to allow comparisons. I have a feeling there is nothing because the field is far from getting model results that are even half-way decent. The recent NOAA post 50 Years of Getting ENSO Predictions *Mostly* Correct is highly misleading, Those results are all based on predictions for the current calendar year — current models are useless for really anything beyond that.
MathWorks (developer of Matlab) used to regularly hold online scientific programming contests with winners determined by metrics based on precision and parsimony of the results. Fascinating how the rules required submitted solutions being immediately made public, so competitors could “steal:” other solutions and make decisions on when to submit subtle improvements — with the possibility of last minute E-bay-like bidding. At some point these kinds of competitions will be updated, and competitors will apply machine-learning aids to gain an advantage.
Piotr: “The onus of the proof of an unlikely thesis is on the proponent. So far Paul offered nothing.”
Paul Pukite: “First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics – after claiming that better predicting of timing of the next El Nino could “save countless lives” – failed to show how – he argued that by “countless” he didn’t mean “very many”, but .. .unknowable number (i.e. maybe a lot, maybe none at all, who knows). Now: there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
How about: “demonstrate”, “justify”, “show the likelihood of being significant”?
Paul Pukite: “all candidate models should be tallied and cross-validation results compared for these models, based on plausibility, precision, and parsimony”
… and this banal is supposed to falsify my point – how? You implied that it was the increase in El Nino that was responsible for warmer than anticipated 2023. To which I asked you to demonstrate that it is plausible that an OSCILLATION around the mean (ENSO) can significantly increase the slope of global warming climatological (30-yrs running average) TREND. To this end, I have identified the necessary conditions for such a plausibility: the ENSO has to change in way that is:
1. systematic (i.e. not a random noise),
2. asymmetric (the “El Nino” part increases more than the normal/LaNina part of the cycle) and
3. this asymmetry has to be LARGE ENOUGH to significantly change the slope of the global warming trend.
How is your answer answering THAT? Or “systematic”, “asymmetric”, “significantly change” and “slope” do not exist in physical sciences either?
jgnfldsays
An oscillation with a wavelength around a century could produce the effect for many decades on the rising side of the oscillation. That’s simple stats.
SHOWING the existence of any such cycle has been the work of many denial types like Soon and Scafetta and related as they realize the elementary fact that no shorter term factor will produce the observed data. That said, their work has been uniformly weak in showing any such effect.
Lastly ALL error can always be viewed as ‘oscilllations about the mean’. I’ve seen random walks produce perfectly wonderful-looking long term oscillations for example. And random walks are used to model error in many time series.
There is a reason Soon charges for his “deliverables”. And it isn’t better science.
Piotrsays
To jgnfld (8 Mar):
Got stuck home by the snow storm so you have the time to join this discussion? ;-) Thanks for the wider context – Soon and Scafetta searching desperately for the perfectly in phase 100-year long natural oscillation to produce long enough “up part” to try explain the AGW trend without invoking humans.
That said, my points are specific to Paul Pukite, the tireless promoter of the importance of researching ENSO – first as a way to save “countless lives”, then as more deserving subject of research (and funding?) than research into AGW.
So I guess he didn’t get the memo that he needs a 100-yr oscillation, not the 3-7 years ENSO …
A dump describes well the endless back-and-forth result of posing rhetorical questions. Got something related to geophysical fluid dynamics and I will continue to engage.
patrick o 27: “ agricultural land = 12.6 % of the 127 M km² not covered by non-seasonal ice => “12.6%/3 * 6.82 K = 0.286 K ≈ 0.3 K (**??**)”
JCM: “Cool, you might be right.[…] 0.3K hypothetical globe”
Err, not really: 12.6% is not of “globe”, but of land without ice. So give up all crops in exchange for … 0.07K. Cool! ;-)
JCM: “ A 0.3K hypothetical globe can look like >1K in spot climatologies, with associated temperature and hydrological extremes
But to make it a 0.3K global average, for each spot with >1 K there must be more than 2 with 0K. And the deniers push the water cycle not as a way to obtain localized spot cooling, but as an alternative to reductions of GHG emissions to counter GLOBAL warmin. Hence the only relevant metric here is the GLOBAL avg. And as I’ve shown above – in the best case scenario – it is 0.07K, not 0.3K.
And it is a best case scenario – because patrick got also the other part of his argument wrong:
patrick: “And this is before accounting for irrigation or accounting for corn’s (maize’s) tendency to keep its stomata open”
His earlier claim of “0.3K”, i.e. 0.07K warming by replacing forests with crops – was based on the reduction of evaporation from cropland (like a desert for 1/3 of the year). On the other hand, both “ Irrigation and corn’s tendency to keep its stomata open“, INCREASE evaporation, hence
work against that 0.07K warming. Given that the most of the worlds bread baskets – rice cultivation in Asia, wheat and corn on prairies of North America and steppes of Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia – rely on irrigation so most of that 0.07K would be gone, if not overtaken.
To sum up – the effects of modern agriculture on the global warming via evaporation is tiny – a fraction of 0.07K. and offers no actionable advice to the society – the irrigation is already at its max – so you can’t increase it more.
And converting cropland back to forests as a way to combat global warming may work only … indirectly – by starving to death most of the humanity – those who survive would be too few to emits.
But hey – wasn’t this the reason for Bill Gates to engineer COVID?
patrick o twentysevensays
Re JCM https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819638 “Cool, you might be right.” – thanks, but please note all the caveats, guesswork and hypothetical-for-the-sake-of-the-argument supposition that went into my 0.3 K figure. I actually suspect it is smaller (In particular I don’t believe exposed soil (uncovered by leaf canopy/etc.) automatically functions as ‘desert’), but I lack the background and time to go much farther with it.
“ because patrick got also the other part of his argument wrong:” No.… “On the other hand, both “ Irrigation and corn’s tendency to keep its stomata open“, INCREASE evaporation” Yes, we agree.
I can see why my writing left room for confusion, but try reading again with the assumption that I actually do understand such logical implications, and I think you’ll see where I was going.
But I do admit there’s a lot I don’t know – see my re JCM. And there is only so much time, and other things I want to do (work on my blog about GHE physics, … artwork, …watch more Leslie the Bird Nerd videos). I want to be upfront about this: I haven’t read much more of the study; but I chimed in partly because I suspected you misunderstood the implication/context of the ≈0.3 W/m² TOA imbalance, given the magnitude of the ΔGMST:
(PS from the wording in the quote below, I wonder if this 0.3 value is a bounding magnitude of fluctuation, or/rather than a time-average value(??)) “ After 20 years, there is <0.1 K drift in global mean surface temperatures (figure 1); the top of atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance in these near-equilibrium simulations is near-zero (≈0.3 W m⁻²).”-Lague et. al. 2023 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1 , 1st paragraph of section 2.1. Unless the same flux number appears elsewhere (as given or calculated from given) in a different context…
More:
I forgot to include urband/built-up land area (1 M km² https://ourworldindata.org/land-use ) effects, but … does that include parks, lawns, sports fields, gardens, ponds?
https://ourworldindata.org/forest-area A significant amount of forest area loss has happened after 1950, so I expect it would/may be harder to separate this from anthro-GHE effects on the basis of timing alone (as opposed to agricultural expansion (at least for global total)).
The following is just following logic on my part, these are not things I’ve studied much:
Hypothesis: the more leaf area per unit land surface area, and the more spread-out it is vertically, the more ET (other things being =), thus more LH flux … and maybe more SH (sensible heat) flux – particularly when solar heating occurs in the leaves, so we needn’t worry about limited thermal conductivity of plants. How much heat is transported in xylem/phloem/etc.?… (in whole, I’m thinking of vegetation as acting like a heat-exchanger. On water, wind-whipped surf also helps, I’d expect)…so RH (relative humidity) will be higher.
Hypothesis: However, vegetation will reduce wind and reduce ET closer to the ground; a thick canopy can trap the humidity to some extent, reducing the ET (via high RH). (But also, vegetation can slow/intercept rain drops and spread precipitation over time at the surface and thus, along with mechanically stabilizing soil, reduce runoff.)
Hypothesis: A negative feedback should tend to reduce ET reduction due to leaf area reduction, because lower RH (and more wind exposure) should increase ET, including from soil (assuming liquid/solid H2O is available).
Hypothesis: moist bare soil will not be like ‘Desert land’. Although I believe dry (drought-baked) mud can limit permeability and thus increase runoff (?)and reduce ET from deeper soil(?). Note: snow can’t significanly runoff or seep into aquifers until it melts.
What creates the ‘Desert land’ is liquid/solid H2O going to the ocean before evaporating. Hypothesis: Runoff and drainage into groundwater is what to watch for, and then it must be noted how far they go (effect could be regional or even create microclimates, eg. dry hill, wet valley).
PS It’s my understanding that CO2, via effect on plant stomatal behavior (species-dependent, also how much of this is via evolution to new conditions vs the capacity of an individual organism to adapt?), allows plants to grow in dryer and higher places. Is this considered part of the CO2 fertilization effect?
PS JCM – earlier you mentioned a choice between wind turbines and a land hydrology project and you said the later was the better option but the former was chosen. Was the need to choose a matter of funding (which seems a bit odd because wind turbines should supply income), or did one project preclude the other ie. same land area? Would the wind turbines have a drying effect, eg. via enhanced nocturnal T due to mixing of air?
Piotrsays
patrick 5 MAR: I do admit there’s a lot I don’t know – see my re JCM
so is JCM. “Not knowing a lot”, not “admitting it”, of course;-) (The ability to regurgitate Lague’s numbers, formulas, and jargon – does not confer the credibility on the regurgitator, nor translate into knowing what Lague results mean for his own (JCM’s) claims.)
But let us get back to you – I have not questioned what you (patrick) admit that you don’t know, but what you suggested you know: I challenged your calculations:
– patrick 29 FEB: “ agricultural land = 12.6 % of the 127 M km² not covered by non-seasonal ice”; “12.6%/3 * 6.82 K = 0.286 K ≈ 0.3 K
that you confounded global with land-only. Your new explanations:
patrick 5 MAR: “ yes, but the ~6.8 K (ΔGMST, whole globe)is for 100% of land without ice (not whole globe)”
still have the same error. Rather than trying to explain where you went wrong, let me show how it should have been done:
– the global effect is an area-weighted average of local changes. Here the only change is over 16 M km² of croplands, which you assume that before agriculture had maximum max possible ET, but now for 1/3 of the year has ZERO ET. Since the Zero-Max over land is 12.5 K, but Zero lasts only 1/3 of year – we get annual warming over croplands of 12.5K/3= 4.17 K. Hence:
GLOBAL ΔT = (12.5K/3)* 14Mkm2/510km2 = 0.114 K,
NOT your “0.3K”.
Furthermore – it is an overestimation – pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, and currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either – hence the actual difference between in resulting temperatures is smaller than 12.5K, thus the global effect is LESS than 0.114 K.
Furthermore, without the agriculture there would be little need for irrigation, stopping which would reduce the already < 0.114K – even further..
Which is good news for you – you don't need to waste the time to learn all the details of agricultural effects on ET – since regardless of these details – the global outcome is the same – insignificant effect if any at all. Ergo – idea not worth the effort.
And Lague et al.2023 put to rest the wet dreams of the deniers – that we don't need to reduce GHGs, because we could just tinker with the water cycle and achieve significant cooling. We just can't change ET enough to effect any significant. Unless, of course, one counts on the indirect effect, along the lines of the Swift’s “modest proposal”: with several billion people starved to death by abandoning croplands – the global GHG emission would probably fall quite impressively.
JCMsays
thanks for the input patrick o
re: assuming liquid/solid H2O is available
Regarding the assumption of the availability of H2O, it’s conceptually easiest to view landscapes as moisture-limited when considering the rate and duration of ET, especially in highly degraded catchments and arid regions. Conversely, areas with unlimited moisture are considered energy-limited for ET, such as oceans and wetlands.
My interests are primarily in catchment degradation, i.e. the foundational soils (moisture source sponge) and wetlands which are widely recognized to be in a highly degraded state. Catchments continue to erode after landuse change; in fact, degradation is likely to accelerate then.
However, global accounting of catchment degradation is difficult and off-the-shelf information is sparse, with most major initiatives dating from the 1990s. I have made calls for renewed interest in consolidating landscape knowledge. https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/30423301.jpg
These aspects are not easily discernible through remote sensing spectroradiometry, and they won’t be found on ourworldindata. I’ve come to understand that a true appreciation of the landscape and its dynamic transformations is best gained through direct ongoing observation and experience. However, for those who prefer to engage with such insights through screens, analytical methods using observable climate changes offer a potential avenue for characterization.
Wetland drainage, filling, and loss is rapidly intensifying in recent decades. Topsoil sponge is mostly missing, and so chemical inputs and agricultural source material is applied to the exposed subsoil in increasing quantity. This imposes increased limitation in terms of ET, or suppression, irrespective of feedbacks to atmosphere or vegetation structure. Unnatural moisture suppression could therefore be deemed as a forcing.
Kleidon discusses such concepts in terms of maximum thermodynamic constraints. Therefore moisture limitation imposes a strict constraint on ET. https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/14/861/2023/
In the CMIP world vs observation: Mueller 2013 report “a global average, the overestimation of ET amounts to 0.17 mm/d (CMIP5) and 0.09 mm/d (CMIP3)”
This represents a bias within the range of about 10% of the present-day mean of 1.5 mm/day. That is models with 10% too high globally averaged ET. Obviously there are distinct seasonal and geographical variations in that, and the small proportion and clustered irrigated cropland (<20%) has interesting regional impact. For irrigated cash crops, watering ceases during the required drying period prior to market delivery for over a month. Chemical desiccants are often applied to enhance the drying.
CMIP3 did it better than CMIP5. I'm not sure about CMIP6 but my sense is that's it's low on the list of concerns. Nevermind that, it is my specific interest.
"The revealed opposing trends of continental and maritime cloud coverage highlight the land–ocean contrast under global warming. The detailed analysis we presented of correlations between annual cloud coverage and thermodynamic variables taken from ERA5 (207 in total) further suggests that the decreasing trend in relative humidity is the main driver of the decreased trend in continental cloud cover. Because of the limited availability of water vapor sources over land, terrestrial clouds are more likely to be humidity limited."
This directly connects increasing landscape moisture limitation to cloud limitation, via ET & humidity, which I think is the main point made in Lague's experiment to isolate ET.
I will stop there for now, as my interests are primarily in local circumstances and analysis, for which there are many scientists who work outside the scope and driving force of IPCC style interests and grants.
PS – in terms of the various factors which influence the directives of public regional boards and committees in environmental governance, I could only speculate on what motivates their decisions. Money, politics, confusion, and a disconnect from the reality outside in their own communities to name a few.
PPS Environmental degradation is not limited to farm land; the widespread decrease of moisture and nutrient cycling is everywhere, including the plantations. We (not the proverbial one) are removing the Scots Pine from sites that would prefer to be prairie savanna locally. Abroad I took a bus across Turkiye from Istanbul to Antalya in 2021 and the stuff is everywhere. I couldn't believe my eyes. That is a human caused change in the most classic sense.
JCMsays
clarification with respect to: “Conversely, areas with unlimited moisture are considered energy-limited for ET, such as oceans and wetlands.” I did not intend to lump ocean evaporation in with the landscape recycling ET aspects discussed, rather to note that oceans are energy limited in terms of maximum evaporative process.
Piotrsays
Additional comments re: patrick Mar 5
Based on Lague 2023 – the difference in GSMT – between two extremes – SwampLand (MAX evaporation from land ) and DesertLand (ZERO evaporation from land) is large – according to your calc. = 6.8 K. But it is an maximum range – humans can affect directly ONLY the tiny portion of that range and consequently – achieve a tiny fraction of that 6.8K cooling. Further, different aspects of human activity have the opposite effects: e.g. converting forests into cropland reduces evaporation, irrigation of the same cropland increase it – thus at least partially cancel each other , rendering the previously tiny effects on global T even tinier ….
So I killed two birds with a single paper:
1. the paper (Lague et al. 2o23) showed the deniers that they can’t defend burning fossil fuels with a claim that they can counter AGW with ramped up evaporation – it won’t work since the latter can could Earth only by a tiny portion of the 6.8K of the extreme range evaluated there, thus in spite of JCM – we should build wind turbines and NOT divert the limited money to … increasing evaporation.
2. the paper rendered your (patrick’s) multiple hypotheses and questions … moot – the answer to them won’t change GSMT in any appreciable way and/or offer no actionable advice to the humanity on what to do differently about AGW.
Now, as long as you realize that the answer to your questions has as much relevance to human responses to AGW as the question how many …bacteria can dance on the head of a pin, we could discuss your hypotheses about evaporation, just for kicks. E.g.:
pat: “ I forgot to include urban and/built-up land area (1 M km²)
No problem – 1 M km² is 0.2% of Earth surface, so is of little consequence to global evaporation and thus to GSMT
pat: “ Hypothesis: moist bare soil will not be like ‘Desert land’. – which further reduces the effect of croplands replacing forests – since in your calculation you assumed that all agricultural land, when in a bare soil stage (1/3 of each year), has the evaporation of a DesertLand).
pat: “ It’s my understanding that CO2, via effect on plant stomatal behavior allows plants to grow in dryer and higher places. Is this considered part of the CO2 fertilization effect?”
Yes, that’s a major part of it. Another is that higher Co2 -> higher temp -> longer growing season. That’s the reason why CO2 fertilization benefits mainly boreal forests – which growth is limited both by temperature (short growing season) and availability of water – not much precipitation in the prime growing season: summer. Higher atm. Co2 allows you to load more Co2 with the same amount of evaporated water..
Thus we expect to see strong Co2 fertilization in boreal forest, but not in tropical rain forest – where there is no benefit in shutting your stomata quicker as there you have as much water as you want (it is a damn tropical RAIN forest!). In fact you want your stomata open at max, since to maximize your evaporation as this:
– keep your leaves cool (it is damn TROPICAL rain forest!)
– provide more nutrients from the poor tropical soils – if a tree doubles the evaporation it
doubles the volume of groundwater sucked in, and thus doubles the amount of nutrients plant extracted for the soil,
BTW – the negative feedback between atm Co2 and Co2 fertilization of boreal forest won’t last forever – people think that when temp. warms there by, say, 3 deg. C – the negative effects of warmer temp (faster respiration, better survival of the tree pests and pathogens, more intense forest fires, faster bacterial decay) may outweigh the positive effects of higher Co2 and longer growing season. And given that Arctic amplification, we may be already at or near that the 3deg. C level already.
patrick o twentysevensays
“**Fig. 3d seems to show a ΔGMST of ~ 8 K.”
The text says “roughly” 8 K = ΔGMST (DesertLand – SwampLand), just after giving figures for global TOA flux density changes caused by clouds, just below Fig. 9., in section 3.2. That’s two against one. I’m not sure what’s up with Fig. 1, then (I looked more closely, and could see 7.0 K as being a better graphical estimate than my first attempt of 6.8 K, but that can’t be rounded to 8 K).
“Hypothesis: the more leaf area per unit land surface area, and the more spread-out it is vertically, the more ET (other things being =), thus more LH flux … and maybe more SH (sensible heat) flux – particularly when solar heating occurs in the leaves,”…
Other things being = (OTBE?), SH transfer from surface should be enhanced by larger area and distribution over a volume of air. Of course, ET (LH) cooling reduces surface T, or at least relative to air, reducing SH and LW net fluxes. Which reminds me of the catch: solar heating of dry flat surface should enhance LW emission via higher surface T (relative to near sfc air), and as some of this can escape directly to Space via the atmospheric window ~8 μm – ~12 (or ~13) μm (depending on H2O), this could have a net cooling effect (?) (lower GMSAT in exchange for higher GMST? – but then the cloud feedbacks… Lague et al. again). OTOH, there’s the effect of surface LW emissivity (https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812838 ) To the extent that the surface is a (relatively) poor emitter, a layer of H2O vapor (or fog) which hugs the surface such that its T is not too much colder than sfc T could enhance OLR. But anyway…
patrick o twentysevensays
“(lower GMSAT in exchange for higher GMST? “… for land, and… maybe??
It is my understanding that you now basically agree to each other that the models used by the authors suggest a significant difference in the Earth mean global surface temperatures between two extreme hydrological regimes, something between 6-8 K, am I right?
If so, I would like to ask Piotr another question.
Provided that real Earth land hydrology is somewhere between the “desert” and the “swamp” regime, how have you inferred from the disputed article (or from other evidence?) that human interferences with land hydrology during the last two centuries had a negligible contribution to the so called anthropogenic warming?
And, if we assume that this warming was 1.5 K, what do you specifically mean by the negligible contribution of the hydrology changes thereto? Less than a few %, that is something like less than 0.1 K?
Thank you in advance for clarifying and best regards.
Tomáš
Piotrsays
A mask slipped, Tomas? No longer pretending to be open-minded and “just looking to learn about things“, but openly using deniers talking points:
that we can burn as much fossil fuels as we want, because we can just [enter your geoengineering scheme – in your, Shurly’s and JCM case: increase global evaporation)
and characteristic deniers’ phraseology: (“the so called anthropogenic warming“) ?
TK: “if we assume that this warming was 1.5 K, what do you specifically mean by the negligible contribution of the hydrology changes thereto? Less than a few %, that is something like less than 0.1 K? ”
Yes – MUCH LESS than 0.114 K to be specific. But you must already know this , because I have presented the calculations for that in my Mar. 5 post,
i.e. a DAY before the Mar.6 posts to which you “reply” now.
============== Piotr Mar 5. ===============
” GLOBAL ΔT = (12.5K/3)* 14Mkm2/510km2 = 0.114 K, NOT your “0.3K”.
Furthermore – pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, nor the currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either – hence the actual difference between in resulting temperatures is smaller than 12.5K
obtained from T (Max evaporation) – T(Zero evaporation) thus the global effect is LESS than 0.114 K.
Furthermore – without the agriculture there would be little need for irrigation, stopping which would reduce the already the LESS than 0.114K – even FURTHER… ”
=========================================
So before you demand answers from others, Mr. Kalisz, do your damn homework – READ the already available answers in the discussion you are chiming in.
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš,
So apparently you work in a patent office, and I’m guessing you’re an engineer who regularly works with legalisms?
Maybe it’s time to entertain the idea that you’re out of your depth on this topic. The way I see it, you could; go to the primary literature and figure it out, and/or go back to school on climatology, and/or go the meta-literacy route.
Nothing wrong with relying on meta-literacy, even if by itself it’s not going to provide you with definitive answers. You need it if you think the state of climate science is some how comparable to that of Copernicus. That’s a bad analogy for a number of reasons.
At this point, I’m about ready to categorize you as a debate-me-bro masquerading as a concern troll and suggest that you move on to something more productive.
I indeed work as a patent engineer, and read this blog (and, occasionally, some articles cited herein) in my spare time only.
I hope that that it describes the level of my understanding sufficiently, and explains why I ask my questions the way how I do it.
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your reply to my questions.
Honestly, I still do not understand why you in your calculation divided the area of the land with anthropogenically changed hydrology by overall Earth surface (instead of the land surface only). I am afraid that this way, you may underestimate the effect considered by Lague et al significantly.
In my understanding, Lague derived the 6-8 K global mean surface temperature change for the switch of the hydrological regime on the land only. I would therefore expect that the area of the “anthropogenically changed” land has to be divided by the entire land area that they considered in their model experiment – instead of the entire Earth surface area.
Or, in other words, if I return to my thought experiment with desert irrigation, switching 4 % of Earth land surface from desert mode to swamp mode should cause a 4% change in a model system, wherein 100% change does represent (6-8)K. The respective global mean surface temperature change caused by irrigation of 5-6 million square km desert thus should be somewhere between (6-8)K*0.04 = (0.24-0.3)K.
That is why I still believe that the conclusion of Lague et al should not be construed your way (that anthropogenic interferences with land hydrology cannot have any measurable influence on global Earth climate). I am still of the opinion that message of Lague et al was in fact exactly opposite.
I think that this is a quite simple thought and still do not see a logical fallacy therein. If you, however, think that Lague et al indeed strived to disprove the possibility that human interferences with land hydrology may influence Earth climate, please be so kind and explain in more detail why you believe that this interpretation of their conclusions is the right one.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 8: “Thank you for your reply to my questions
So how do you explain your use of the deniers language like “the so called anthropogenic warming“ I challenged you on in the post you are thanking me for?
Life unexamined is not worth living. And if you can’t own up to your motives and prejudices in such a clear case – what’s the point of discussing with you less obvious technical issues?
I asked an additional question to your reply for that I thanked you:
“Honestly, I still do not understand why you in your calculation divided the area of the land with anthropogenically changed hydrology by overall Earth surface (instead of the land surface only). I am afraid that this way, you may underestimate the effect considered by Lague et al significantly.
In my understanding, Lague derived the 6-8 K global mean surface temperature change for the switch of the hydrological regime on the land only. I would therefore expect that the area of the “anthropogenically changed” land has to be divided by the entire land area that they considered in their model experiment – instead of the entire Earth surface area.
Or, in other words, if I return to my thought experiment with desert irrigation, switching 4 % of Earth land surface from desert mode to swamp mode should cause a 4% change in a model system, wherein 100% change does represent (6-8)K. The respective global mean surface temperature change caused by irrigation of 5-6 million square km desert thus should be somewhere between (6-8)K*0.04 = (0.24-0.3)K.
That is why I still believe that the conclusion of Lague et al should not be construed your way (that anthropogenic interferences with land hydrology cannot have any measurable influence on global Earth climate). I am still of the opinion that message of Lague et al was in fact exactly opposite.
I think that this is a quite simple thought and still do not see a logical fallacy therein. If you, however, think that Lague et al indeed strived to disprove the possibility that human interferences with land hydrology may influence Earth climate, please be so kind and explain in more detail why you believe that this interpretation of their conclusions is the right one.”
I apologize for using the wording “so called anthropogenic warming”. My object was not to trigger your anger. Actually, I see this wording as basically non-sensical and certainly quite unfortunate from my side in the present discussion. Nevertheless, please feel free to believe that it was a Freudian slip of the tongue and that it genuinely revealed my true face of a wicked “denialist”, if you wish.
I will, however, highly appreciate if you could, for a while, ignore the circumstance that you face a convicted denialist. Could you please anyway deal with the last sentence of the paragraphs quoted above?
I am repeating this plea because I still do not know why you in your posts of
insisted in your opinion that human interferences with water cycle cannot have a measurable influence on global climate.
It appears that your belief in correctness of your calculations is the ground for your feeling of superiority over other participants in the ongoing discussion about your interpretation of Lague 2023. Personally, I would not call the difference between dividing by 510 and by 127 as “hair splitting”. Therefore, I think that at least JCM and Patrick might deserve your detailed explanation why your calculation is correct and their calculations are wrong.
the bold case text in the penultimate paragraph reminds us that “Gavin’s 2010 modelling .. demonstrated that water cycle strongly amplified effect of changing GHG concentrations”.
In the following paragraph, however, you conclude that changes in the water cycle alone cannot have any significant influence on global Earth climate:
“To sum up – we can’t change in any significant way GMST by direct changing of the water cycle, we can do it in ONLY indirectly – by changing the conc. of GHGs in atmosphere.”
Isn’t it a contradiction?
My understanding to Lague 2023 is that the effects of water cycle amplify the warming or cooling effects of changing GHG concentration just because they may play a significant role also alone.
If so, I do not see any reason why climate science should desist from analyzing options for water cycle management as another possible tool for climate change mitigation. Is it excluded that combination of GHG management and water cycle management could exhibit a positive synergy and be more efficient and/or less expensive than GHG management alone?
Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs, and this largely depends on transitioning to clean energy and efficiency improvements, maybe some lifestyle changes… sequestration (basalt dust, …) … add CaCO3 to the ocean if necessary (stop-gap)… also maybe change our cement; And for land-use/management: reducing emissions from that (or boosting sequestration).
If it can work effectively, safely, and economically (use a CO2-eq price and equivalent policies on emission sources for which it it is hard to tax/fee/cap as such, and let market work out details), include CCS from fossil fuel combustion. (Sabine Hossenfelder made a good point in one of her videos that technically it is not the use of fossil fuels that is the problem for climate – however, there are other problems w/ fossil fuels and it doesn’t make sense to invest a lot in developing technologies which won’t be used much – but I recognize the transition is/will be taking longer than we’d prefer.)
… BECCS, …
Geoengineering that doesn’t involve sequestering CO2/etc. should mainly be a stop-gap measure.
———-
I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications – obviously reducing UHI generally would be good (except maybe high latitude winters/etc.?) – because: noting that direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing (I thought – JCM mentions changes continuing after human actions) so long as we keep using the land the same way (besides use that involves continual uni-directional change ie. deforestation), unlike burning fossil fuels)***
However, there are other environmental/sustainability issues/concerns besides global-scale climate change, and so changing land-use/management practices (and ocean-use…) makes sense for other reasons (flood and drought resilience, biodiversity, UHI, …).
In particular, this could play a role in adaptation to that part of AGW/ACC we fail to prevent.
—————–
***[although the particular nature of such forcing (including spatial-temporal distribution), etc. may cause climate changes of a different ‘shape’ distinct from GHGs …
(just as solar-based geoengineering based on cutting TOA TSI the same fraction over the whole globe, year, and spectrum has a different ‘shape’ and so would produce side effects if used to mitigate CO2-et al. -driven changes (even setting aside ocean acidification).)
… so conceivably (without more knowledge) some changes caused by land management/use could be significant relative to A-GHG-CC (anthropogenic GHG-driven climate change) – however, …?]
—————–
(brainstorming follows)
I have considered using solar panels in agriculture with shade-grown crops; and/or that runoff from solar panels/plants could be concentrated into neighboring land in semiarid zones for agricultural usage. The total ET of the larger region should be unchanged in that later case. Solar panels reducing air flow to crops could help trap humidity, reducing ET and saving water – but alternatively, allowing more crop production for the same ET? In some cases, I have gotten the impression that with water supply, you can spend water to make water – ie irrigation can increase precipitation (but not always). An interesting point – temporal distribution relative to weather would make a difference – evap under a blocking high vs ahead of approaching low-pressure with precipitation. Maybe strategic scheduling could increase irrigation effectiveness. Several years ago, there was a study that a very large wind power capacity in central U.S. could be turned off or on strategically to alter weather in Europe (try a search for the commentor “EFSJunior” in RC). One could use ensemble weather forecasts with different initial soil moistures and turbine deployments (if spare capacity exists) and adjust irrigation schedules and wind curtailment to choose the outcome (probabilistically) (could involve steering rain toward hydropower reservoirs and clouds away from solar plants) … or maybe the effect of irrigation on weather would be too small to bother with…? Note cloud seeding is already done, not just experimentally.
________________________________
As for:
“that you confounded global with land-only. Your new explanations:
patrick 5 MAR: “ yes, but the ~6.8 K (ΔGMST, whole globe)is for 100% of land without ice (not whole globe)”
still have the same error. Rather than trying to explain where you went wrong, let me show how it should have been done:”
12.5 (?) K / 3 * 16 / 510 ≈ 0.131 K (?), and you seem to be forgetting the ΔSST part.
Lague et. al. 2023 find a ~7 K – no, ~8 K ΔGMST, whole globe, caused by DesertLand – SwampLand conditions for 100% of non-glaciated land area. They find substantial warming of SST.
To Patrick Mar 7:
My critique of the old denier’s myth that we can reverse “the so-called [global] anthropogenic warming[sic!]” (Kalisz Mar. 7) not by reduction in GHGs, but by altering water cycle, was not directed at you, but at Kalisz, JCM, and Shurly.
Neither me, nor other critics of the above deniers, did reject local uses of water, particularly to achieve non-climatic benefits (growing crops, protecting biodiversity, providing water to municipal and industrial uses).
As for the calculations of the effects of agriculture on GMST – I assumed only the terrestrial effects, you also extended it linearly onto the ocean – but the difference between my 0.1K and your 0.3K is … splitting the hair – since your assumptions (as you acknowledged) introduce a systematic bias in favour inflating the effect (your 0.3K):
1. [Piotr Mar. 5:] “ pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, and current crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”, so the annual difference in evaporation from cropland would have been only a fraction of the annual swamp-desert difference – hence the global effect would have been a fraction of your “0.3K”.
2. Further, the most productive agricultural lands (rice fields, prairies and steppes of USA. Ukraine, Russia, central Asia, etc) require massive irrigation (diverting rivers and emptying aquifers) – so likely to exceed the already reduced drop in evaporation in p.1
So the net effect of croplands, instead of warming by a fraction [see p.1] of 0.3K,
after accounting for irrigation, would result in a net increase in evaporation, and therefore a small net cooling. Hence Kalisz’s proposal of reverting to “ the pre-anthropocene water cycle” would have meant a (small) net …warming, and as result – would increase, not replace, the need to reduce GHGs.
And since we have already diverted many rivers and emptied lot of groundwater storage (see Colorado River disappearing before reaching the ocean and several-meter land subsidence in parts of the US mid-west, after the emptied aquifers collapsed), there is not much room by FURTHER increasing the land evaporation, as in the deniers wet-dream of countering the AGW with increases in natural water cycle.
Finally, the deniers proposing to counter AGW with human increased evaporation – they allow their scheme the advantage they implicitly deny the GHG reductions:
As Lague et al. 2023 argued – increased land evaporation cools the Earth primarily by the cloud feedback: evaporation -> colder land -> quicker the moving from the water vapour (warming effect) into clouds (cooling effect). So more clouds -> net cooling effect.
But the same mechanism applies to reduction of GHGs: lower GHGs -> colder land (and ocean) -> quicker the conversion of WV into clouds etc. etc. => more clouds and additional cooling effect.
In fact – in the discussed recently papers using CERES data – MORE of the AGW in the last couple of decades was attributed to the decrease in cloud cover (cloud feedback) than to direct absorption of LW by GHG gases. Thus observational data (CERES), confirmed Gavin’s 2010 modelling, where he demonstrated that water cycle strongly amplified effect of changing GHG concentrations.
To sum up – we can’t change in any significant way GMST by direct changing of the water cycle, we can do it in ONLY indirectly – by changing the conc. of GHGs in atmosphere. So the water cycle instead of making our reductions of GHGs less urgent, or even optional (deniers: let’s increase evaporation INSTEAD of reducing GHGs), makes our actions on GHGs more, not less, consequential: as any positive feedback, water cycle AMPLIFIES the consequences of our actions and inactions:
if we warm the Earth by increasing GHGs, water cycle will make the warming worse; if we cool the Earth by reducing GHGs, water cycle will make the cooling stronger.
JCMsays
As Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution I will add the following:
The notion that implementation of direct landscape stewardship initiatives constitutes a moral hazard because the effect would be to slow GHG mitigation efforts is extremely disturbing (to say the least).
Evidently the concerns raised by this perception must be addressed in any program that seeks to advance the stabilization of community hydrological regimes, ecologies, and their associated realclimates.
Intervention related moral-hazard arguments can’t be settled a priori and do not properly compare the possible risks of catchment restoration.
I sometimes wonder if the issue is values framing, such that arguing through the values of the stable soil carbon (the catchment “sponge”), rather than its direct relation to hydroclimates, might receive less motivated opposition. I doubt it tho – as the comments often languish on the foundational energy budget concepts, floundering on units, fixating on issues that are not particularly controversial, in addition to persistent miscommunications, active mischaracterization, and phony logics.
I thank patrick o 27 and Tomas for the ability to reason objectively even if our values may not be precisely aligned.
Over several months a noticeable bias has emerged where active participants, either unconsciously or consciously, manipulate their arguments to fit a desired strong conclusion. The hypotheses drift without acknowledgement. This phenomenon is undeniably real and has manifested in various ways, from falsely claiming that unrestricted evapotranspiration contributes to a warming (untrue), to defending a scenario of forced doubled ET with virtually no effect (inaccurate), and most recently, actively misunderstanding the straightforward findings of a published ET isolation exercise. The next emergent phase involves speculating that humanity is too inconsequential to impact hydroclimates, regardless of the underlying physical processes — a significant departure in tactics.
The conclusion is always the same, but the shenanigans* involved are wide-ranging and evolving.
Piotrsays
JCM: “As Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution ”
Ever heard about seeing a straw in the eye of another, and a beam in your own? (see below)
JCM: The notion that implementation of direct landscape stewardship initiatives constitutes a moral hazard because the effect would be to slow GHG mitigation efforts is extremely disturbing (to say the least).
You extremely disturb yourself for nothing. I didn’t criticize your nebulous “ direct landscape stewardship initiatives“, whatever you wanted to express by that, I have challenged the deniers’ claims that we can REPLACE reductions in GHGs either by doubling the land evaporation, or that we can significantly reduce the global warming by or restoring water cycle to its “pre-anthropocene state” (Tomas), or by ramping up evaporation (Shurly, JCM).
And I have demonstrated that it won’t work, since human-caused changes in evaporation cover only a tiny fraction of the Lague “all land is a swamp to all land is a desert” range. And because human mediated evaporation from land is already close to its max – with major rivers ALREADY diverted and aquifers being overdrawn at the alarming rate – so there is not enough water to additionally evaporate to make a significant dent in the AGW.
And implying that we can mitigate the AGW, not by addressing its cause, the GHG emissions, but by ramping up evaporation, is not some esotheric “moral hazard” to sneeze on – but has quite real consequences – it is a part of the “seeding the doubt” strategy – where fossil fuel state and industrial complex does not need to disprove the role of GHGs, all it needs to “seed the doubt “. Then the politicians, “owing” fossil fuel interests for their generous contribution to their electoral campaigns, would use this “doubt” as an alibi for delaying any meaningful action on GHGs.
This goal has been achieved by petro-companies and petro-states funding various “institutes”, “think-thanks”, and PhDs for hire to come up the plausible doubt, then the message is distributed through denier websites and by hired trolls, to be then is picked up and promoted further for free by various “useful idiots” – a few of them on the margin of the climate science, the rest not – swallowing the so-manufactured doubt for its ideological, religious, or psychological reasons.
And since you try to use the credibility of Patrick against me:
– “Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution”
– “ I thank patrick o 27 and Tomas for the ability to reason objectively”
see what he said about ramping up evaporation as a significant way to counter the AGW caused by GHGs:
– patrick: “Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs,”
– patrick: “I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications”
– patrick: “direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing)”
So much for you trying to gain credence for your deniers views at the expense of patrick.
JCM: “Over several months a noticeable bias has emerged where active participants, either unconsciously or consciously, manipulate their arguments to fit a desired strong conclusion”
Ever looked in the mirror, J?
JCMsays
I don’t know what you’re talking about Piotr, but your passion is noted. I do not propose renewed interest in hydrological stabilization as an alternative to trace gas mitigation. I have repeatedly noted that these are complementary issues. Your repeated attacks are absurd and boring.
I have remained steadfast in the stabilizing effects of functional catchment hydrologies on many scales, and no reasonable debunking has yet been provided. This includes multiple co-benefits as it relates to weather related hazards and a range of other issues. I have also framed the issue in its appropriate context of the feedback regime to trace gas forcing.
It is you who has dramatically deviated and butchered the issue, transparently based on extreme bias. Your positions have ranged from asserting that functional watershed storage could destabilize climates, to suggesting it has no effect, and now acknowledging a substantial stabilizing effect.
Your resistance to the concept seems rooted not in a physical perspective- but in motivated reasoning and extreme bias. It is clear to me that you have no useful knowledge or experience on the issue. The subject seems to make you feel upset or something and you start throwing stuff against the wall.
I understand that both you and patrick o 27 share different values, and you believe the human effect is small in our communities based on your perception & speculation, but at least patrick is able to converse like a reasonable person and does not actively distort and mishandle the issue. For that I am thankful. Please refrain from the obsessive butchering of the issue several times daily.
Conceptually, to adhere to the preferred carbon centric perspective, the practical implementation would be identical, but instead of arguing from a hydrological perspective we could instead argue from a stance of carbon sequestration values.
For each 1 gram stable soil carbon improves bulk density (sponge that is not disappeared) and sustains 8g in liquid H20 that would otherwise be unavailable in space and duration. 1 day of unnatural dryness out of 10 is about 10% “missing” ET. Or 10 days of “missing” ET during the natural growing season. Or maybe a few hours missing ET each week on average, 10s of minutes per day, or a small fraction of a mm per day.
Then we can feel the comfy co-benefits of restoring a soil genesis regime as opposed to an erosive one, measured in tons soil carbon per hectare per year (currently measured in tons C/ha/yr averaged) oxidized; and also allows for comparison of units of mm/day missing sponge potential. There is no need for a tradeoff or moral-hazard there, because they are complementary. That is, less extreme hydrological and temperature extremes while actively participating in reduced emission and improved drawdown of excess carbon dioxide.
Piotrsays
JCM: I don’t know what you’re talking about
and yet several pages of your commentary ensue….
JCM: but your passion is noted.
trying to discredit my falsifiable arguments, by ascribing … emotionality to me, again?
JCM: I have remained steadfast in the stabilizing effects of functional catchment hydrologies on many scales, and no reasonable debunking has yet been provided.
At all the “many scales” beneath GLOBAL effect – nobody has been discussing your steadfast claims, so no debunking needed there.
Or since you make virtue out of your not understanding my posts – how about the conclusions of patrick, you now, the person whom, in your attempt to bring to your side, you buttered up with:
JCM Mar 8 “ I thank patrick o 27 for the ability to reason objectively?
That ability to reason objectively patrick:
– patrick: “Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs”
– patrick: “ Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications”
[“small/niche” – i.e. NOT global – P.]
– patrick: “direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing)
These quotes are from the last couple of days from this thread. So much for your no reasonable debunking has yet been provided.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz MAR 13:
“Dear Nigel, Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read?”
So … you first accused me of intellectual dishonesty ( “deliberate” misrepresentation of your posts), and now you try to … outsource obtaining the proof for the said accusation to … Nigel???
Here are your words:
– Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ” [where the 2 W/m2 was chosen to ~ = radiative forcing of GHGs -Piotr]
– TK May 31: “I can imagine that the intensified water cycle could REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way.”
– TK May 30: “current hot deserts would be preferable for this”
So now provide the logical flow how to “read” the above
– as NOT a proposal to, instead of reducing GHGs warming by 2 W/m2, produce the 2W/m2 cooling by increasing evaporation by 13,000 km3, and
– as NOT your proposal to use “desert irrigation” to achieve this.
And you have to prove your “reading” of your own word – beyond reasonable doubt, because otherwise you wouldn’t accuse opponent of dishonesty, would you?
wherein I tried to explain my background and my views, and clearly declared myself as a non-believer (denialist or luke warmer, if you wish).
In this respect, I see all the following efforts directed to revealing my “true nature” of a camouflaged saboteur somewhat superfluous.
As regards my choice of the word “deliberately”, which hurt Piotr, I would like to apologize.
It was not my intention to say that Piotr is dishonest (or liar, as he interpreted my objection). I just tried to express my belief that a person with another mindset, not examining posts on the RC primarily by their fit with already existing, positively or negatively classified patterns, could be free to read my example simply as a demonstration that the disputed effect of increased water evaporation may not be negligible and may therefore indeed play a role in global climate.
Specifically with respect to the possibility of the EEI sign reversal by an artificial water supply for evaporation in hot deserts, I still think that it is an option that in view of publications like Lague 2023 might deserve a thorough scientific proof.
Greetings
Tomáš
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš Kalisz,
Re: “…superfluous…”
Not necessarily. If you don’t like the responses you’re getting and want to move forward, maybe try asking better questions.
Radge Haverssays
JCM,
it is simple to conclude that people who actively reject the significance of moisture or opt to discuss anything but that when characterizing climates display an extreme bias.
Not my area by any means, but I got to wondering to what degree your statement might be true, so I did a cursory search of the archives here. Hardly definitive, but it did leave me still wondering– that much I can say.
Here are two posts, one from 2012 and one from 2021 that touch on soil moisture. If nothing else you may find them diverting. Pay attention to the in-line comments, it seems that back then there was generally more interaction between the RC group and the commentariat than you may be used to seeing.
Hi, it’s sad to see you apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.
Please do not be sad. I just strive to treat others the way how I would like to be treated. Hurting Piotr was not my object. If it happened anyway, I tried to explain how/why, and to apologize.
From your nick, I suppose that you live in Australia. If so, many greetings from the northern to the southern hemisphere!
Tom
nigeljsays
Ned Kelly “Hi, it’s sad to see you (TK) apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.”
Says the same Ned Kelly who attacks, harasses and abuses climate scientists!!!
Ned Kellysays
nigelj says
15 Mar 2024 at 1:21 PM
“Says the same Ned Kelly who attacks, harasses and abuses climate scientists!!!”
I reply – I clarify – they don’t publish.
The Truth Hurts.
Letting you know I don’t ignore you or your comments. Don’t blame me.
JCMsays
Thank you Radge Havers,
Naturally in a warming situation the equilibrium partitioning of ET should have been increasing. The opposite is so.
The production of catchment organics per acre annually has become negative, when before it was not. Only since advent of diesel machine was this made possible.
This not only affects the annual average evaporative fraction of surface flux but also correlates with increasing hydrological and temperature extremes.
It is widely accepted that heatwaves are exacerbated by dry conditions, influenced by antecedent precipitation and catchment storage characteristics.
Concerning Rahmstorf’s concept of shifting probability distributions of extremes, alongside trace gas forcing, there’s a direct impact from the annually average evaporative fraction of surface flux. This encompasses aspects of extent, magnitude, and duration, along with interactions with boundary layer processes and dynamics.
The Trenberth-style surface budget lacks closure to a precision better than 20 W/m2. This highlights significant uncertainty in flux partitioning and leaves ample room for unanticipated changes in addition to standard radiative forcing – feedback concepts. This encompasses not only radiation balances but also the associated mesoscale and synoptic dynamic effects on weather.
It’s unreasonable to overlook factors of catchment disturbance when devising a rapid attribution scheme for extreme events.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: it’s sad to see [TK] apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.
BPL: Physician, heal thyself.
Piotrsays
[ To replace the unfinished draft that somehow was sent off before being ready ]
JCM: “To Piotr: I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested.”
To JCM, I caution you to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions of other people’s arguments. “Real” was a short-hand for “ more realistic than extreme T range used by patrick and complimented by JCM”
JCM “Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.”
Explain then YOUR joining my discussion with patrick to ….discuss … one of these corrections, I quote:
JCM Mar12: “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash”
Your dismissal of this correction began only AFTER I have show that you got the sign of the above correction, and therefore your conclusion, WRONG (see: Piotr (Mar. 15) (see: Piotr (Mar. 15)
And discussion is about patrick o27 using the results of MODEL SIMULATIONS from Lague et al. 2023. A paper that … your brought to this forum, promoted it here, and described in unnecessary detail many of their numerical results.
I don’t recall you patronizingly dismissing Lague et al., patrick o27, Tomas and yourself as … “fixating on imaginary process mechanisms“. Strange …
JCMsays
To Piotr concerning a terrestrial ET hypothetical:
I think we are in agreement. However, I do not recall Dr Lague making any specific assertions about the magnitude of human caused disturbance.
While the ET cooling effect on Earthly climates is not controversial, the impact of human caused disturbance is not of interest to climate policymakers. I know this.
However, it is of keen interest to me owing to our tight relationship to catchment characteristics in our daily lives, and I understand these things through a lens of microclimates.
I hope this offers clarity within the stated rules of sticking to globally averaged climates:
Lague presents a model where a maximum global cooling effect is 8K, and a minimum cooling is 0K. This seems to be on the lower end of various estimations I’ve seen so it is conservative and quite robust using the CESM.
Being in the middle (4K) – we can assume a 50% lower than maximum ET condition. This might be something like prior to a pre-industrial state, prior to the ability for massive a deep catchment deterioration. There we have great deserts, prairie, natural forest, wetland, and so on.
Alternatively, assuming a maximum terrestrial LE is 80 W/m2 at 8K cooling, terrestrial LE is 40 W/m2 at 4K cooling (linear).
80 W/m2 is close to an equilibrium evaporation at Earthly temperatures (maximum)
40 W/m2 terrestrial ET is operating at 50% of an equilibrium rate averaged across continents.
40 W/m2 LE equivalent at 4K cooling = 10 W/m2 terrestrial LE per K.
A 1 watt per meter square average terrestrial LE makes for a 0.1K global cooling using such assumptions fixed to the range presented by Lague.
Patrick o introduced an assumed scenario that the annual average ET on a cropland parcel has been suppressed by about 1/3 compared to its undisturbed state. And he proposed this represents the condition on about 13% of the planet or something. He made no distinction about when that should be happening.
Assuming that where crops are sewn operated perhaps slightly better than the globally averaged 50% of equilibrium rate, maybe 60 W/m2 compared to a globally averaged 40 W/m2 when including the great deserts, a 1/3 reduction over time compared to an unperturbed condition (60 W/m2) makes for a resulting 40 W/m2 annually averaged on a cropland parcel.
That is a 20 W/m2 reduction, from 60 W/m2 to 40 W/m2, on 13% of the landscape for a resulting globally averaged reduction of ET 2.6 W/m2. From a globally averaged 50% of equilibrium ET to 47% of equilibrium ET after the disturbance.
This works out to about 0.2 or 0.3K globally averaged temperature change (0.26K ??). This is how I was interpreting the situation. The 1/3 factor applied by Patrick o 27 makes no distinction of when or how it’s happening in this hypothetical logical game. Certainly Lague made no discussion of this.
If you want to assume a supposed 1/3 factor when previously a cropland parcel was operating at 40 W/m2 then the resulting disturbance is 13 W/m2 annually averaged. Or a globally averaged reduction 1.7 W/m2 ET (0.17K). If you want to assume that previously a cropland parcel was uninhibited and operating at 80 W/m2 then the disturbance represents 3.5 W/m2 (0.35K) globally averaged.
I trust that your preferred preconceived outcome is not preventing you from communicating effectively.
cheers
JCMsays
PS as an additional point of clarity, and for Tomas,
The sentence ” condition on about 13% of the planet” should read 13% of the landscape.
For Piotr, if you wish to apply an irrigation factor to restore a cropland parcel to its unperturbed state I recommend a maximum 20%.
For Tomas again, even if I do not agree that such a scheme is optimal, this framework is useful to compute a desert irrigation scenario, where the hot deserts offer a great deal of potential evaporation, far exceeding the globally averaged equilibrium rate of 80 W/m2. I do not agree, in part, because it misses the multiple co-benefits of catchment stabilization in the places we actually live, in part by reducing the pronounced hydrological and temperature extremes. Additionally, while a desert irrigation scheme could conceivably offer a stabilizing effect in globally averaged temperatures, the resulting climate change would not resemble that of an unperturbed state owing to dynamical factors and otherwise.
Many thanks for your posts regarding Lague 2023. My goal was just to understand if this publication gives a hint that human interferences with water cycle may influence global climate, and my conclusion from this discussion is yes, this publication gives such a hint.
And for me, it does represent also a positive answer to the question if various modes of such interferences and their effects on local and global climate deserve further detailed studies.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
JCM 22: “To Piotr concerning a terrestrial ET hypothetical. I think we are in agreement.”
Let’s see:
1. patrick calculated effects of crops based on Lague et al. 2023
2. I pointed that he needs (at least) two corrections.
3. you joined in, saying that the 2nd correction cancels out the 1st correction – “ So it’s a wash“.
4. I have shown that you got this sign wrong, and instead cancelling the 1st correction, it would add to it.
5. To which you …. dismissed the values of …any corrections
because they apply to “ imaginary process mechanisms” (here: of Lague and used by patrick), use their arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be”, and therefore offer no insight into the real world.
So, no, I … don’t think we are in agreement.
JCM: “I do not recall Dr Lague making any specific assertions about the magnitude of human caused disturbance”
We are talking about Patrick, who used Lague’s numbers, (his 0.3K warming by replacing natural landscapes with croplands). You initially complimented his work.
That’s of course before you threw out both Lague and patrick with the bathwater – when you dismissed climate models as “ imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be”.
JCM I understand these things through a lens of microclimates.
Then in Lague you chose the worst possible vehicle for that – he said NOTHING about microclimates – the greatest detail was presenting land as distinct … from ocean. Then was your implying that Lague modelling is just imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be”, and as such – provide no insight into the “real” world.
Make up your mind, would you?
patrick o twentysevensays
“I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications” […] “– because: noting that direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T.”… …“***[although the particular nature of such forcing (including spatial-temporal distribution), etc. may cause climate changes of a different ‘shape’ distinct from GHGs …”… “so conceivably (without more knowledge) some changes caused by land management/use could be significant relative to A-GHG-CC (anthropogenic GHG-driven climate change) ”…
Correction/Amendment/Clarification: Of course, making adjustments to our land+water use to mitigate climate changes caused by said use, including through forced ET/runoff + albedo + roughness effects, etc. (tree isoprene emissions, agricultural dust, … do we have an effect on DMS?), would tend to make sense. Such changes may/could be regional/seasonal/diurnal variations in T, precipitation and ET, wind, clouds, severe weather, etc. . (regional variations in T produce regional variations in p, thus wind, thus etc.)
(Also there’s the effects of industrial aerosol emissions; often those are coproducts with CO2… anyway…)
[Note I don’t know what the magnitude of these effects are – I’ve seen some numbers for irrigation regional T but I don’t remember them offhand (PS there can be some irrigation-induced regional-seasonal warming and also drying (eg. South Asian monsoon) even if global averaged effects are opposite – I remember this from a study and news article(s) I linked to in discussion with Tomáš last – May? June maybe?), anyway, the point is I can see the possibility of this type of thing, just from 1st principles.
It would be helpful to have a model comparison of regional effects of land-use (not just irrigation) and regional AGW (A-GHG) effects.]
Sometimes these changes could add to A-GHG-CC effects (eg. possibly some regional T effects of irrigation), but some may partly cancel (eg. some regional T effects of irrigation), in which case those wouldn’t be such a concern (in isolation).
For CC, I tend to think of /believe that A-GHG-CC being/is the (much?) bigger problem overall, especially in its future potential, particularly given that CO2 builds up over time with status-quo human behavior…
(whereas I have tend to think of/ believe that non-GHG land+water use-driven CC as being more static, and to some extent, something to which we (and ecosystems???) have already adapted (distinct from other land-use issues, eg. toxicity of pesticides, etc.) – except regarding ongoing tropical deforestation???)
patrick 9 Mar: Obviously irrigation as a solution has sustainability issues if taken too far, or at least, tends to
that must be the understatement of the year – given the devastation reaped by the irrigation schemes in central Asia, rapid and often irreversible depletion of the major aquifers, diverting most of volume of major rivers like Colorado or Nile, saltification of soil in arid and semi-arid parts of the world, and massive CH4 emissions from the irrigated rice fields.
setting aside large-scale solar desalination…
if “as a solution” you mean the solution to cooling the global climate (i.e. the main subject interest of this website), why would you use the solar energy NOT to cool the Earth by reducing GHGs emissions, but to cool the Earth by increasing evaporation?
A few problem with the latter:
– irrigation does not address the cause but only one the symptoms
– the other symptoms – toxic pollution from burning of fossil fuels
and ocean acidification are not reduced, quite to the contrary – made worse by diverting the solar energy AWAY from reducing the
GHGs gasses
– using solar to reduce GHGs give the “two for the price of one” benefits – cools the Earth though reduction in GHGs, and then amplify that cooling by resulting changes in the water cycle (see the modelling by Schmidt et al. 2023, and analyses of the CERES observations). The irrigation works only on the water cycle part.
Please apologize my interference with your discussion with Patrick.
I would like to just remind both of you that in my first posts on Real Climate almost one year ago, I asked a question if combining an extensive solar energy exploitation with evaporative cooling of the involved solar cells with sea water (and subsequent deposition of the resulting salt in already existing deposits, if returning the concentrated brine back into sea might cause any undesired consequences) could positively influence the climate in arid regions and perhaps be even integrated in the inventory of tools for global climate mitigation.
It is unpleasant repeating it, however, the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr.
Best regards
Tomáš
JCMsays
great input
“land+water use-driven CC as being more static, and to some extent, something to which we (and ecosystems???) have already adapted
A few points:
1) This as a common misconception – perceived as a one-time change in boundary conditions related to LU/LC change. However, as I have previously mentioned, the catchment degradation continues. Today ongoing at a rate of around 5 tons per hectare per year soil carbon eroded. An enormous amount ongoing. Maybe it’s difficult to imagine.
While Lague’s SLIM model uses a bucket analogy, it’s better described as a sponge with decreasing capacity. By the miracle of the wilderness below our feet, the soil carbon sponge takes up water when it’s moist and releases it when it’s dry. The condition is monitored indirectly using base flows in streams and creeks. The missing sponge will look like increasing duration and depth of drought and decreasing frequency of precipitation owing to surface-atmosphere feedbacks.
In the most extreme example of an abrupt change, the concretization of the LA river catchment and riverbed resulted in zero baselow. Cool scenes from Terminator 2 were filmed in the bed of the LA river. Outside the urban areas the effective conversion of catchments to concrete via erosion of the soils to rockflour persists at a non-abrupt but ongoing and persistent rate.
2) Q: where has this static change in ET forcing been accounted for in contemporary climatology? I suppose it is somehow lumped into the uncertain feedbacks as it’s not present in summary forcing diagrams. Additionally, the systematic bias (overestimation) in both models and remote sensing retrievals of ET appear to be broadly recognized, but minimized as an issue of concern.
3) “dietary changes (duckweed Rubisco etc)”. I think this another large misconception. Reducing or eliminating the rate of catchment erosion requires no dietary change. Quite classic methods are available with almost no disruption. Simple things – avoid fallowing especially over winter; retain some intact residues and stems, minimize compaction, introduce cover crops into rotations, sample soils for nutrient loads. Allow the herd to graze and shit on that. It’s old a simple knowledge. Additionally, refrain from draining and filling the scattered residual wetland. It has its purpose; no irrigation required.
4) Restoring the soil genesis regime at large is coupled to the biodiversity targets and conservation initiatives. Nature devised everything we see above ground to feed down the below-grade flora, fauna, and to build the soil carbon sponge – it all biodegrades down. This below grade compost builds to about 10x the biomass of all the sticks above the surface. There is a concern that contemporary climatology accounts fo biosystems as the carbon sticks above grade, and seeks to introduce fast growing exotic species plantations. however, there are also campaigns against the trees so the confusion related to policy advice from climatology there is large. I think perhaps they should refrain from butchering that. Residual natural forests are sparse and practically unknown to those who live in mid latitudes. The local nature parks are almost exclusively plantation free from fungi and wildlife except in rare cases.
I am pleased the discussion has progressed to this point.
“For CC, I tend to think of /believe that A-GHG-CC being/is the (much?) bigger problem overall”
Yes, it might be the case in a relative and diffuse sense of unknown magnitude depending on your perspective and situation. From personal experience, if the well runs dry situated among the human caused unnatural desert-like rockflour base the issue is acute and the circumstances around that should be addressed as a priority in parallel to trace gas programs. Trickle-down governance directives appear to be inadequate in handling such matters and may seek a strategy to recognize that and to avoid meddling in the affairs of local community concerns.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 10: “the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr”
Unfortunately for you, your posts are a matter of public record.
– Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”
where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that:
– TK May 31: “I can imagine that the intensified water cycle could REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way.”
– TK May 30: “current hot deserts would be preferable for this”
So much for you accusing me of being a liar for saying that you proposed to replace GHG mitigation with “desert irrigation”.
Your denier’s views may garner you appreciation of your fellow travelers
(JCM: “ I thank Tomas for the ability to reason objectively”) but for me
you are a liar and a coward, who unable to your own words – accuse me
of lies about your post.
So your lack of scientific knowledge is least of your problem. If I were you I would start with looking
Until you fix your ethics, I don’t see the point of treating you as if you were a partner in a discussion.
I am aware that you have already presented those quotations from my posts as an evidence for my evil intentions. All right, I accept that this is the way how you perceive the world.
I think, however, that others may read my posts differently. They may create their own interpretations, or read them just as written. I do not know, because if I remember correctly, except you nobody else commented on these particular aspects.
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz:
“I think, however, that others may read my posts differently. They may create their own interpretations, or read them just as written. I do not know, because if I remember correctly, except you nobody else commented on these particular aspects.”
I read your posts, and I get the exact same impression as Piotr. Sorry about that.
I particularly agree with Piotr on this issue : Tomas Kalisz Mar. 10: “the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr”…..Unfortunately for you, your posts are a matter of public record…..”
Except I would not call you a denialist as such. More of a luke warmer, probably driven by conservative political ideology given some of your views.
But I do agree with you on SOME elements of the mitigation issue. There can be some common ground.
Piotrsays
Nigel Mr 12: “Except I would not call you a denialist as such.”
How else would call somebody who for almost a year pushes
one of the all-time denialist hits:
– water cycle dominates Earth climate, so why do we obsess about GHGs
– there are BETTER alternatives CANCEL the ENTIRE radiative forcing of GHGs – e.g. with evaporation
– let’s not use the existing technologies of reducing GHG emission,
because these are “brute-force” approach and
“would do more bad than good” and INSTEAD WAIT for the human ingenuity to come up with better alternatives, like the said increasing evaporation.
And how else do you call somebody who uses denialist phrase “ the so called anthropogenic warming” and then ignore the questions about that? And who systematically cherry-picks only those facts and arguments that support his denialist views?
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be Tomas Kalisz.
A couple months ago somebody brought here a definition from Wikipedia:
“Sealioning is a type of trolling that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”, and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings” Does it remind you someone?
See also Radge Havers to Tomas: “I’m about ready to categorize you as a debate-me-bro masquerading as a concern troll“.
Thank you for indicating that you perceived my Sahara example the same way as Piotr.
Let me ask still another question: Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? You do not need to reply if you think that it is an impolite question. I am just curious and would like to understand better how people perceive my inputs.
And if I have not exhausted your patience completely, still another question.
Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
Piotr,
I understand denier to mean someone who denies that we are warming the climate by burning fossil fuels. I asked TK if he accepted the greenhouse effect and that burning fossil fuels warms the climate, and he said yes to both (in a very convoluted way)
I understand luke warmer to mean someone who accepts burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, but minimises the role of burning fossil fuels in the warming, and this minimisation fits TK perfectly. Like a hand in a glove. He minimises the role of anthropogenic CO2 and maximises the water cycle. Although his position seems ever shifting like the sand dunes.
Although you are right that TK pushes (completely crazy impractical) irrigation schemes as a major way of cooling the planet, he does seem to accept a role for renewables etc, (you may not have read these posts). But again that suggests he fits the definition of lukewarmer more than full on denialist.
Of course this could all be hair splitting. Its not as if there is a crystal clear differentiation of denier and luke warmer. They are just terms of general convenience.
I understand the duck test. Apparently it was Invented by the US military. I just think the test shows TK is a luke warmer.
And I agree TK is sea lioning. And its classic textbook sea lioning. But luke warmers also do that.
—————————–
Tomas Kalisz.
“Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? ”
Yes in respect of the issue of “Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that: .”
Of course you may have made a mistake in what you really meant – but such a thing can be tidied up if you just clarify in concise, plain unambiguous language what you really mean (something you are not great at doing). You should also be prepared to admit to what you said or admit when you are wrong, or at least not go on defending the indefensible.
The problem is you make yourself look like a denier all the time with your incessant denialist talking points, and you also sometimes look dishonest and you are frequently ambiguous. When I first read your posts I thought denier and my reaction was same as Piotr. It was only later I shifted you mentally into the luke warmer category.
“Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. ”
I try to look at what people post and be civil and objective and avoid exchanges of insults and vendettas against people. If I agree with some point they make I say so. If I disagree with some other point I say so.
But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
Clearly people may also have ideological motives for their positions as well. Piotr summed it up nicely as ideological, psychological or vested interests.
” I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?”
Please see my response to Piotr directly above.
PS: I do not agree with Piotr over everything, but I cant recall him ever making a huge blunder, and I dont have time to respond to everything and I tend to concentrate on the crazy denialists claims. Its important they get rebutted, and I enjoy the mental exercise and I enjoy reading the informative technical responses.
I do not have a science degree, but I did some physical geography at university which deals with the climate basics, and I have other qualifications relevant to aspects of the climate issue and I hope I add something to discussion.
– water cycle dominates Earth climate,
– there are BETTER alternatives CANCEL the ENTIRE radiative forcing of GHGs – e.g. with evaporation,
I confess that you have undisputedly proven that I am a denialist and sea lion.
Nevertheless,
as I from the very start of my participation in this discussion ask the question if evaporatively cooled solar cells could bring a positive synergy in climate change mitigation efforts by parallel water cycle enhancement and “clean” electricity production (an existing technology which I so far considered as a way to “decarbonization” of the world economy),
I still do not understand why
1) you obsess about GHGs in the extent that you refuse that water cycle is also an important component of Earth climate regulation,
2) you assert that I propose not using the existing technologies.
It is true that I assigned many other decarbonization policies as a “brute-force” approach that
“would do more bad than good”, however, I am not the single person that doubts about feasibility of pushing economically incompetitive technologies such as massive nuclear energy exploitation based on hopelessly inefficient PWR technology, natural gas replacement with hydrogen or economically senseless and environmentally destructive biomass exploitation. And I have not proposed to WAIT for the human ingenuity to come up with better alternatives, like the said increasing evaporation, but I proposed to start without any further unnecessary delay with exploiting all existing but yet ignored options, such as already existing but yet commercially unavailable technology for cheap electricity storage in sodium.
As regards the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming”, I hoped that you might forgive me that as I already admitted that it was quite unfortunate. I see and accept that a convicted denialist does not deserve any mercy, and have a single wish:
Could you do me the (last) favour and explain to the interested public (JCM and patrick o twentyseven), why you think that the difference between dividing by 510 and dividing by 127 is “hair splitting” (see my previous post of 10 Mar 2024 at 1:31 PM,
and that you, actually, interpret the article exactly opposite to the conclusion provided by its authors.
Greetings
Tomáš
Killiansays
negligent said But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
How hypocritically impotent do you have to be to be picking a fight with someone via ad hom attacks with zero substance who has spent virtually no time on these fora for a solid year or better? And lie about it all to boot? I’m nasty? Hmmm…. The above tells the true tale.
No better than when I pulled back my level of participation here. People like you have driven so many from these fora. Get your ego out of our problem-solving.
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš Kalisz
You wrote: “I confess that you have undisputedly proven that I am a denialist and sea lion.”
I suspect you don’t understand what it is that you are (or dismissively pretend to be) admitting to. Still, hold on to that thought.
JCMsays
Left to total freedom (freedom from forced suppression), the global interconnected dynamics of carbon, hydrology, climate, and vegetation tend to coalesce and progress towards a state of sustained moisture cycling.
Consequently, the average of climates experience a cooling trend alongside an increase in terrestrial moisture availability, as previously outlined specifically in the work by Dr. Pin-hsin Hu, and demonstrated using a state-of-the-art model by Lague. That is what Earth has been doing since forever.
Forced change in water recycling from the landscape (human caused suppression) is critical to the energy balance and global energy budgets. The factors of the energy budget closure remain large, due in-part to the diverse range of estimated evapotranspiration rates.
Contemporary teaching chooses to frame the controls on ET variation as arising exclusively from the climates themselves i.e. i) temperature ii) precipitation and iii) radiation. But that is plainly absurd considering the interconnected dynamics of the system. These two-way dynamics should be on the curriculum of any Earth System concept from day one.
Recognizing the earth system energy budget constraints within the current framework of forcings and feedbacks – and the massive knowledge gaps in the factors involved in closing the balance – it is simple to conclude that people who actively reject the significance of moisture or opt to discuss anything but that when characterizing climates display an extreme bias.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JCM: Contemporary teaching chooses to frame the controls on ET variation as arising exclusively from the climates themselves i.e. i) temperature ii) precipitation and iii) radiation.
BPL: Please cite a source from a climate science textbook that says ET variation can only arise from those three factors. Even I can think of another one, at least on a local scale: Wind velocity.
JCMsays
to BPL – about the winds.
the distinction is analytical energy balance closure vs process based approaches.
In energy balance the interannual variations in ET are controlled by potential evaporation (temperature), surface available energy (solar radiation), and water availability (limitation).
For ocean, actual evaporation follows the equilibrium evaporation which is temperature limited.
Land is more tricky owing to the diurnal variation in surface available energy (solar) and variations in moisture availability.
This simplifies the inherent complexities in land surface exchange.
Recognizing the nature of turbulent flux and the atmospheric heat transport in circulation (latent heat), wind isn’t free in energy balance. However, wind is definitely involved in explicit process based computation schemes such as GCM style models.
Of course wind is critical to practical applications relating to weather variation. Irrigationists are intimately familiar with that in required daily calculations, although a lot is being automated. Priestley–Taylor mode works best if your monitoring is sparse. Penman needs more sensor input.
Piotrsays
JCM To Piotr, yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between.
Thank you, Captain Obvious, for restating what I already pointed out to Patrick. However, you are still missing the point I made on Mar 15 to YOU: the corrections for cropland not being like a desert nor like swamp DO NOT CANCEL each other out, as you have claimed with your [enter here my best rendition of Admiral Ackbar’s voice]: “It’s a wash”!
T sum up:
patrick calculation of the effect of crops via reducing of ET – the global warming 0.3K, is a serious OVERESTIMATE of the real effect of crops – since the actual number would be a fraction of that 0.3K. So rather than being an important “contribution”, it is:
– too small to matter (likely within the uncertainty range of climate model it uses)
– and ignoring the opposite effect of the cropland irrigation,
which cools the Earth by increasing ET.
Patrick, come to accept it (I think) – you (JCM) – have not.
For the point-by-point explanation where your went wrong – see my post to which you are “replying”.
JCMsays
To Piotr:
I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested. Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.
If it helps you to move on, your logics on the binary 1/3 2/3 issue appear to be accurate. Not desert when off and not swamp when on. An increasingly degraded catchment expresses its perturbed state at any time and does not follow arbitrary distinctions. A total downshift relative to its unperturbed state. I think patrick o was just providing an initial kick at the can guesstimate. I like the fractional logics but maybe applied instead spatially to soil/veg per unit area cropland parcel, E vs T partition, etc in order to capture the impact of widespread and ongoing catchment process degradation.
PS
you emphasize the “effect of the cropland irrigation which cools the Earth by increasing ET”
Yes, the stabilizing ET aspect in Earthly climates is the exact phenomenon you’ve been ideologically against.
The concept is repeated in each new summary review of knowledge in ET and climates, such as from:
A review of global terrestrial evapotranspiration: Observation, modeling, climatology, and climatic variability https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011RG000373
“The cooling effect of λE is so large that the Northern Hemisphere would be 15°–25°C warmer [Shukla and Mintz, 1982] if terrestrial λE were assumed to be zero.”
“On average, terrestrial λE uses approximately three fifths of Rn, with estimates from different models varying from 48% to 88% [Trenberth et al., 2009].”
This is old and classic knowledge and your perspective about irrigation does not align with the scale of the human footprint. The vast majority of disrupted catchment regions are not irrigated including cropland parcels and otherwise. Irrigated crop parcels are quite limited in space with limited timing of implementation throughout the year. This does not provide a compensation of 90% missing wetland, profound soil degradation, catchment drainage, pillaging, and concretization.
Piotrsays
Tomas MAR 13 As regards the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming”, I hoped that you might forgive me that as I already admitted that it was quite unfortunate
Hint – yours meets none of them. You don’t USE the deniers phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” by accident.
No more than calling a Black person the N-word and then claiming that you would never think of Black people in these terms. Particularly, if you have been known to repeat and defend various racist theories. In such a case, a slip of the tongue tells us more about the real you than all the denials how you didn’t mean what you posted after the fact.
And without honestly acknowledging your actions, how can you learn anything about yourself, and based on this, change ?
Life unexamined is not worth living.
Unfortunately, the exchange splitted into several parallel threads. Thus, you might have missed my seriously meant apology for using the word “deliberately” in our exchange about my old posts regarding so called “desert irrigation”. It appeared in my post of 14 Mar 2024 at 8:58 AM,
Please look at this older post. I am sorry that I hurt you, it was not my intention.
I hope that my use of the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” has not hurt you personally as well, has it? If so, I would like to apologize too, hurting you was not my intention.
Remark:
I have not expected that being a denialist might be seen equivalent to being a racist. Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, maybe ridiculous, however acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.
Greetings
Tom
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 19: “I hope that my use of the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” has not hurt you personally as well, has it?”
Don’t infantilize the discussion. It’s not about “hurt personal feelings” – but what the phrase “ the so called anthropogenic warming” used by the deniers to question the reality of the global and the human responsibility – tells us about you. By their fruits, not their assurances, you shall know them.
As for your accusations toward me of deliberately manipulating your words, which I have PROVEN (quoting your May3o and May 31 posts) was a boldface LIE, your half-ass “apology” doesn’t come even close to a real apology.
For one – you didn’t learn anything about yourself – without taking full responsibility – there is no way to ask yourself what made you go wrong, and what you should do differently in the future. So don’t waste my time with your fake-apologies.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
TK: Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, maybe ridiculous, however acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.
BPL: Except that that belief is not harmless. Global warming denial bids fair to topple our civilization by preventing any social action to mitigate the damage.
Piotrsays
JCM: “To Piotr: I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested.”
To JCM, I caution you to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions of other people’s arguments. “Real” was a short-hand for “more realistic than extreme T range used by patrick and complimented by JCM”
JCM “ Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.”
Explain then YOUR joining my discussion with patrick to ….discuss … one of these corrections, I quote:
JCM Mar12: “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash
Your dismissal of these correction began only AFTER I have proven that you got the sign of the correction you were discussing, and therefore your conclusion WRONG- Piotr (Mar. 15).
And discussion is about patrick o27 using the results of model simulation from Lague et al. 2023. A paper that … your brought to this forum, promoted it here, and described in painful detail many (most?) of their numerical results, and apparently thought that their extreme simulations still offered valuable, quantitative, insight into the real word.
Now turns out
instead of ridiculing Lague et al. and all the people who referred to them as
of imaginary process mechanisms” offer . How biz
though that
Strange that you didn’t mention you contempt to that paper and his authors, particularly that it was you who brought that Lague 2023 paper to this forum and posted pages fill the numbers and symbols from that
“ imaginary process mechanisms ” paper
frequently referred to in support your opinions.
Somehow I don’t recall you dismissing Lague 2023 as a bunch of “ imaginary process mechanisms ” having nothing to tell us about reality.
So when OTHER people make corrections to make model estimates more realistic – you lecture them patronizingly – when YOU did the same and messed up i the process (proved your ignorance by getting the sign wrong) – that’s … all OK? ;-)
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš,
I have not expected that being a denialist might be seen equivalent to being a racist. Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, maybe ridiculous, however acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.
This has been discussed here ad nauseam. So, for instance, do you think anti-vax denialism is some sort of harmless religion?
To get you started, an oldie but goodie from the denialism blog
(now on the Wayback Machine because Seed/Science Blogs is long defunct):
Tomas Kalisz: TK: “Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.”
Personal belief in fairies can’t harm others. Denialism can- by trying to discredit science and delay meaningful action on climate change you make the climatic catastrophe more likely and more extreme: not only through the direct death from weather extremes, but mainly – by degrading the civilization-supporting systems, most prominently food production: if you family dies of hunger – everything that makes the civilization – laws, economy, technology, ethics – collapses. And without civilization – instead of 8+ bln people – there may be space on Earth for a few 100 mln. Thus the blood of billions will be on your and other denialist hands. By their fruits you shall know them.
That’s why comparing you to a racist, if anything, was unfair to racists.
patrick o twentysevensays
re my: …”runoff from solar panels/plants could be concentrated into neighboring land in semiarid zones for agricultural usage. The total ET of the larger region should be unchanged“… or not…
JCMsays
“currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”
for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash. It’s not a binary thing anyway. The soils are quicker to dry, and rooting depth does not resemble the native species. The ET, which has no choice but to operate at the limit, has a decreasing cap.
Illinois in May 2023 with >50% of field areas missing soil organic matter and showing its bare naked subsoils in the mottling. Every hectare featuring drains with fashionable buffer strips. notice the wind turbines which are promised to stabilize the wells. https://www.google.ca/maps/@40.9575452,-88.2402589,1742m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
While the increasingly recognized practical interventions are wide ranging and highly localized, pressure to produce is increasing with diminishing margins and with increasing input and operational costs prescribed in-part for trace gas initiatives. This is somewhat counter productive from a stewardship stance. Irrespective of the interventions, the existing factors of change must first be appreciated before a reasonable environmental framework can be devised for politics or teaching.
I think somehow the scale of the ongoing change is under represented in numerical climate accounting schemes. The decreasing evaporative fraction of surface flux is well recognized, however few models can capture the absolute change in ET. To understand that and to avoid overlooking it requires more boots on the ground and less reliance on spacecraft.
Piotrsays
After, “quoting” my: “currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”
JCM Mar12, comes with his “but”:
“for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash”
“It’s NOT a wash”, My dear Watson- because the 2nd correction does not cancel but ADDS to the 1st one. Which I had already included in post you comment on.
Or if you prefer symbolic notation:
Piotr: accounting for “A” reduces the effect of crops, and accounting for “B” reduces it further
JCM: … but “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside ” there is also… “A” which cancels the effect of B, so overall “ it’s a wash“.
No it isn’t – you go the signs wrong – A adds to B, not subtract from it. If you still don’t get it, let me put it this way:
1. If all land was a desert, the GMST would be higher by 7-8K than
if all the land was a swamp.
2. Patrick estimated the effect of crops on GMST to be +0.3K, assuming a decrease in evaporation: for 1/3 of the year (fallow season) 12.6% of land ice-free area that is under crops will behave like a 100% desert (i.e. 0 ET) (for the remaing 2/3 of the year it will behave like a swamp):
c) To which I pointed that it is an overestimation – since the actual range of T is narrower than that between desert and swamp
– cropland in 2/3 of year doesn’t have the 100% of ET of a swamp
– cropland in 1/3 of year is not like a 100% desert (with 0 ET)
Let’s call these corrections x and y, respectively. So instead eq. 1 we get:
Hence Patrick’s eq. (1) overestimates real ΔGMST (eq. 2) by
(x+y)*1/3*12.6%.
Compare this with JCM’s claimed that y CANCELS OUT x , thus
the net effect of both corrections is ~zero (JCM: “ So it’s a wash“)
To sum up – JCM reinvented the wheel (since I introduced the Ts correction before him), and got his wheel … wrong (since correction to Ts does not cancel, but ADDS TO the correction to Td).
Well, I can’t say I am surprised – I have come to expect from JCM that level of comprehension, logic. arithmetic skills, and humility. ;-)
JCMsays
To Piotr,
yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between. This is true with or without introducing a relentless and overwhelming suppression of natural process. The ongoing disruption is occurring 100% of time, not 1/3. As I have stressed many times before, you will not grasp these insights through a screen or indulging in mental games. The highly degraded and unnatural catchment characteristics persist regardless of your drifting arguments. Having actively removed yourself as an ally in direct climate stabilization, I recommend to abstain from the distortions and extreme bias. The driving force your present is nothing more than tenacious contempt for a perceived enemy. Your ongoing crude and widely drifting arguments are flimsy and distract from advancing your own interest in climates.
Caption of fig 9, emphasis mine: “Figure 9. Change in global (solid), land (hatched), and ocean (dotted) annual mean top of atmosphere (TOA) fluxes for DesertLand–SwampLand. The breakdown of toa flux changes due to shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation are shown. Panel (a) shows the changes in toa shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes decomposed using the radiative kernel into the contributions due to water vapor, atmospheric temperatures, surface temperatures, cloud cover, and surface albedo (i.e. snow changes). Panel (b) combines the fluxes into those driven by the cloud-free atmosphere and Plank response (air temperature, water vapor, and surface temperature), those driven by clouds, and surface albedo.”…
Global: (W/m² inferred from text) from 9a:
dSWdCloud -14.8 , dLWdCloud 2.0 ; sum -12.8
dLWdQ: -6.0 , dSWdQ -1.5 ; sum -7.5
dSWdSnowAlb -1.6
Sum dCloud+dQ+dSnowAlb: -21.9
dLWdT(T atm inferred) 15.8 , dLWdTs (T sfc inferred) 5.8 ; sum 21.6 (ie., TOA flux changes due to surface and atmospheric temperatures are both positive outgoing.)
Net TOA -0.3
“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.” last sentence before section 3.2.2.
While I have skipped and maybe skimmed some parts up to this point (end of sec 3.2.1), I feel confident in asserting that the 0.3 W/m² of fig 9 is the same 0.3 W/m² mentioned in section 2, and is not the forcing. I’m not sure that the effective instanteous/? forcing would be ≈ cloud effect (global or over land?) because feedbacks to ΔT can include cloud changes; I would consider the slopes of dT/dt (DesertLand – SwampLand) of SST, land and atmosphere, multiplied by effective heat capacities, near the beginning of the ET-forcing, to ascertain an effective TOA radiant forcing… but anyway, it may seem like a moot point, given that you accept that Lague et al state ~ 8 K ≈ ΔGMST (DesertLand – SwampLand), but it is an instance where JCM seems (unless I missed something in what JCM asserted) to have been ahead of you in understanding. (PS I was on the path toward this judgement before any ‘buttering up’ took place.)
(Equilibrium is approached as the energy imbalance decays, via response fluxes (includes Planck response, other feedbacks) increasingly ‘canceling’ the applied (change in) forcing (wherein positive feedbacks reduce the response and negative feedbacks add to it). – https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819623 – I expect you know this but I wanted to restate it here; sometimes I say things not because I assume the people I am responding to don’t know it but, just in case they, or others, don’t, or just because it’s a worthwhile point to make; I guess you do this as well…)
Piotrsays
JCM To Piotr, yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between.
Thank you, Captain Obvious, for restating what I already pointed out to Patrick. However, you are still missing the point I made on Mar 15 to YOU: the corrections for cropland not being like a desert nor like swamp DO NOT CANCEL each other out, as you have claimed with your [enter here my best rendition of Admiral Ackbar’s voice]: “It’s a wash”!
T sum up:
patrick calculation of the effect of crops via reducing of ET – the global warming 0.3K, is a serious OVERESTIMATE of the real effect of crops – since the actual number would be a fraction of that 0.3K. So rather than being an important “contribution”, it is:
– too small to matter (likely within the uncertainty range of climate model it uses)
– and ignoring the opposite effect of the cropland irrigation,
which cools the Earth by increasing ET.
Patrick, come to accept it (I think) – you (JCM) – have not.
For the point-by-point explanation where your went wrong – see my post to which you are “replying”.
Piotrsays
patrick o 27: 16 MAR “ Your point is correct here, assuming JCM meant what you thought he did, or otherwise taken without that context.”
The ONLY assumption I made was that JCM responded to my argument. Without this assumption – there is no discussion. And within it, I proved the fault in JCM’s reasoning. Specifically:
– the correction for the cropland during 2/3 having less ET than swamp does not cancel the correction for cropland during the remaining 1/3 of year having more ET than a desert, as JCM claimed (“It’s a wash”), but being of the same sign – the two corrections ADD to each other INSTEAD.
I haven’t seen you or JCM disproving the above argument. So …. why would you caveat your saying that JCM was wrong with leaving the possibility that I … misunderstood? misrepresented? JCM, and took his words out of context???
Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
I’ve never said that. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
Patrick: and you’ve never been wrong:
I’ve never said that either, so no need to break down the doors nobody locked.
Huh? What has my post from February on a entirely different subject (interpretation of different TOA energy fluxes) has to do with current discussion (your use of the GMST differences to assess the impact of crops)?
It is hard enough to keep JCM’s attention on the subject as it is; you bringing up an unrelated topic – does not help.
And if you have a case of d’esprit d’escalier and want to relitigate past discussions – reply to the original posts, NOT to the post on a different topic.
patrick o twentysevensays
re Piotr
“I haven’t seen you or JCM disproving the above argument. So …. why would you caveat your saying that JCM was wrong with leaving the possibility that I … misunderstood? misrepresented? JCM, and took his words out of context???”
No, I meant that the important part of what you wrote can be understood without the context of JCM’s comment.
And sometimes I think it’s a good idea to try to find a true or logical interpretation of what someone says if the most obvious interpretation doesn’t make sense.
“Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
I’ve never said that. ”
So what’s with: “Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )” , and from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819771 “(The ability to regurgitate Lague’s numbers, formulas, and jargon – does not confer the credibility on the regurgitator, nor translate into knowing what Lague results mean for his own (JCM’s) claims.)”
It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours) within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.** I’ll give you that it seems a bit glitchy in the ‘ocean heat uptake’ time zone. But maybe just tone down the insults, at least in the first time zone – it looks bad.
“Huh? What has my post from February on a entirely different subject […]And if you have a case of d’esprit d’escalier and want to relitigate past discussions – reply to the original posts, NOT to the post on a different topic.”
As I see it, this is the principal March edition of the Lague et al. 2023 thread, which was initiated by your response to my comment that was in part a response to your erroneous response to JCM. I had intended to come back to this point for a while; I didn’t realize this was a timed test.
On to more substantive matters:
As I understand it, JCM suggests/asserts that direct, or near-direct, effects of land+water use, on ET, including via soil degradation in established agricultural land, significantly contributes to climate change and also changes ECS to other forcings – eg. A-non H₂O-GHGs.
As I see it, the effect (of ET effects of land+water use), on GMS(A)T is likely small; regionally it may be larger – I’ve read as much for irrigation effect on T, although that is not the main concern here(?) – as for regional effects of ET suppression on T and hydrology? Qualitatively it sounds plausible. I would like to see an attempt at quantifying it. JCM has provided some links – I haven’t gotten around to reading most of them …
(but I have skimmed the Kleidon paper, and read more closely the first two examples (horizontal heat flow and vertical convection) – I skimmed the first part because I already knew it)
…; It’s not clear any of them specifically consider soil quality. For JCM – can you specifically point to such a study (or any study quantifying land-use/cover ET effects)? (Hopefully the distinct regional-seasonal-diurnal?/etc. fingerprint is distinct from CO2+CH4+… and aerosol effects, land use/cover albedo effects, etc.)
Qualitatively, it also makes sense that a tropospheric temperature profile with a thicker near-surface layer with dry convection would increase ECS through reducing the negative lapse rate feedback, but, although without doing any math on the matter, I’d expect this is a rather insignificant effect of direct land-use/cover/soil quality/quantity changes.
Piotrsays
Patrick 22 MAR “ No, I meant that the important part of what you wrote can be understood without the context of JCM’s comment.
If you really meant to accept my point as “correct” WITHOUT the context of JCM comment“, WHY would you then …. build up your post on …. my response to the JCM, write “ Your point is correct here, assuming JCM meant what you thought he did“, and follow with: “ It’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong ” ???
That’s … a lot of JCM references for a post NOT referring to JCM.
– Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
– Piotr: “I’ve never said that. ”
Patrick Mar.22: “ So what’s with: “Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )”
“ twice a day” or even more rarely – is NOT “never“.
Patrick Mar.22: “ It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours) ”
The proof is in the pudding. Not to look far – see how “fine” was JCM ‘s argument here:
Patrick: “As I understand it, JCM suggests/asserts that direct, or near-direct, effects of land+water use, on ET, including via soil degradation in established agricultural land, significantly contributes to climate change
to which you (Patrick) have shown that conversion of natural landscapes (mostly – forests) to croplands, EVEN if using EXTREME envelope conditions (i.e., difference between desert and a swampland ET), produced … only a small ΔGMST=0.3C warming.
Furthermore, I pointed out that even this small 0.3C warming is a MAXIMUM effect – in reality, the cropland is not as dry as a desert during 1/3 of a year, not as wet as a swamp during 2/3 of that year – hence after the corrections for both – ΔGMST(crops) would become only a FRACTION of that 0.3C calculated from the desert – swamp difference.
And on top of all that, agricultural irrigation by increasing ET instead of decreasing it, would FURTHER counter that “fraction of 0.3C warming”,
making it even smaller or actually making it into a small net cooling.
A fraction of of a fraction of a 0.3C or even slight cooling – is NOT a significant contribution to AGW.
JCM tried to defend your +0.3C – by claiming that the non-swamp correction would cancel out the non-desert correction – but since your estimate of ΔGMST was proportional to the difference between desert and swamps,
the correction to the swap term further reduces, not increases ΔGMST, hence has the effect opposite to his conclusion: ” so it’s a wash”.
Unable to defend his getting the sign of the correction wrong, JCM decided
to discredit … making corrections at all, in the process discrediting modelling in general, by describing it as “ imaginary process mechanisms” that applies arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be” and therefore
offers no insight into the real world. Unfortunately to him, by doing so he discredit the value of his own source – the modelling by Lague et al. 2023,
as well as the work JCM supported – YOUR “0.3C” on the numbers from Lague
numbers), so by extension was guilty of the same.
” It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours)“, eh? ;-)
patrick o twentysevensays
Re “If you really meant to accept my point as “correct” WITHOUT the context of JCM comment“, WHY would you then”…
“ The proof is in the pudding. Not to look far – ”…“to discredit … making corrections at all, in the process discrediting modelling in general,”…
I haven’t digested all of what JCM said in that regard, and I believe he’s made some errors, and I wonder if he’s not attributing some portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects to more direct agricultural effects (but I don’t know) – and I should add I started to consider that maybe regional ΔECS effects might be bigger(??) (my expectation of insignificance was made more with GMS(A)T in mind) … but which ‘time zone’ does this fit in?
Emphasis added:
“It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine” […] “within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.**”
In our chat it could easily be overlooked that the greatest magnitude of a parcel disturbance is occurring when the sun is most intense. Previously I used an annually averaged equilibrium concept which could be misleading … More than half the time the ET is practically zero (at night; winter) – conversely, during a day in summer the potential is peaking at many 100s of Wm-2 (600-1000 W/m2??). It’s during these times the disturbance is most pronounced. This goes without saying, or so I thought.
Disappeared wetland (or evaporative fraction) means the largest relative magnitude of suppression is occurring at the worst time. The swamp still missing when it’s hot is what’s especially essential.
From the review of Huryna and Pokorny, a few remarks on local and regional process mechanisms is offered to add some flavor in our discussion:
“”””Conversion of natural to agricultural fields changes land surface characteristics, which lead to redistribution of surface energy components (Esau and Lyons 2002). ..
More than 51 % (45.9 x 10^6 ha) of the total area of wetland has been replaced by cropland in the USA since Presettlement (Mitsch and Hernandez 2013). … about 400 W·m−2 has thus been shifted from latent to sensible heat flux for days with the highest solar irradiance (Huryna et al. 2014). Thereby, we can assume that more than 175,000 GW of energy has been converted into sensible heat in the territory of the USA …
Hurtt et al. (2006) suggested that 42–68 % of global land surfaces have been modified by land-use practices since 1700.””””
JCMsays
Recognizing the daunting complexity of land surface process models, it’s useful to have an analytical framework to explore such issues. Below is a diurnal thermodynamic discussion, with an example provided using the different climate sensitivities of land v ocean (here): https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/8/849/2017/esd-8-849-2017.pdf
The key difference being that the oceanic diurnal variation in solar radiation is buffered in sub surface mixed layer storage change, whereas for landscapes the diurnal variation of solar is buffered in the lowest atmosphere. During the day the formation of the turbulent boundary layer completes the storage change. This instability drives turbulent flux with dry convection promoting a deepening of the boundary layer. This results in a greater lapse rate that is closer to the dry adiabatic one; so lands in general are deemed to be more sensitive than ocean surface, with drying ones increasingly so.
Kleidon groupie Ghausi applied the framework to discuss thermodynamic limits, such as landscape moisture availability (water limitation factor), to turbulent flux, radiative controls, temperature, and cloud in a global perspective of landscapes. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2220400120
“Using satellite observations for cloudy and clear-sky conditions, we show that clouds cool the land surface over humid regions by up to 7 K, while in arid regions, this effect is absent due to the lack of clouds. We conclude that radiation and thermodynamic limits are the primary controls on LSTs and turbulent flux exchange which leads to an emergent simplicity in the observed climatological patterns within the complex climate system.”
Bear in mind additionally the ongoing issue in surface energy budget closure, with a generic blind spot still in the range of 20 W/m2. This represents a current inability to quantitatively discern change in such factors to a resolution better than ~2K. Nevertheless, an analytical framework presents the opportunity to infer effects based on observable energy budget constraints, provided we avoid artificially confining perspective.
Piotrsays
Patrick: “ I wonder if [JCM] is not attributing some portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects to more direct agricultural effects”
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand:
1. you used the model of Lague 2023 to calculate
the ΔGMST due to replacement of forests wit cropland
2. I responded that you needed two major corrections,
3. JCM joined in to claim that the 2nd correction will cancel the 1st one. No mention of “portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects“.
4. I have shown that JCM got the sign of that correction, and therefore his conclusion, wrong.
5. JCM, unable to disprove 4 … lectured that we shouldn’t do corrections at all, because the climate modelling (like Lague’s and your use of it) – are just “ imaginary process mechanisms that apply arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be” according to the model authors, and therefore offer no insight into the real world.
To evaluate logical and intellectual value of JCM contribution does not require knowing whether
he “ attributed [or not] some portion CO2+etc. and /or aerosol effects” to the climate modelling that he subsequently dismissed as “imaginary process mechanisms“.
Patrick: “ It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine” […] “within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.”
First, don’t mix other man’s metaphors (broken clock being right twice a day, is NOT about … getting the time zone right).
Second, how your saying that JCM may be right “in Lague time zone” proves your accusation that I claimed that … JCM has ALWAYS been wrong and I have ALWAYS been right?
Third, why would you say that JCM “works well” in Lague modelling context – when I have just shown that he does not know what the model works (he got the correction – completely WRONG), and when, unable to admit it, he threw the climate modelling under the bus – dismissed it as just “ imaginary process mechanisms that apply arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be” according to the model authors and as such, offering no insight into the real world?
And after all that you still stand by your:
“ It seems to me that JCM’s [understanding of climate models] works fine (maybe better than yours) ” ?
Clarification – I used the phrase “it’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong” as a sort of admonishment (the numerical values of times wrong or correct are beside the point) – I believe JCM was correct about Lague et al 2023’s fig. 9 (although it’s possible I missed some of what he’s said – it’s easier for me to keep track of my own understanding of fig. 9) and your rebuttal was erroneous and included the phrase “Aga-baga?”, and you never acknowledged your error while continuing to insult JCM’s intellect (which IMO is significantly better than a broken clock), and that just bothered me.
When I first posted my 0.3 calc, I was trying to show
1. It was likely a small fraction… (to T.K.),
2. …of a large potential (to you)
– I failed at 1. because I lacked information; on 2., I was hoping you would reevaluate your interpretation of fig. 9 upon seeing the 6.8 K (but actually, ~ 8 K) value.
You also incorrectly corrected my ~ 0.3 K calculation (given guessed input parameter) twice and then wrote it off as hair splitting when I pointed out your error. – of course, there were two errors (guessed input parameter, and the 6.8 K should have been ~ 8 K) – but –
-I intended for anyone with knowledge on the matter to offer corrections there, which may have been what JCM was referring to when he (or she or they – it occurs to me that I don’t know) said you misunderstood my contribution, or something to that effect.
– do you agree with my interpretation of fig 9?
Piotrsays
Patrick: “ Clarification – I used the phrase “it’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong” as a sort of admonishment”
No need for the clarification – I got your intention the first time – my only question was, why admonish me by …. attributing to me arrogant, and easy to show wrong, claims that I have never made?
Patrick: “ I believe JCM was correct about Lague et al 2023’s fig. 9″
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand – your admonishment wasn’t after the discussion of Fig.9, but after my post showing that JCM got the sign of the correction, and therefore his conclusion about your estimates of the effect of the crops, wrong.
In symbolic notation, (“A” and “X” are disjoint sets)
– Piotr: JCM got “A” completely wrong
– patrick; It’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong, I believe he was correct about “X”
And the final irony – your reference to JCM being right about Fig. 9 from Lague may have come … too late:
– JCM, unable to show that he got the correction right – threw the baby (Lague et al. 2023) with the bathwater (the correction) – by calling the correction, and by extension, Lague model, “ imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be” and “cautioned” us that they offer no insight into the real world.
So your compliments for JCM on getting correct …. what he now dismisses as “ imaginary process mechanisms” no longer carries the same weight. ;-)
zebrasays
Housekeeping Question/Request:
Is there any way to increase the number of Recent Comments shown?
Last month Gavin asked for input on plug-ins; can anyone familiar with the blog technology address this particular mechanism?
Someone played by the rules and posted a new comment on the “Not just…. part II” thread, which was interesting to me, but could easily have been buried by the usual addicted suspects who are not following Gavin’s request to limit their comments.
It’s the simplest fix I can think of to allow both regulars and visitors to follow topics of interest and avoid what they consider repetitive and time-wasting. Thanks in advance.
OK, I have a climate question as well, but I’m going to…. wait… until… tomorrow… or maybe even longer!!. (Gosh, I hope I can stand the pain of withdrawal.)
The foundational feedback concepts are usually assigned as essential reading in any introductory course. No mediation should be required.
In the desert minus swamp simulation diagram, the LW radiative response is caused by the climate change (positive upward).
The increased solar absorption in desertland is compensated by a temperature increase in equilibrium. The radiative response is linearly proportional to the temperature change. This is the same foundational principle used in any energy balance scheme.
17.9 W/m2 higher solar absorbed in desertland is balanced by a 15.6 W/m2 temperature radiative response (Planck – wv) and 2 W/m2 LW high cloud feedback to ET forcing. (to within 0.3 W/m2)
For interest we can decompose some of the temperature dependent feedbacks.
Figure 9 gives a surface + atmosphere Planck difference of + 5.8 + 15.8 = 21.6 W/m2; Desertland is much hotter.
The water vapor feedback difference is -6 W/m2 (I assume that’s water vapor + lapse rate effect). More water vapor in desertland.
These temperature dependent feedbacks are net 21.6 – 6 = +15.6 W/m2 LW (out) in desertland compared to swampland. That is the stabilizing Planck response to higher temperature and the water vapor feedback in equilibrium.
Reducing LW cloud effect (high cloud ET forcing feedback) gives another +2 LW out, for a total + 17.6 W/m2 LW out in desertland compared to swampland.
This balances the total increased solar absorbed = -17.9 W/m2 (to within 0.3 W/m2).
17.9 W/m2 less SW out in desertland is balanced by a 15.6 W/m2 temperature radiative response (Planck – wv) and 2 W/m2 LW out cloud feedback. (to within 0.3 W/m2)
Patrick o 27’s ΔT = 6.8K puts Planck feedback around 21.6/6.8 = λp 3.2 W/m2 per K
The water vapor effect difference dQLW is listed at -6 W/m2, which puts λwv+lr at combined -0.9 W/m-2 per K. Total column water vapor was listed as 1.10kg / K (higher where it’s warmer in deserland). Bounding by low end values for water vapor + lapse rate factors, taken from Soden and Held (2006), gives an estimate -1.5 W/m2/K λwv + 0.6 W/m2/K λlapse rate. Lague seems to bundle these terms and could have been more explicit about that instead of simply labelling it dQ.
In summary, the all sky TOA LW equilibrium radiative response caused by the ET forced climate change (positive upward; Desertland – Swampland; hotter) is composed of:
These concepts are foundational to practically all aspects of contemporary climate change discourse. Anyone actively butchering that should deemed unreliable on any other aspect of the climate system, regardless of their passion for the subject.
Revisiting the El Nino-ASI connection I posited in 2015, accurately, and which was upheld by the 2020 low following the weak 2019 EN (though I think that was about system change more so than that small EN), we now face not only an El Nino, but a general global massive jump in temperatures, sometimes hitting 6 sigma anomalies. We’ve crossed 1.5C on a trailing average and, so far as I know, remain there.
Predicting low ASI extent at this point seems pretty obvious, but given I predicted it once the 2nd straight La Nina showed up, if we get a new low or near new low in ’24~25, it will be the 2nd time I’ve predicted such conditions a year or more before it happened.
Is anyone on board with this now-clear pattern yet?
So now we have an ENSO effect being noted at both poles.
Still need convincing?
John Pollacksays
I’m not on board with the particular connection between an El Nino and low Arctic sea ice extent. This winter is actually a counter-example. We have the strongest El Nino since 2015, while the last three winters were La Nina. However, the maximum ice extent last winter, as reported by NSIDC, was significantly lower than this winter. The other two winters look slightly lower than this year. That’s assuming we’ve reached maximum sea ice extent for the winter.
Same for the Antarctic; last austral summer was lower than this year.
I’m only saying that this doesn’t look like a useful predictive tool separate from the overall decline in sea ice as the world warms.
This metric is really a measure of accumulated heat during the winter season, so the greater the heat the less ice builds up and the quicker it disappears in spring. It’s also an objectively discrete observation — the ice can stretch across the lake one day and be completely gone the next. The interesting stat for many of the lakes in Minnesota is the role that the El Nino of 1878 plays in the record books. The earliest ice-out on Lake Minnetonka occurred on March 10, 1878. Same year for Lake Osakis, which is almost 100 miles north. These are both indicated on the RC post linked above.
I’m not certain whether the Lake Minnetonka ice-out date will beat the record this year. It may be close. Yet, it is worth pondering that it took almost 150 years of AGW plus an El Nino leading to a strong warming spike to even rival the impact of the 1878 El Nino. (BTW, I didn’t even set foot on lake ice this winter).
“After an unusually warm winter in Minnesota, Lake Minnetonka was poised to break an over 100-year record for earliest ice out on the lake but fell short.
The earliest ice out date on record for Lake Minnetonka is March 11, 1878, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
“It appears as though the record will not be broken this year,” Pete Boulay, a climatologist Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, told USA TODAY.
The lake has not been declared ice free yet, Boulay said, and there was still ice on the Lower Lake as of Monday.”
As Real Climate posts have discussed, ice-out dates are a sensitive indicator of the integrated warmth of a meteorological winter. Every day that the temperature stays above freezing detracts from a lake’s ability to integrate ice volume; this then leads to a shortened period for the entire volume of the ice to melt. It’s also very precise in dating, it shows no UHI effect, and eliminates instrument and siting errors.
To quote Prince, the only way it can be wrong is if someone finds “That ain’t Lake Minnetonka”.
So the takeaway is how strong that El Nino of 1878 was, as over 140 years of climate change with an El Nino assist could not beat the record date.
Ned Kellysays
Killian says
3 Mar 2024 at 9:53 PM
HI Killian, there;’s nothing new here mate. The same old clown show with the usual clowns. :-)
My prediction also stands a Blue arctic ocean event 2024 +/- 2 years (under 1 mil sq klms),.. is still right on target. The ramped up ENSO implications and global warming on steroids and mega rate increases in GHG in the atmosphere is patently obvious. All projected over a decade ago now.
Ray Ladburysays
“The same old clown show with the usual clowns. :-) ” says the guy with the longest shoes and the biggest red, bulbous nose.
Killiansays
John Pollack: “However, the maximum ice extent last winter, as reported by NSIDC, was significantly lower than this winter. ”
You have completely misunderstood the concept. I have made no effort to correlate ASI maxima, only ASI summer minima.
You’ll need to revisit the issue. Maybe actually read the stuff this time.
Cheers
Ned, I expect no less from this site. It’s been ego-driven, antagonistic toward anything NbS, regenerative or non-mainstream, and rabidly against anything not IPCC-conservative, since 2015. Every poster who even edged toward regenerative views and solutions has been driven from this site except me, AFAICT.
John Pollacksays
Okay, I’ll read it more carefully, and be looking at the coming summer minimum. Have you run any correlations between ENSO index and ice minima?
“Have you run any correlations between ENSO index and ice minima?”
At least in certain regions, fresh-water lake ice minima are correlated with strong El Ninos. These are the dates when the ice-out dates on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota occurred before March 21.
2024-03-13 El Nino
2016-03-17 El Nino
2012-03-21 La Nina
2000-03-18 La Nina
1987-03-21 El Nino
1878-03-11 El Nino
Yet, two of these were near the end of consecutive La Nina years, so those are anti-correlations.
John Pollacksays
Paul, the correlation between ENSO and winter temperatures in the north central U.S is fairly well known to meteorologists. Killian is talking about using ENSO rather as a predictive tool for arctic sea ice minima, also with a reference to Antarctica. I’m waiting to see, and I am wondering what the explained variance is between an ENSO index and a de-trended arctic sea ice minimum. There is, of course, no doubt about a general strong downward trend in sea ice minima. The question to me is how strongly it is modulated by ENSO.
NK is even expecting a threshold event with sea ice dropping sharply to a minimum below 1M
sq. km within the next few summers. I don’t think he’s tying that directly to ENSO, but maybe I’m reading it wrong.
Killiansays
Yes. That is where this all came from. I wondered, on this forum, in 2015, because a large El Nino was brewing, whether that would impact ASI. It seemed logical that very warm Pacific surface waters *had* to propagate into the Arctic to some extent or other. I then found charts of past ENSO and ASI and eyeballed the correlation. el Nino seemed to be correlated at over 60% (the posts on this are in the August 2015 UV) while La Nina seemed neutral, or 50%-ish. Of course not all ENs are large so you’d expect the correlation to not be 100% or even close to it. Given truly large ENs are a relatively small subset, the over 60% seemed a strong number.
I also reasoned that ocean waters move relatively slowly, so there could be a lag such that you might see the effect a summer later as heat propagated from the equatorial region. So, my thesis then and still is the summer of an EN (i.e. starts in ’15, ends in ’16, so summer of ’16) or the summer after, a moderate or strong EN you should see somewhere between a new low and a 3rd lowest, so either a new 1st, 2nd or 3rd lowest.
I predicted in August 2015 this would happen in 2016, and it did. Then we had a small EN in ’19-’20 and got another 1-3 low. Now, we face a near-certain 1-3 low this summer or next. Or both given all the excess energy from the oceans. The ice is really thin.
I have not done this analysis for ASIA or ASIV, both of which would probably give us a more robust tool to really judge the ENSO effect.
Something to bear in mind is La Ninas now are warmer than ENs were not all that long ago, so how will that affect the correlation? Also, a recent paper I read reinforced something I wondered about due to the 2020 low ASIE. The paper raises the possibility we started a tipping point in 2016 that continues to today WRT temps. (I don’t recall if SSTs or 2 meter or what…) The EN of ’19-’20 was pretty weak, so I didn’t expect a particularly low extent until we got into July. (In fact, ASI is historically so strongly affected by weather that it is really hard to predict accurately, so I usually don’t even look at it till the first week of July and make my predictions then. Predicting it 13 months ahead was damned foolish given this context, and is why the prediction was and remains rather extraordinary.) But it ended up being the 2nd lowest. WHY? It made no sense. It made me think maybe the acceleration of climate was kicking in as evidenced by a low ASIE that had no obvious reason to occur.
I voiced that on these pages.
The recent paper found exactly the same thing: A significant acceleration in temps starting 2016.
Patterns. It’s all about noticing patterns.
A note on why 2012 was so low: It wasn’t due to an EN, it was weather. Two periods of high insolation, one in early spring and one in June (June insolation is the single best predictor of low ASIE according to comments on the ASI forums), a dipole that acted like a football or baseball throwing machine they use at practices spitting ice directly towards the Fram Strait and a huge cyclone from around Aug 2 – 10 that broke up the ice across the basin. This is why no year has really come close to challenging 2012. Almost every year since then has actually been favorable for ASI, yet we keep seeing the trend toward less ice. 2016 was the big exception in terms of the conditions for low ice being easily predicted.
And the coming two summers. So much heat… there’s no way we don’t see sub-4 million sq kms. for one or both of those summers. Caveat: I have no tracked the ASI yet this season, so…
nigeljsays
Killian claims el ninos lead to enhanced arctic sea ice decline in summer after a time lag and that he has predicted enhanced decline in summer sea ice. I see no obvious reason to doubt the connection or predictions. I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
“The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a substantial influence on regional patterns of Arctic sea ice thickness and concentration in simulations, especially in late summer and autumn following a large El Niño/La Niña. ”
I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of. Perhaps the obvious became undeniable to you during the last two years when I have rarely posted here and you finally admitted the accuracy of the theory and I missed it? You have never admitted this in any post responding to me. Ever. Until now.
Killian claims el ninos lead to enhanced arctic sea ice decline in summer after a time lag
Not accurate. The theory is you will see an effect the summer an EN ends and/or the summer after. Extending to the second summer makes the connection clearer, but the first summer, IIRC from 2015, is more typical. One must also consider double and triple EN’s.
When I made that original prediction exactly zero people on this forum or the Arctic Sea Ice forums accepted the analysis. Kevin McKinney stated outright there was no support for it in the literature at that time. You have made similar comments since you joined these forums in late 2016. Like pretty much everyone else.
In fact, the research clearly supporting this theory is all post-2016 – and probably because of 2016 and 2020. The paper you posted is from 2018. The Scripps work? 2021. There were a few papers looking at very small regional effects at the time I posited the theory. Mark Serreze said at the time the theory was interesting, but it wasn’t something in his areas of study.
So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.
And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
I must, however, thank you for the 2018 paper. Despite searching any number of times for corroborating science, only the heat bombs paper gave robust support for the theory.
Now I can stop arguing this with people who can’t be bothered to believe a layman can deliver such important findings.
Cheers
nigeljsays
Killian
NigelJ: I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
Killian: No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016, because its obvious there could be something! You seem to assume that because somebody hasn’t voiced an opinion on this website or responded to someones comments that they dont think something. Why do you do that? Because Im genuinely puzzled. FWIW I dont always say what I think about everything climate related, and I dont respond to all your comments. I recall you specifically asked me to stop responding to your comments at one stage.
I’ve been following the climate issue since the 1980s. I did some physical geography at university and we studied the planets circulatory system. When discussion on the climate warming issue emerged in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. I didnt give it more thought than that or theorise about it, and I was aware I could be wrong.
I dont recall arguing the ENSO connection didnt happen or couldnt happen. I may have posted papers in the past around 2016 suggesting it didnt happen or that its uncertain if it happens. I post stuff a bit at random just because I think its worth a read. Doesnt mean I necessarily agree. I also posted a couple in my comment directly above that cast doubt on the connection.
Killian: “So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say Im far from alone in believing that.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice. Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
Geoff Miellsays
Killian: – “I expect no less from this site. It’s been ego-driven, antagonistic toward anything NbS, regenerative or non-mainstream, and rabidly against anything not IPCC-conservative, since 2015.”
ICYMI/FYI:
Climate Code Red posted on 9 Mar 2024 a piece by David Spratt headlined Is scientific reticence the new climate denialism? This piece refers extensively to Jonathon Porritt’s recent musings titled Mainstream climate science: The new denialism? which at the moment seems to have become unavailable since yesterday morning with a “509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”.
Here is an extract from the early part of Porritt’s analysis, in which he starts by summarising his analysis:
1. The speed with which the climate is now changing is faster than (almost) all scientists thought possible.
2. There is now zero prospect of holding the average temperature increase this century to below 1.5°C; even 2°C is beginning to slip out of reach. The vast majority of climate scientists know this, but rarely if ever give voice to this critically important reality.
3. At the same time, the vast majority of people still haven’t a clue about what’s going on – and what this means for them and everything they hold dear.
4. The current backlash against existing (already wholly inadequate) climate measures is also accelerating – and will cause considerable political damage in 2024. Those driving this backlash represent the same old climate denial that has been so damaging over so many years.
5. The science-based institutions on which we depend to address this crisis have comprehensively failed us. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is incapable of telling the whole truth about accelerating climate change; the Conference of the Parties (under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been co-opted by the fossil fuel lobby to the point of total corruption.]
6. By not calling out these incontrovertible realities, mainstream scientists are at risk of becoming the new climate deniers.
On Mar 14, the Climate Council of Australia posted a Media Release headlined UNWANTED ANNIVERSARY: 365 DAYS OF RECORD-BREAKING OCEAN TEMPERATURES, REEF FADING TO ‘SHADOW STATE’. It begins with:
The Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of a fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. Today marks 365 straight days of record breaking global sea surface temperatures, igniting fears that climate change is pushing tropical coral reefs past a tipping point.
New analysis by the Climate Council – Underwater Bushfire: Vibrant Great Barrier Reef fading to a shadow of its former glory – highlights how climate pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas projects is heating our oceans and cooking the Reef.
The Climate Council’s analysis also affirms that Australia’s national environment law is part of the problem and fails to protect precious places like the Great Barrier Reef from climate pollution. At least five fossil fuel projects have been approved under our outdated national environment law since the last mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef.
Climate Councillor, former IPCC author and biologist, Professor Lesley Hughes, said: “With five mass bleaching events in the last eight years, and the prospect that heat stress will continue to worsen in coming years, it appears likely that we have crossed a tipping point for the Great Barrier Reef and that we are seeing it transform to a new, ‘shadow state’.
Yes, I have posted about this a lot on this forum, Gavin being the King of Reticence, but I was actually talking about the other posters. Other than Nigelj, people seem to be behaving better – but, then, I post fairly rarely now which might be why since they have no one to treat like crap – so I haven’t had to deal with the crappiness for a while.
But, yes, the posters on this forum tend strongly to the conservative side, with some shifting seeming to be happening as the speed of change is so very clearly ramping up. And gods help you if you tout simplicity and degrowth. They get downright shitty, collectively, no matter how well the evidence backs you up.
But, like I said, I think the rate of change is becoming undeniable now. They can’t, e.g., treat me like shit for saying ESS has to be 4C, if not higher, now that Hansen, et al., have stated it’s 4.8! They’d have to use the same nasty commentary toward Hansen.
Cheers
Killiansays
Yeah… it’s mind-blowing. As not a small few have said over the years, if humans actually understood the implications of The perfect Storm (Climate Change, Ecosystem Destruction, Pollution and Resource depletion), they’d be willing to do almost anything to avoid it.
Maybe even go regenerative (degrowth, localization, NbS, etc.) and actually solve these problems.
But we need climate scientists to do their jobs: Speak on the science in no uncertain terms and within a long-tail risk framework. Unfortunately, too many of them think this is *not* their job – to frame in terms of risk, i.e. – and/or confuse being asked to speak out for being asked to advocate for solutions. Climate scientists, as a collective whole, are *terrible* WRT to mitigation and adaptation. But we REALLY need them to speak forcefully on the worst case scenarios and accelerating rates of change so those of us that *do* know about designing regenerative systems will be taken seriously. So long as people think we can high-tech pipe dream our way out of this, we’re screwed. The math is really, stunningly, frighteningly clear this is not possible.
Cheers
nigeljsays
Killian
NigelJ: I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
Killian: No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016, because its obvious there could be something! You seem to assume that because somebody hasnt voiced an opinion on this website or responded to someones comments that they dont think something. Why do you do that? Because I’m genuinely puzzled. FWIW I dont always say what I think about everything climate related, and I dont respond to all your comments. I recall you specifically asked me to stop responding to your comments at one stage.
I’ve been following the climate issue since the 1980s. I did some physical geography at university and we studied the planets circulatory system. When discussion on the climate warming issue emerged in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. I didnt give it more thought than that or theorise about it, and I was aware I could be wrong.
I don’t recall arguing the ENSO connection didn’t happen or couldn’t happen. I may have posted papers in the past around 2016 suggesting it didn’t happen or that its uncertain if it happens. I post stuff a bit at random just because I think its worth a read. Doesn’t mean I necessarily agree. I also posted a couple in my comment directly above that cast doubt on the connection.
Killian: “So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said I assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say I’m far from alone in that.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice. Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
Jonathan Davidsays
Killian, I actually enjoy your comments and feel you may have important information to provide. However, in the past when I’ve seen you interact with other commenters, your comments have been rather cryptic. Primarily what is “regenerative economics” that you often reference? I seem to recall you have been reluctant to say too much about this or even to provide a list of references. It would be very valuable to hear you describe exactly what this means, how it is superior to other economic models and how it could be achieved.
Killiansays
David,
It’s good to know someone is noticing. However,…
1. I am not cryptic, you have not educated yourself in the areas of knowledge necessary. What I say is actually quite simple. You have to want to know. As I have said many times, I cannot do a 2-hour seminar here nor a 10-day permaculture course. To say I have not explained things or been vague, what have you, is simply not accurate but has been used to hand wave away my insights. The true issue is the requests being made are not practicable.
2. I don’t use the term “regenerative economics” because such a thing does not exist, at least not in the sense anyone here would mean it. I.e., banks, markets, wealth, ownership, finance… No system based on such a suite of concepts can ever be regenerative. So… not sure what you are asking about. You may be asking about Regenerative Governance, which is not an economic model, but a whole-system model for bio-regional decision-making, organization, resource management, etc. It does include economics in the very broadest sense of calling exchanges between humans an economy, but a Commons needs no Economics to function, just agreement between those within the Commons.
You are welcome to join my Regenerative Governance house on Clubhouse, there are a number of detailed recordings there, or seek me out on various social media more appropriate for a detailed conversation on all things regenerative, climate, etc.
nigelj,
I will try to respond, but I already have and it was not posted.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016… in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. …I don’t recall arguing the ENSO connection didn’t happen or couldn’t happen.
Assertion is neither evidence and certainly not proof. As they say, “No picture, didn’t happen.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said I assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say I’m far from alone in that.
You said it in your response I am now responding to. That’s twice now.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice.
Except, exactly, yes. Again, when I posted that here, on Arctic Sea Ice forums, and elsewhere, the universal response was there was zero scientific support for it, there was nothing in the literature. By your own evidence, the earliest we currently know of from published science is 2018, a full three years after I stated the hypothesis and a full 2 years after the hypothesis was supported by low ice in 2016. (And again in 2020.)
Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
A bit childish to repeat what I have already said myself as if you’re getting a “burn” in, don’t you think? Rhetorical…
This kind of circular nonsense with you is why I gave up on you in 2017. Your soft denial, or what is now called solutions denial, was galling then and more so now: All the things I have suggested are no longer “fringe.” The degrowth movement is growing rapidly. Regenerative Ag, same. Bio-char accounts for over 80% of actual mechanical CO2 sequestration. Bio-regionalism is seeing huge growth, also. Etc,
But you can’t summon the decency to do other than call it all crazy as opposed to parts of the suite of options we have. Solutions denialist/go slow advocate – a dangerous, maladaptive response to existential threats – then, same now.
There won’t be more with you. Your first comment about me after I posted after a long pause and after spending very little time on these fora for a very long time was completely insulting and inappropriate. As ever, nobody called you out on intentionally attempting to reignite flame wars. Flame on. You’ll be doing it alone.
Chuck Hughessays
Any thoughts about the Texas panhandle wildfires and California snow storms? It appears to me that things are ramping up for an interesting Summer.
California has had a number of high precipitation events, fairly typical for an El Nino winter. There was a lot of wind with the latest storm, but late winter/early spring subtropical jet is also enhanced in most El Nino winters.
Texas wildfires seem to be due at least in part to excess vegetation from a wet early winter, which subsequently dried out. Although the fires were large, the meteorological factors don’t appear to have been outstanding. Again, that strong subtropical jet helped pump up the surface winds.
What impressed me more were a large number of February monthly heat records exceeded in a swath across the upper Midwest U.S. The largest record increments were in places that normally have lingering snow cover in late February, but had dry ground, such as Waterloo, Iowa. Their station records go back to 1895. The old February record was 71F, but they got to 78F on Feb. 26. On March 3, they reached 80F, which was 13 days ahead of the previous earliest 80F. (Before 2012, their earliest 80F was on March 21.)
The main articles are fine (current one unusual, short monthly chatty video). In the comments are a lot of meteorologists who provide almost too many updates in the cluttered and sometimes OT comments (including mine); in many cases have gone on to become respected authorities.
They also provide regular summaries of costly events and other kinds of problems. There has been a lot about both the events you mention).
Although Xtter has become a swamp, the weather/climate part of it is still fine and provides good summary information (including people like Gavin Schmidt and Stephan Rahmstorf).
PeterEsays
The USA is the world’s largest oil & gas producer and growing. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the annual propduction of both has doubled, as reported in this Guardian link. And according to the charts, the growth is projected to miraculously stabilise from now on – until 2050 by when the USA is committed to Net Zero.
This recent rapid growth rate shows that the Biden admiinistration (led by John Kerry on climate) does not really believe in its commitments or the terror of catastrophic climate change. As always, actions speak louder than words.
PeterE: – “The USA is the world’s largest oil & gas producer and growing.”
…for now, but for how much longer?
US ‘conventional’ + offshore oil productions are declining. US tight oil production (excluding the Permian basin) has already peaked. The US Permian basin is the only play that’s likely to show any further growth, but the key questions are:
a) For how much longer?
b) How steep will be the decline after the final peak? https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1741469704458318102
In the YouTube video titled Arthur Berman on the Big Effect of Small Changes in Oil Availability, published 5 Mar 2024, duration 0:03:02, Art Berman said from time interval 0:00:28:
“We use so much oil to keep the world running, to keep our factories and machines and houses and… I mean everything we do relies on oil, and so if we’re down one percent, we’re screwed.”
Nate Hagens responded (at time interval 0:00:45):
“I don’t think a lot of people understand that, and I think when we talk about oil peaking, and real simply, ‘peak oil’ means that we’re dependent on a finite resource that has incredible energy density and work potential, that replaces what humans used to do manually. And it will one day hit a maximum and decline. That is a given. But when we talk about that, we’re not running… There’s two implications, I think, and I’ll ask you to, um, chime in. One is, we’re going to have to figure out in coming decades, and century, what we’re going to do when we have 80% as much oil; 60% as much oil; 40% as much oil; 10% as much oil, down into the future. That is an important question that society really, if we had wisdom, ah, and foresight, would be addressing. But the second, which is more of the focus of my work with this podcast and my organization, is once we stop growing and start declining, that calls into motion all sorts of deltas, differentials between society and finance and government expectations of what extrapolating the past forward to a reality. There’s a: ‘What do we do about our financial claims once energy, especially oil, start to decline?’ That’s a separate question and one with hugely important consequences.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQaOrudvX10
PeterE: – “And according to the charts, the growth is projected to miraculously stabilise from now on – until 2050 by when the USA is committed to Net Zero.”
Meanwhile, per a tweet by Prof Eliot Jacobson on Mar 5, the global SAT average gain of 0.30 °C/decade with current “15-year trendline” temperature means the Earth System is now at apparently +1.39 °C, and we’re likely hitting +1.5 °C before 2028. https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1764663501182967840
Agree completely with Geoff Miell on oil prognosis. Flabbergasted by those who think the USA is such a powerhouse when it comes to oil production. The USA consumes around 20 million barrels of oil per day, yet oil companies only extract about 13 million barrels of crude oil per day from USA territory. Easy to check that from either a search or EIA
google: USA consumption oil per day graph
google: USA “extraction” “crude oil” per day graph
That huge a deficit means that the USA isn’t close to being self-sufficient. Foreign sources of oil, biofuels (biodiesel & ethanol), and liquid forms of natural gas and coal are what makes up the deficit. Plus, imported unrefined oil is refined in the USA and relabeled “domestic” production to keep up the ruse that the USA is a net exporter (like saying Walmart is a domestic supplier of consumer products).
As with climate science, the mathematical analysis of oil depletion needs a jolt in the arm. I published a model of typical depletion profiles for fracked shale oil (tight oil) wells in 2018, and years later the decline is pretty much on track. Most don’t realize how fast individual fracked oil decline. The fracking process is a barely controlled implosion with oil dispersing in every direction, begging for something akin to a diffusion analysis. Well, if that is calculated with maximum entropy constraints, the resultant depletion curve matches the same steep decline as what is observed — much oil extracted early and diminishing returns as the oil diffuses every which way other than where the collection taps are located.
Geoff Miellsays
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “Easy to check that from either a search or EIA”
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “That huge a deficit means that the USA isn’t close to being self-sufficient.”
US petroleum geologist Art Berman posted in his blog on 18 Jan 2023 a piece headlined They’re Not Making Oil Like They Used To: Stealth Peak Oil?, including:
More importantly, tight oil does not contain the middle distillate compounds necessary for diesel production. Figure 6 shows the density (API and specific gravity) of the key conventional grades of oil, and for the Bakken, Permian and Eagle Ford tight oils. Tight oil is fine for making kerosene, jet fuel and gasoline. It cannot, however. be used for producing diesel without blending it with heavier oils, and diesel is the main cash product and workhorse of the modern global economy.
The U.S. can never be oil-independent because it will always need to import heavier oil to make diesel.
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “As with climate science, the mathematical analysis of oil depletion needs a jolt in the arm.”
Earth scientist J David Hughes has assessed the viability of the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) shale forecasts in its Annual Energy Outlook 2021, which are widely used by policymakers, industry, and investors to make long-term plans. His detailed analysis finds that the EIA’s forecasts of tight oil and shale gas production through 2050 “highly to extremely optimistic.” https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/shale-reality-check-2021/
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “I published a model of typical depletion profiles for fracked shale oil (tight oil) wells in 2018, and years later the decline is pretty much on track. Most don’t realize how fast individual fracked oil decline.”
US petroleum geologist Art Berman periodically informs those interested on the rate of US oil production decline – his latest assessment (tweeted Mar 8) suggests a decline rate of 39% per year (if no new oil production developments proceed). https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1765774839619453197
I’d suggest most people are either ignorant or in denial and simply don’t want to know. It’s inconvenient for their plans.
Ned Kellysays
PeterE says
4 Mar 2024 at 11:01 AM
It has always been lies Peter. Long before 2015. The politicians have never been serious about serious mitigation, and the celebrity climate scientists are clueless as well. Nothing is being done, nothing will be done. Stop believing liars, and get used to what is unstoppable.
Susan Andersonsays
Whybotherism is never helpful. It is clueless to compare those who are trying with the likes of Trump, whose plans (project 2025) include eliminating NOAA and replacing all experts with loyalists.
Ned Kellysays
Susan Anderson says
6 Mar 2024 at 1:08 PM
Well there is no helping some people. It’s as if they are living on another planet in another solar system.
Solar Jimsays
Peter: The jargon or rhetoric of “Climate Change” is a euphemism for “geologic scale life extinction event.” Of course, governments and media refer only to pieces of this unprecedented white-man-made phenomena, such as temperature, as it only begins to rise from the past contamination (now measured in trillions of tons). It is both unfolding, accelerating and fueled (pardon) from a pathological, globalized, nation-state political economy, especially warfare. What are the fuels of war based on? Uranium and fossilized carbon.. These are not “forms of energy,” They are underground forms of matter.
If you are looking for sanity, you will not find it on this planet. Your Guardian article is a case in point. The sentences are dystopic (sp?). Do you think any regular reader knows what “a barrel of Liquified Natural Gas” is?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
SJ: Uranium and fossilized carbon.. These are not “forms of energy,” They are underground forms of matter.
BPL: You keep repeating this. It’s a distinction without a difference. When someone says “nuclear energy” or “fossil fuel energy,” everybody knows what it means, even if those things aren’t technically forms of energy. It’s a simple shorthand for “energy produced using this substance” or “using this method which requires this substance as fuel.” People use verbal shorthand. You’re acting like someone saying “Gotcha!” to an atheist when the said atheist uses an expression like “Oh, God,” or “Jesus!”
Solar Jimsays
BPL,
Thanks for your comment. I will repeat what I said ’till the day I die.
Your assertion that “everybody knows” is exactly the opposite. If you believe underground matter is actually “energy” then you live in a mentally dissonant, physiologically diseased, economically bankrupting and temporary civilization. Welcome to the Anthropocene.
You are displaying the rhetoric and short-circuited mindset of a conformist warfare state citizen. Our fraudulent “economy” is based on those fuels of war. For example, the majority of US “discretionary spending,” ie. the national budget, is for indebtedness and militarism, especially in petroleum rich regions of Earth. This is exemplified in the expression “War for oil, oil for war.” And the DOD is a gigantic user.
But this is OK, I respect your comments through the years. But now a termination event is becoming clear. And it is due to our western folly – the glorious power of man.. “even if those things aren’t technically forms of energy”
Barton Paul Levensonsays
SJ: Thanks for your comment. I will repeat what I said ’till the day I die.
BPL: Of course you will. You meet Winston Churchill’s definition of a fanatic: “A man who will not change his mind, and will not change the subject.”
SJ: If you believe underground matter is actually “energy” then you live in a mentally dissonant, physiologically diseased, economically bankrupting and temporary civilization.
BPL: Matter is energy if you think of it in terms of relativity (E = M c^2 for an object stationary in a given inertial frame of reference). But even without relativity, people do not literally mean that uranium or coal is simply and solely a form of energy. They can be used to generate energy. You are arguing semantics and nothing but semantics.
Your attempt to diagnose civilization based on linguistic shorthand is a massive fail. Civilization is not in danger of reverting to geocentrism because people say “the sun set” rather than “the horizon rotated up, blocking the sun.” They don’t have to say it. Everybody knows what it means.
SJ: You are displaying the rhetoric and short-circuited mindset of a conformist warfare state citizen.
BPL: And you are behaving like an ass.
Adam Leasays
Nuclear and fossil fuels are stores of potential energy, which can be released through splitting atoms or exothermic chemical reactions, which are used to convert that stored potential energy into heat. A reservoir full of water isn’t energy in the strictest definition, but it represents stored (gravitational) potential energy which is released when the water is allowed to flow downhill, and some of that potential energy is converted to kinetic energy when the water passes through a turbine.
Actions do speak louder than words, but that doesn’t always eliminate all ambiguity. In this case, I think the real message is that even when there is real belief in “commitments or the terror of catastrophic climate change”, short term necessities get in the way. Among them we might list the need to avoid handing the reins over to Trump and the emergency need to partially replace Russian natural gas in Europe.
The ERA5 reanalysis report for Feb puts the global anomaly at +0.81ºC, a rise on the +0.70ºC Jan anomaly but a small drop on the ‘bananas’ anomalies of the last few months of 2023. (The ‘bananas’ run of ‘warmest on record’ monthly anomalies June to Dec 2023 runs +0.53ºC, +0.72ºC, +0.71ºC, +0.93ºC, +0.85ºC, +0.85ºC, +0.85ºC.) While the Feb anomaly is not such a big drop from Oct-Dec, a comparison with the 2015/16 El-Niño-year anomalies or the increase on previous monthly record anomalies suggests the ‘bananas’ may perhaps have run their course.
(And for those breathless enough to require a more succinct message, given the eight years of AGW over the period, Feb 2024 is not that much warmer than 2016, to the point of still suggesting that together “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming.” )
The ‘bananas’months
ERA5 monthly global SAT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … +0.05ºC … (-0.33ºC – 2020)
Feb … +0.09ºC … (-0.40ºC – 2016)
Mar … +0.28ºC … (-0.11ºC – 2016)
Apr … +0.26ºC … (-0.21ºC – 2016)
May … +0.22ºC … (-0.07ºC – 2020)
Jun … +0.34ºC … (+0.16ºC – 2019)
Jul … +0.57ºC … (+0.33ºC – 2019)
Aug … +0.47ºC … (+0.31ºC – 2016)
Sep … +0.66ºC … (+0.50ºC – 2020)
Oct … +0.41ºC … (+0.40ºC – 2019)
Nov … +0.47ºC … (+0.32ºC – 2020)
Dec … +0.31ºC … (+0.31ºC – 2019)
Jan … +0.15ºC … (+0.12ºC – 2020)
Feb … +0.12ºC … (+0.12ºC – 2016)
The UAH TLT Feb global anomaly is +0.93ºC which stands as =1st highest for all months, equal to the October 2023 anomaly. It should be noted that TLT numbers are more sensitive to El Niño. The previous anomalies through the ‘bananas’months June 2023-Jan 2024 run +0.38ºC, +0.64ºC, +0.69ºC, +0.90ºC, +0.93ºC, +0.91ºC, +0.83ºC, +0.86ºC. But while there is no sign of an end to the exceptional anomalies in these Jun-Feb numbers the the ‘bananas’ analysis suggests otherwise.
The ‘bananas’months
UAH monthly global TLT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … -0.47ºC … (-0.47 ºC – 2016)
Feb … -0.63ºC … (-0.63 ºC – 2016)
Mar … -0.45ºC … (-0.45 ºC – 2016)
Apr … -0.43ºC … (-0.44 ºC – 1998)
May … -0.05ºC … (-0.15 ºC – 1998)
Jun … +0.17ºC … (-0.06 ºC – 1998)
Jul … +0.38ºC … (+0.26 ºC – 1998)
Aug … +0.37ºC … (+0.30 ºC – 1998)
Sep … +0.60ºC … (+0.45 ºC – 2019)
Oct … +0.65ºC … (+0.45 ºC – 2016)
Nov … +0.56ºC … (+0.49 ºC – 2019)
Dec … +0.67ºC … (+0.39 ºC – 2019)
Jan … +0.43ºC … (+0.43 ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.22ºC … (+0.22 ºC – 2016)
EdwardKsays
The most telling thing about where we’re heading is how out of touch with reality are the wealthy and politically obsessed elites who are represented by both the climate scientists here and their majority committed followers.
I’ll off up one little example and will be surprised if anyone would bother to read any of it. But tells a good story. A true story.
One obsession of the politically obsessed is climate change. Yet the Earth’s endowment of oxygen gas, needed for inhalation by homo sapiens, owes to photo-synthesis, enabled by carbon dioxide. It is not hard to refute the climate cult. Our existence is not threatened by flowers and trees generously turning CO2 into oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis
Anyone with a graduate degree from a prestigious university who wholeheartedly believes in climate change lacks a capacity to distinguish genuine science from politics or may not care. This reflects poorly on their character and/or education.
Now it’s easy to say this person is a climate science illiterate. Yes, they are. They do not what they’re talking about. Yet they actually make up the majority of the population on this earth. and especially in the US. Where every single one of them will likely vote for Trump.
The point is this though — none of you here, and I mean no one, would know the first things to say to them which would encourage them to no longer be a climate illiterate and subsequently change their mind.
Because when it comes to climate change it is actually you who are the real ignorant incompetent climate change illiterates with nothing to offer anyone. That’s the truth. Every page and almost every comment on this website proves it.
Please feel free to continue denying it, because there is no point changing now. It’s far too late anyway.
Harbinger. It is completely in line with what we see with our own two eyes and explains why we are decades and centuries ahead of projected effects even as temps are within the ranges modeled for a long time… albeit at the high end and soon to exceed them, if they haven’t already this past 12 months.
I predicted in 2009 ESS *had* to be at least 4C. 4.8C is no surprise.
Others here will say, but we don’t have 30 years of +1.5C temps! and such, but when you have an upward-sloping curve of change and doublings and triplings happening here and there in the system, you damned sure had better be paying attention to the short-term slopes as they get ever steeper.
Ned Kellysays
Emmanuel Todd’s new book, theory. “La Chute de l’Occident” (“The Fall of the West”)
He appears to opine that without “god” overlooking us, we won’t behave, but “god’s” reputation is a very mixed bag, since there appears not to be any governing body preventing man’s design of god(s) in his own image. I’m all for spirituality, but that means listening and trying to understand, not trying to enforce one’s limited insights on other people.
This listening and trying to understand is present in the endeavors of science more than in most other disciplines, because it works hard and studies to be objective and honest. Telling the truth, doing one’s best, fostering one’s talents, is not an elitist pursuit.
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
Bertrand Russell
Ned Kellysays
Susan Anderson says
10 Mar 2024 at 1:56 PM “He appears to opine that without “god” overlooking us, we won’t behave”
That’s a first rate straw-man Susan. I see that “good” research inquiry to you means something very different to me. No where does that article even mention “god”. Todd won’t be losing any sleep over your faux understanding of his literature and his ideas thankfully. He may be right and he may be wrong, but not for the reasons you assert Susan, nor Willard. Horse, water and all that.
Which part of “is falling into nihilism and the deification of nothing” you do not get, Ned?
Susan Andersonsays
NK: Horse … pucky … and all that.
My specifics are what they are, and if you choose to channel Alexander Todd, that’s no skin off my nose. “vaporisation of protestantism” does not refer to ‘god’: OK, if you say so.
Trying to do better is and will always be an improvement on whybotherism, especially when not accompanied with a heavy dose of attacking people actually doing the trying, like your hosts and their colleagues. If the whybotherism comes with credentialled status puffing, that makes it worse.
Ned Kellysays
Quote paragraph : NO mention of referecne to “god” at all.
When challenged on this by Le Point, he argued that America “is falling into nihilism and the deification of nothing”. He defined this nihilism as “the desire for destruction, but also of the negation of reality.
There are no longer any traces of religion, but the human being is still there.” This mindset has been the catalyst, in Todd’s opinion, for American escalation of foreign wars, with the Gaza conflict being the most recent example.
Nor in the entire article does it reference Protestantism in relationship to God or Belief in God. Your Faulty Misguided interpretations do not make it so.
How lovely. Protestantism as a religulous movement involving a deity is a Misguided Interpretation now. You must be fun at parties, Ned.
Let’s roll the tape:
The historian added that we have passed the “active stage” and the “zombie stage”, and are now approaching “stage zero”, whereby religious belief loses all influence within the Western world.
[…]
In Todd’s view, this religious and cultural decline is paired with Anglo-American economic defeat.
[…]
When challenged on this by Le Point, he argued that America “is falling into nihilism and the deification of nothing”.
[…]
There are no longer any traces of religion, but the human being is still there.
[…]
Op. Cit.
I bet you haven’t read Weber, which Dodd simply cranked to 11. In fact I bet you only discovered that insufferable twat who, instead of owning the fact that his L’Invention de la France et L’Invention de l’Europe were overfitting exercices, decided to double down in Le mystère français, declaring that if his model didn’t work, it was reality’s fault!
But why stop there? Western Civilization is now failing his High Father Expectation standards!
Fait chier.
Ned Kellysays
Last month Feb. was 1,77C over pre industrial. Extrapolate forward and we will hit 2C in the 2040s or maybe even quicker if some other parameters are more important then modeled. This value will put millions / billions in danger. How’s that superior level IPCC scientific communication skills and elite US politicians working out for you guys today?
Pet bestsays
It’s ENSO positive phase mostly and will drop back once the negative phase starts half way through the year. Then we can see if CC has accelerated at all from 0.2C to 0.3C per decade as from Taminos blog
Ned Kellysays
Pet best says
9 Mar 2024 at 4:01 AM — “will drop back once the negative phase starts”
Right, and then the next positive phase it will higher temps, then slip back a little but still above the last negative phase, and then the next positive phase will push it again higher than before, and it’ll skip back slightly, and then again it will push higher yet again ….. and what you get is what?
Cumulatively higher accelerating temperature levels year after year – despite all the “negative phases” the temperatures will keep on rising … they do not drop back permanently, so stop saying what you’re saying and tell the whole truth …
Because it is NOT the “ENSO positive phase mostly” that makes up the +1.5C of last year, or the +1.77C in February over pre industrial …. it is MOSTLY ALL progressive global warming ……
Stop saying it is the El Nino phase of ENSO – it is not!
If you wish to use the current temps as the base for “extrapolation”–which you propose–then it would be pretty silly to ignore the fact that we’re in an El Nino.
If, that is, you are interested in achieving the best possible accuracy for your extrapolation.
Susan Andersonsays
fwiw, we are actually making a transition from El Nino to La Nina. This weather-climate thing gets complicated when we focus in; there are several confusing elements involved, providing a number of counterintuitive results if one relies on ‘conventional’ wisdom about known weather patterns. They’re, in layperson language, all mixed up. What we do know is that we are going through an extraordinary and shocking time. We can hope that climate conditions will rebalance to the bad rather than the horrifying for a few more years. It’s too easy to shorten the focus and confuse weather with climate, since it is the thing we all know about and see every day. If you like weather expertise (repeating myself) see Masters and Henson at YCC EoTS: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
Sadly, the waste of a half century since we learned the trouble we’re in does not seem to be getting any better. Action is needed; we know enough.
It is sad that certain people are so beset with issues of self-worth (too much or too little, who knows) that they can’t stick to sharing information and evaluating it from the point of view of community rather than of ego. There is much of value, including material from Ned Kelly when he occasionally gets off his high horse and stops telling everybody what’s wrong with them. Of course the out and out deniers are just time wasters, but being in a panic about where we are is understandable. Blaming the wrong people, however, is not OK.
Although it is not substantial for this discussion, I think that Ned Kelly is actually a woman. She at least presented herself this way in one of her posts. I do not know why she choose the name of a famous bushman as her nick.
I believe that her style may not be primarily driven by an inflated ego; I can imagine a mixture of concern and despair she experiences as an alternative explanation. From my perspective of a person doubting about value of various bold claims with respect to future climate developments and believing in the strength of human technical creativity, I see the present situation rather as an incentive for increased efforts than as a ground for panic and/or giving up.
Greetings
Tomáš
Pete bestsays
The jury is out on that one and I have stated from Taminos blog that temps might have risen from 0.2C per decade to 0.3C (50% increase). So once the El Niño had finished we can best say where this additional heat has come from.
Ned Kellysays
Pete best says
10 Mar 2024 at 4:05 AM
“So once the El Niño had finished we can best say where this additional heat has come from.”
No necessarily. Unless you’re assuming that all others things are equal and remain constantly so. They aren’t. Temps and CO2 ppm are not the only things rapidly changing. ENSO is not the only natural variation that comes and goes. Temps are showing global averages +0.12C above the 2016 Mega El Nino already. The current El Nino is a not a Mega outlier event. Whereas Europe is at +3.30C above it’s 1990-2020 climate average. 2016 was no where near that for Europe!
This reliance on ENSO — oh we have to wait and see – to constantly dismiss all other observations (such as aerosol levels, and the related recent cumulative ocean warming over and above ENSO cycles, albedo changes, ice melt, extra forest/land CO2 emissions due to excessive heat,forest fires and CO2 increased rates, ocean temps and new mass coral bleaching events, etc) and question everything said on the current situation is a cop out excuse.
It kills dialogue, shuts down discussions, mislabels people as doomers and radicals for no good reason, chills people’s ability to contribute anything, and dissolves intelligent thinking across the board. …. all the while climate scientists like Gavin are saying often and publicly they don’t have a clue why the massive 2023/24 temperatures spiked ….. the MODELS tell them nothing.
When ENSO ends that is just as likely to tell us nothing then as it does now!
Well, then we can wait for summer, and see what happens?
Oh better yet, let;’s wait till Autumn and see what happens then, hey?
No, let’s be real certain, let’s wait until next March instead?
Or maybe March in 2026 will be better?
I recommend we all wait until the CMIP7 is released. How about that instead? :-)
Killiansays
ENSO only explains Pacific temps. It is not the cause of the hot Atlantic waters, hot anywhere else waters.
We have:
* Climate change
* EL Nino
* Reduced shipping termination shock
* Solar Maximum
* Natural variability (other than EN)
The first and second are the greater part of the unexpectedly high jump in warming, as I understand things at present.
This will, I think, thread out of order, so I’m responding here to Ned’s comment to Pete–not Pete’s comment.
IMO, Pete is not suggesting that we pause climate action til El Nino is over. Presumably, we’re organizing, educating and communicating on an ongoing basis all the time, anyway. (I am, in my confused but earnest fashion.) He’s just saying that when ENSO shifts, there will be more data/context to understand the spike–interesting, but not something that should be conditioning our climate actions or responses.
So, no–it’s not a case of “just wait” on all fronts.
Killiansays
Sorry, I should have said 1-3, with 2 being the primary cause globally and 3 being the primary cause in the N Atlantic.
James Charlessays
“Minimisation Is The New Denial
– climate scientists and the false hope of net-zero”?
James Charles says ref to “Minimisation Is The New Denial”
10 Mar 2024 at 5:32 AM
He’s got that right. Someone who knows what is really going on. No one here seems to.
The (IPCC) and public-facing (celebrity) scientists have raised awareness and concern but they failed to predict the speed of these accelerating changes and now minimise the immediate threats they pose.
(in interview discussions, Gavin even laughs, smirks, and giggles about the failures of models/science to predict 2023 outcomes see https://youtu.be/CHJKKsOHtAk?si=twUunRmZbSTEmrGL&t=302 )
The 12 months to the end of February 2024 took us to 1.56°C and we’re still climbing fast. It is true, as the ‘expert minimisers’ rush to say, that when the current ‘El Niño’ ends temperatures will [temporarily] dip down but they will not get much below 1.5°C again, if ever. These extremes make a mockery of the underestimates in climate scientists’ models, on which humanity’s inadequate climate plans still rely.
(I have said this before many times — for years….. ) ……. most responsibility for humanity’s lethal ignorance now lies with the IPCC and public-facing (celebrity) expert-minimisers; they downplay evidence of accelerating extremes and promote false hope in ‘solutions’ based on technologies so far away from being developed on the scale needed, they are no more than magical-thinking.
and
This article outlines the main ways these minimisers avoid communicating that the climate crisis is not only bad, it’s much, much worse. It concludes by considering why they engage in these dangerous behaviours — and what can be done to get them to provoke meaningful action by telling the truth.
One way is by writing up articles about recent science papers by Willie Soon …. keep distracting and avoid the elephant in the room.
CO2 —
NOAA weekly average, March 3-9: 425.45 ppm, up by 4.01 ppm from last year (421.44 ppm)
NOAA’s increase is the 4th largest this year, and 23rd among the 2,599 weeks on record.
The ten largest weekly increases on record: and the first time occurring in FEB
#1: 5.75 ppm, 2024-02-04
#2: 5.53 ppm, 2024-02-18
#3: 5.07 ppm, 2016-07-31
#4: 4.80 ppm, 2016-06-12
#5: 4.64 ppm, 2024-02-11
#6: 4.56 ppm, 2016-04-10
#7: 4.54 ppm, 2016-05-22
#8: 4.45 ppm, 2019-04-28
#9: 4.40 ppm, 2012-05-06
#10: 4.34 ppm, 2014-04-13
This was the warmest (nth) winter — December, January and February — by nearly a quarter of a degree [ 0.25C ], beating 2016, which was also an El Nino year. The three-month period was the most any season has been above pre-industrial levels in Copernicus record keeping, which goes back to 1940.
You will NOT see the Real Climate scientists producing an article here on these important topics of high public interest. Unfortunately.
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
Happy International Women’s Day!
To the few women who participate in this website’s conversations, always with substantive, helpful and interesting comments.
To all women climate scientists who continue to do great scientific work and are fully engaged in solving the climate emergency.
To all women who work hard every day for a good life for themselves, their families, their communities, the world, the biosphere.
To all women activists who will fix all our crises. We work at it, we know what needs to be done, we persist, we are determined, we care.
Doughnut is nothing more than flatter Capitalism. It is not a solution. If we had more time it could be part of the solution as a transition phase, but given how quickly things are changing I do not see the time to transition twice. It’s straight to regenerative or bust.
Regenerative Governance is the only system proposed that aligns with all regenerative principles and characteristics.
Susan Andersonsays
Killian: tl/dr: No.
Attacking good ideas and the people working to uphold a regenerative economy (including but not limited to Kate Raworth) leaves you with nothing but worse people. I am worried almost sick, but I’m holding firm to doing what I can to discredit whybotherism where I find it. There are all kinds of people in the world, and not all of them are addicted to blindness.
So how would you shift from linear to circular?
Well, the team and I at the foundation thought you might want to work with the top universities in the world, with leading businesses within the world, with the biggest convening platforms in the world, and with governments. We thought you might want to work with the best analysts and ask them the question,
“Can the circular economy decouple growth from resource constraints? Is the circular economy able to rebuild natural capital? Could the circular economy replace current chemical fertilizer use?” Yes was the answer to the decoupling, but also yes, we could replace current fertilizer use
by a staggering 2.7 times. But what inspired me most about the circular economy was its ability to inspire young people. When young people see the economy through a circular lens, they see brand new opportunities on exactly the same horizon. They can use their creativity and knowledge to rebuild the entire system, and it’s there for the taking right now, and the faster we do this, the better.
Killiansays
“Attacking good ideas and the people working to uphold a regenerative economy (including but not limited to Kate Raworth) leaves you with nothing but worse people. ”
Why are you lying? Please explain. I state a fact, the Doughnut model is flatter capitalism, not a regenerative system, and you lie and call it an attack? It’s a simple statement.
This has been going on for nearly ten years. Mature your rhetoric, please.
To that end:
1. Please explain to us why Doughnut is not merely flatter Capitalism.
2. Explain what regenerative, generatlly.
3. Explain regenerative as it pertains to an economy.
4. Explain how Doughnut is regenerative.
I realize this is unfair because you cannot do so, but it’s important you not lie about what others say, so I am putting you in the position of defending your lie or having to apologize for having done so.
Ned Kellysays
IEA: Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C
Tell me what was the doable plan recommended by the IPCC and celebrity climate scientists again?
nigeljsays
NK.
“Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C”
Yes its an astonishing number, and part of me is cynical about the chances of doing this. But I like to look at it a bit positively. Total global gdp per year (economic output) is about 100 trillion per year so clean energy investment of $4.5 trillion per year is approximately 4.5% of total global gdp (being the worst case near 2030).
So this number of 4.5% of gdp could clearly be done without wrecking the economy or hugely degrading lifestyles, given its size, and if moderate to high income people were prepared to make some sacrifices. Very low income people would need to be exempted or assisted.
And remember clean energy investment on that huge scale would be displacing building new fossil fuels power so the true cost to society is considerably less than $4.5 trillion. Of course there will be other mitigation costs so we are probably still up around 4.5% of gdp overall.
That said I doubt its practical to limit warming to 1.5 degrees – given time left, the practicalities, and Hansens warnings about the issue, but 2 degrees may be possible. That spreads the costs a bit as well.
Piotrsays
NK: EA: Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C.
The profit of the oil and gas industry’s were 4 trillion globally in 2022. And these are PROFITS, which are usually a fraction of the gross sales. Add to this > 0.5 trillion a year in corporate welfare programs (direct government subsidies and tax exemptions), not mentioning the value of being able pollute for free – privatizing the profits, socializing the costs.
And not like the investment in the clean energy is just throwing 4.5 trillion into a pit with nothing in return – this investment brings revenue from the sales of energy, and this Return on Investment is much quicker than the finding and development of the oil and gas fields.
Ned Kelly: “Tell me what was the doable plan recommended by the IPCC and celebrity climate scientists again?”
The role of IPCC is in informing the society on the consequences of various actions or inactions – so the society and the politicians does not walk into the global civilizational collapse unaware. They can say what different strategies can or cannot achieve, not to design and implement these strategies – this is the role of the society and politicians.
Seeing dysfunctional political systems, in which the big money controls the politicians via funding their campaigns in democracies, or directly exploiting the state in the non-democratic countries^* – you target your derision … NOT at the super-rich, NOR at the corrupt politicians – but at … the climate scientists?
======
^* “ Around 500 super rich Russians control more wealth than the poorest 99.8% of Russians, according to a new report into Russia’s inequality problem“
Ned Kellysays
What’s in the news?
For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.
The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming, Copernicus reported Wednesday.
The last month that didn’t set a record for hottest month was in May 2023 and that was a close third to 2020 and 2016. Copernicus records have fallen regularly from June on.
February 2024 averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius, breaking the old record from 2016 by about an eighth of a degree. February was 1.77C warmer than the late 19th century, Copernicus calculated. Only last December was more above pre-industrial levels for the month than February was.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of trying to keep warming at or below 1.5C. Copernicus’ figures are monthly and not quite the same measurement system for the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades. But Copernicus data shows the last eight months, from July 2023 on, have exceeded 1.5 degrees of warming.
For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.
The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming, Copernicus reported Wednesday.
The last month that didn’t set a record for hottest month was in May 2023 and that was a close third to 2020 and 2016. Copernicus records have fallen regularly from June on.
February 2024 averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius, breaking the old record from 2016 by about an eighth of a degree. February was 1.77C warmer than the late 19th century, Copernicus calculated. Only last December was more above pre-industrial levels for the month than February was.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of trying to keep warming at or below 1.5C. Copernicus’ figures are monthly and not quite the same measurement system for the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades. But Copernicus data shows the last eight months, from July 2023 on, have exceeded 1.5 degrees of warming.
Climate scientists say MOST of the record heat is from human-caused climate change of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Additional heat comes from a natural El Nino, a warming of the central Pacific that changes global weather patterns.
“Given the strong El Nino since mid-2023, it’s not surprising to see above-normal global temperatures, as El Ninos pump heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, driving up air temperatures. But the amount by which records have been smashed is alarming,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center climate scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the calculations.
“And we also see the ongoing ‘hot spot’ over the Arctic, where rates of warming are much faster than the globe as a whole, triggering a cascade of impacts on fisheries, ecosystems, ice melt, and altered ocean current pattern s that have long-lasting and far-reaching effects,” Francis added.
Record high ocean temperatures outside the Pacific, (where El Nino is focused,) show this is more than the natural effect, said Francesca Guglielmo, a Copernicus senior climate scientist.
The North Atlantic sea surface temperature has been at record level — compared to the specific date — every day for a solid year since March 5, 2023, “often by seemingly-impossible margins,” according to University of Miami tropical scientist Brian McNoldy.
Those other ocean areas “are a symptom of greenhouse-gas trapped heat accumulating over decades,” Francis said in an email.
“That heat is now emerging and pushing air temperatures into uncharted territory.”
“These anomalously high temperatures are very worrisome,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald.
“To avoid even higher temperatures, we need to act quickly to reduce CO2 emissions.”
This was the warmest winter — December, January and February — by nearly a quarter of a degree [ 0.25C] , beating 2016, which was also an El Nino year. The three-month period was the most any season has been above pre-industrial levels in Copernicus record keeping, which goes back to 1940.
I suppose Jennifer Francis is another one of those unhinged non-scientific radical doomer climate scientists like James Hansen is labelled as? I look forward to seeing the content corrected by our resident “science” crew of avid commenters.
Anti-doomers step up to the plate, the world needs you now, lest it totally loses it’s head over an ‘el nino’ or whatever it is that you’re use as excuses that there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
It’s just another dot on a graph, right? (smile)
Susan Andersonsays
NK: If you’d just pare out the personal attacks and snark, this is a good summary. Not something most people here don’t already know, but by making it about what’s wrong with everybody else, the subject becomes your ego rather than the excellent material you cite.
The people you choose to attack probably know Jennifer Francis and James Hansen better than you do.
Without the personal attacks and snark, Ned would have to spell out the extent of his doom and gloom. So that won’t happen. Think of him as Mike’s evil twin.
To each their own.
Killiansays
Yet, you lied and said I was “attacking” ideas and people when I did nothing more than make an accurate statement.
You have always been hypocritical in this way. Please stop.
You jumping in to attack the style of others only adds to the disruption, again hypocritically. Please stop.
These are serious times for serious people. Personal bullshit is immoral and unethical, distracting from solutions.
Killiansays
Those other ocean areas “are a symptom of greenhouse-gas trapped heat accumulating over decades,” Francis said in an email.
“That heat is now emerging and pushing air temperatures into uncharted territory.”
As far back as 2009 I had argued ESS had to be higher, at least 4C given what we were already seeing even then with Greenland losing mass, thermokarst lakes tripling in number in a decade, and on and on. I argued this with four PhD holders on TheOilDrum, in fact. The archives are still there.
Skipping forward, we saw another example of this in three straight La Ninas. With all the energy entering the system, it had to be doing somewhere, and in this case what goes down into the Pacific must come up. When we hit the second La Nina I predicted a large El Nino. When we hit the third, it became a certainty.
If one realizes in 2009 what is not demonstrated scientifically until 2023, then one’s analysis is going to be very different from others’. 150 years of 4.8C, not 3C? How very, very different.
This is all about patterns. If one’s primary understanding of the climate crisis is centered almost solely on the climate crisis rather than the cause, consumption and the broadscale implications of that, including ecosystem destruction, and further is based primarily on reports that only come out every five-ish years an are already two years out of date when published in some respects, one cannot possibly understand the up-to-the-moment realities of what we have done as a species and must face up to.
There are many ways of knowing. Numbers are merely one.
Etc.
Barry E Finchsays
This is just cut’n’paste of what I figured in 2016 and modified for wording the next few years and posted around the GooglesTubes for a few years (until it was clear nobody cared because global warming had stopped and there was an Ice Age now).. I didn’t know about the aerosols reduction, as I stated, so it needs boosting for that. I’d been led to understand by climate scientists in videos that SWR/LWR analysis wasn’t accurate for prime time,EEI so I used ORAS4 OHC scaled up for odds’n’ends which is lower EEI than CERES for some reason(s) so it needs boosting for that.
———– cut’n’paste
:
Based on the actual surface/air warming the last 45 years, and the global heaters over that period, and using CO2 & CH4 in the atmosphere just continuing to increase at the same rate as 2017-2019 the next 40 years of surface-air warming will be:
2020-2030 +0.25 degrees
2030-2040 +0.31 degrees
2040-2050 +0.37 degrees
2050-2060 +0.43 degrees
Total = +1.36 degrees
So at 2060 AD will be 1.28 + 1.36 = 2.64 degrees above 1750 AD. No computer models are needed to get that basic information, certainly accurate +/- 15%, only projecting for the next 40 years what has happened for the last 45 years. The basic GLOBAL thermodynamics is simple enough. The global heater is now 445,000 gigawatts (2015-2020 average) and +CO2 +CH4 have been adding 19,000 gigawatts / year to that. Before 1995 global heater was 200,000 gigawatts. 1995-2015 it averaged 396,000 gigawatts. Surface-air temperature increased +0.18 degrees / decade. Using those global heater and surface-air warming data leads to the inescapable definite conclusion of warming 2020-2060 AD that I tabled above. That’s based on the 2010-2020 carbon burn sustained to 2060 and assuming humans don’t clean up any of their air pollution.
Ned Kellysays
Barry E Finch says
10 Mar 2024 at 8:01 PM
Well done. I hear you. No models required!
When the scientist were working on their new CMIP6 models how many (all of them?) did not include the fact that Sulphur emissions from global shipping was going to be cut to close to zero circa 2023?
Because this major aerosols change was telegraphed years in advance by the maritime groups and govts. Long before those CMIP6 models were being calculated iirc.
Does anyone know what the facts are about this? Gavin should.
Solar Jimsays
Thank you Barry Finch.
Since the planet’s surface is 5.1 x 10 to 14th power, for each 2 W/m2 of actual energy flux (rising due to Radiative Forcing, presently about 4 W/m2) the total Heat Input to the Earth System is about one quadrillion watts. Although we have not reached this arbitrary quantity yet, global heating is accelerating and may be enough already, with biogeophysical feedbacks, to turn this planet into a burned-out, flooded, near lifeless cinder (with or without us from here on).
There seems to be only one “solution” now. Removal of contamination from our man-made global gas chamber.
Ned Kellysays
Sulphur Emission Control
Quote:… in 2020, satellite observations showed fewer of those pollution fingerprints.
Drawing on nearly two decades of satellite imagery, researchers found that the number of ship tracks fell significantly after a new fuel regulation went into effect. A global standard implemented in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – requiring an 86% reduction in fuel sulfur content – likely reduced ship track formation. https://www.nasa.gov/missions/aqua/nasa-study-finds-evidence-that-fuel-regulation-reduced-air-pollution-from-shipping/
Did they include the major coming effects of on regional ocean albedo changes and subsequent impacts global temperatures accumlating from 2020 onward?
Øyvindsays
>2020
>Shipping fuel regulation to cut sulphur levels comes into force
This is actually more of a CMIP / IPCC problem than a model problem. CMIP is a long process with complex protocols. The CMIP6 data was already defined in 2016-2017 so likely even followed the older timeline for ship emissions with 2025 as mentioned in the article you refer to. In addition the emissions are not defined for every year. For the relevant period the emissions are defined for the year 2015, 2020 and 2030 so jumps are averaged out. There exists more recent datasets that include the 2020 definition but even so the change is too smooth
When that is said, even with a more step-wise change in shipping emissions you can not expect that climate models will be able to forecast a given year, not even in decadal prediction mode. You will need to get the El Nino event at the correct time at the very least. As far as I know the current view is that El Nino is unpredictable more than 3 years or so ahead of the event.
Ned Kellysays
PS Ref for Øyvind
By Gavin Schmidt: one year ago
What influence does ENSO really have?
It’s well known (among readers here, I assume), that ENSO influences the interannual variability of the climate system and the annual mean temperatures. El Niño events enhance global warming (as in 1998, 2010, 2016 etc.) and La Niña events (2011, 2018, 2021, 2022 etc.) impart a slight cooling.
Far more predictive are the long term trends which are consistently (now) above 0.2ºC/dec (and with much smaller uncertainties ±0.02ºC/dec for the last 40 years).
It’s worth exploring quantitatively what the impact is, and this is something I’ve been looking at for a while. It’s easy enough correlate the detrended annual anomalies with the ENSO index (maximum correlation is for the early spring values), and then use that regression to estimate the specific impact for any year, and to estimate an ENSO-corrected time series.
The surface temperature records are becoming more coherent
When will we reach 1.5ºC above the pre-industrial?
Linear trends since 1996 are robustly just over 0.2ºC/decade in all series, so that suggests between one and two decades are required to have the mean climate exceed 1.5ºC, that is around 2032 to 2042. The first specific year that breaches this threshold will come earlier and will likely be associated with a big El Niño. Assuming something like 2016 (a +0.11ºC effect), that implies you might see the excedence some 5 years earlier – say 2027 to 2037 https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/01/2022-updates-to-the-temperature-records/
Inconvenient truths are conveniently memory-holed.
Ned Kellysays
Øyvind says
15 Mar 2024 at 3:03 AM
“you can not expect that climate models will be able to forecast a given year, ”
I am not expecting that. You are misinterpreting what I said and it’s meaning. There’s no need to “predict” enso either, for that is a known entity in any particular year and can then be considered as an influence or not in whatever the actual annual temperatures and other measurelments end up being by years end.
The issue is not that they could not predict 2023 results – the serious problem is these “supremely authoritative” climate scientists (who ridicule everyone else for being ignorant or stupid) cannot even explain it after the event. Same as they were utterly clueless for years over the supposed “haitus”!
Same as this ridiculous illogically flawed notion of remaining under +1.5C at 2050 and at 2100 as recommended as being possible by the IPCC and they also promote achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 is possible and yet here we are barely years away from permanently breaking thru that +1.5C barrier rapidly heading towards +2c in the early 2040s.
It is not even 10 years since this +1.5C goal was agreed to and already it is hot to pieces. What good are they? what good is the IPCC? Constant failures. These ideas were flawed and unachievable the day they were recommended by the IPCC scientists. The term incompetent does not begin to accurately describe the reliability and professional performance of climate scientists to date.
If what you say about CMIP6 is correct when those were ‘established’ then none of them are useful imo. All are outdated by the time they were published. You cannot say aerosol changes have no effect because they do. The same as clouds and ice albedo has an effect. Everything has an effect — you cannot simply choose to ignore one or all of them. ( well actually you can, because this is what the science actually does. )
It is precisely why Gavin admits on video he has no idea why 2023 was a surprising spectacular year warming wise. That is because the “climate science” cannot advise him. So he has no idea at all. None.
Meanwhile, paper after paper is ignored and minimized by the Traditionalists and Celebrities who claim Authority to them and none to everyone else despite how clueless they actually are to answer any basic question.
So let’s whine and moan about Willy Soon and Roy Spencer instead – it’ll make us look better than we actually are ourselves?
Less aerosols and less clouds with slightly more atmos water content and more insolation and several years of adding cumulative OHC, higher EEI, with less Ice in a warming world plus an El Nina in place logically delivers what exactly in 2023 and early 2024?
Certainly not a 1970s global climate. But James Hansen is an extremist unscientific outlier who has lost his marbles and should be ignored – and he is!
Logic, reason and recognizing fallacies isn’t rocket science. People who say they do not know – and prove they do not know – do not know!
Carl Sagan, renowned astrophysicist and science communicator, emphasized the importance of logic, reason, and critical thinking in science. While he may not have spoken specifically about fallacies in climate science, his general views on skepticism and scientific inquiry are relevant to this topic.
Sagan often stressed the need for skepticism as a cornerstone of scientific thinking. He encouraged people to question ideas and hypotheses, to seek evidence and logical explanations, and to be open to changing their views based on new evidence.
In his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,” Sagan discussed the dangers of pseudoscience and the importance of critical thinking in evaluating claims about the natural world.
Regarding fallacies, Sagan likely would have advocated for scientists and the public to be aware of common logical fallacies, such as appeals to emotion, ad hominem attacks, and false dichotomies, and to avoid them in scientific discourse. He would have likely emphasized the need for clear, logical reasoning based on evidence and data in all scientific investigations, including those related to climate science.
Secular Animistsays
NK wrote: “Sagan often stressed the need for skepticism as a cornerstone of scientific thinking.”
Sagan’s often quoted dictum “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” presupposes that we know a priori which claims are “extraordinary” (which is a completely subjective judgement) and should be held to an “extraordinary” evidentiary standard, which makes it the opposite of skepticism, which applies the same objective, impartial evidentiary standard to all claims.
To accept, for example, that a pharmaceutical drug is effective based on statistical results that are deemed significant, while rejecting the results of parapsychology studies that attain a higher level of significance, is not skeptical. It is indeed pseudoskepticism, not unlike that of the global warming deniers.
It’s interesting that Sagan did not choose to call his book “The Angel-Blessed World”.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
SA: To accept, for example, that a pharmaceutical drug is effective based on statistical results that are deemed significant, while rejecting the results of parapsychology studies that attain a higher level of significance, is not skeptical. It is indeed pseudoskepticism, not unlike that of the global warming deniers.
BPL: When controls are tightened on psychic experiments, the statistical significance of the effect inevitably disappears. Parapsychologists are also known to “p hunt,” e.g. when a subject fails to predict the next card, they look for a correlation with the past card. The more datasets checked, the more likely you are to find at least one with p < 0.05.
Understand, I'm speaking as someone who believes psychic phenomena exist. I have experienced a few instances myself. But they're not reproducible or unexplainable by other processes, so they don't really fall under the aegis of science per se.
Secular Animistsays
BPL wrote: “When controls are tightened on psychic experiments, the statistical significance of the effect inevitably disappears.”
It was not my intention to hijack this forum for a discussion of parapsychology, but with all due respect, that assertion is simply false. In fact, with regard to Ganzfeld experiments, the opposite has proved true — with improvements in controls and methods (e.g. see the Hyman/Honorton “Joint Communiqué” of 1986) , the effect has if anything grown more robust.
Your reference to card reading experiments — i.e. the Zener card experiments that were conducted in the 1930s by J.B. Rhine and associates — suggests that you may not be keeping up with research in the field.
I’m not really interested in persuading anyone towards any point of view regarding parapsychology. My point was merely that classifying ANY claim as a priori “extraordinary” and therefore requiring a higher standard of evidence than claims that are classified a priori as “ordinary” is NOT skepticism.
jgnfldsays
I too once saw a ghost…Was sleeping but woke up to get some water. Saw ghost in kitchen just standing there. Being a good young science student I went back into the bedroom to get the cat and brought him out to the kitchen. I still saw ghost but cat didn’t react, so I assumed there was no consensual validation and I must be having a waking dream. Or maybe I got some of the drugs from the psychopharmacology lab I was working in at that time of my education into my system somehow, I don’t know. (We had a number of interesting drugs and also a–quite legal–meth operation! Decades before Breaking Bad, no less!). Anyway, then the dreamish ghost came right at me and disappeared right in my face. Haven’t seen him since.
I had a goodly tumbler of brandy instead of water and went back to bed.
———————
Anyway, parapsych research has much in common with those who espouse the Great Global Warming “Hiatus”: Do enough tests along a series with a sliding window and you’ll get some false positives.
I used to have my stats classes do 100 coin flips as an exercise. In a class of 50 it was quite common to see runs of 10 heads in a row even though the naive probability for that event is 1 in 1024.
Not surprising really. If you do a full calculation or simulation. Each student had about a 1 in 20 chance (standard statistical alpha significance) of seeing this so 50 students made it near certain to be observed in most classes. Again…do enough tests and you’ll get some false positives (unless you control for alpha.)
On the paranormal front, recall that the late climate change skeptic Nils-Axel Mörner believed water could be found via a divining rod. He’s listed as a notable dowsing practitioner here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing
Mörner was a geophysicist and head of the dept at Stockholm U. He wasn’t interested in the topic as a quack pseudoscience (which would be my take), but he really believed in it to the point of teaching courses on dowsing, which his university eventually banned.
Have to say that my side-interest in geophysics is also somewhat out there but does not enter the realm of the paranormal. It’s simple in terms of a model of the Earth’s Chandler wobble synced to the Moon’s monthly draconic orbit. That’s not a paranormal force but a simple normal gravitational tug that controls the Earth’s tiny axial response. The validation of this is in a precise mapping of a few frequency spectral peaks (a primary and 2 secondary) to that calculated from the lunar period using modular arithmetic. Since it’s not just one peak mapped, the validation is as uniquely significant as a fingerprint match. I published the model without the strong validation several years ago, and then an update on this blog post: https://geoenergymath.com/2021/01/07/chandler-wobble-forcing/
The larger issue is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for valid ideas to emerge from the swamp of crackpots out there. The immediate reaction is to treat any new idea as pseudoscience. Will it get worse or better with AI?
FWIW, my perspective is that the dictum that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” isn’t really a scientific dictum per se, but rather an accurate statement about human nature. The scientific process attempts to correct for human failures and biases, but at the end of the day science is a human endeavor, and scientists are humans. And while that may be a “bug” sometimes, it is also a “feature.”
More specifically, the choice of which topic to research and how is always going to rest one the value given to that topic by the researcher–and while I expect that reason and logic will generally be involved in that choice, they are seldom if ever going to be the sole determinants. Nor should they be; if they were, how could we have the spectrum of disciplines that we do? A friend of mine did a dissertation on “negative geotaxis” in beetles (if memory serves–and having earlier invoked “bugs”). Was he wrong to be interested in such a seemingly obscure subject? Or, more directly to the point, was he guided strictly by logic and reason? Or did he just find beetles pretty cool creatures? Values, by definition, are prior to the rational processes to which they serve as input. (Though they may be informed by other, prior rational or perceptual processes. Causality here isn’t simple.)
All of which is to say that while the judgment as to whether a particular claim is “extraordinary” may be subjective, but scientists are going to make it regardless. Indeed, they may need to make it as a practical matter, because they may face the decision as to whether it merits the expenditure of their personal and/or institutional time and resources.
Radge Haverssays
How I’m seeing it…
Claim: The earth is flat.
Evidence Required: Probably extraordinary by anyones definition.
IOW, if you’re going to take down a well established hypothesis, you’d better have superior chops, and amazeballs evidence.
Skepticism includes being skeptical of the skeptics (and you know where I got that one).
GISTEMP has reported for February with a global anomaly of +1.44ºC, a big increase on January’s +1.22ºC and the second highest monthly anomaly on record (after Sept 2023’s +1.48ºC). So Feb 2024 becomes the ninth ‘scorchyisiom!!!’ month in a row.
The rest of the top-12 hottest Februarys now run +1.37ºC (2016), +1.24ºC (2020), +1.14ºC (2017), +1.03ºC (2006), +0.97ºC (2023), +0.95ºC (2019), +0.90ºC (2015), +0.89ºC (2022), +0.88ºC (1998), +0.85ºC (2018) & +0.83ºC (2010). The years with El Nino boost are in bold
And replicating the ‘bananas’ analysis used above on ERA5 SAT & UAH TLT, the level of ‘absolute gobsmacking’ appears again now greatly diminished relative to the back half of 2023.
The ‘bananas’ months
GISTEMP monthly global SAT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … +0.00ºC … (-0.31ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.07ºC … (-0.40ºC – 2016)
Mar … +0.24ºC … (-0.15ºC – 2016)
Apr … +0.24ºC … (-0.13ºC – 2020)
May … +0.13ºC … (-0.08ºC – 2020)
Jun … +0.27ºC … (+0.16ºC – 2022)
Jul … +0.46ºC … (+0.25ºC – 2022)
Aug … +0.40ºC … (+0.17ºC – 2016)
Sep … +0.63ºC … (+0.50ºC – 2020)
Oct … +0.25ºC … (+0.25ºC – 2015)
Nov … +0.36ºC … (+0.36ºC – 2020)
Dec … +0.18ºC … (+0.18ºC – 2015)
Jan … +0.04ºC … (+0.04ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.07ºC … (+0.07ºC – 2016)
Ned Kellysays
MA Rodger says a lot and proves nothing except his own incompetence and unreliability.
11 Mar 2024 at 1:54 PM
A logical El Nino to compare 2023 Temperatures with would be the 2020 El Nino period, and not 2016 for what should be obvious scientific reasons.
The disinformation being presented on this forum is nothing more than anti-scientific rhetoric. It is astounding to me that false representations like the above from MA is posted without any correction by the Moderators and left stand. And of course none of the resident “biased groupies” with PhDs will correct it, so I will.
El Niño events are typically compared based on their strength, which is often measured by the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI). The ONI compares the sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific Ocean to the long-term average. Here’s a comparison between the 2016 El Niño and the 2023 El Niño based on their ONI values:
2016 El Niño: The 2015-2016 El Niño event was one of the strongest on record. The peak ONI value reached approximately +2.3°C in late 2015 and early 2016.
2023 El Niño: The 2022-2023 El Niño event was not as strong as the 2015-2016 event. The peak ONI value for the 2023 El Niño was around +1.0°C, making it a moderate El Niño event.
In summary, the 2016 El Niño was significantly stronger than the 2023 El Niño, as indicated by the ONI values.
Comparing the strength of El Niño events can be done using various metrics, such as sea surface temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Here’s a comparison of the 2010 El Niño with the 2023 El Niño:
2010 El Niño: The 2009-2010 El Niño event was considered moderate to strong. The peak sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region reached around +1.5°C.
2023 El Niño: The 2022-2023 El Niño event was also classified as moderate. The peak sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region was approximately +1.0°C.
In summary, the 2010 El Niño was slightly stronger than the 2023 El Niño, based on the peak sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region.
John Pollacksays
NK, what is your source for ONI values? I ask, because the source I have been using, https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php
rates the late 2023 ONI as a fairly strong +2.0C, well above the approximately +1.0 C you are quoting for the same region (3.4). For comparison, it gives peak 2009-10 as +1.6C and 2015-16 as +2.6C.
Ned Kellysays
Except the minor error that 2023 is slightly stronger than 2010. Using your chart numbers the ONI comparisons remain valid, and arrive at the same conclusions. Rodgers data is distortion and disinformation … a misrepresentation if you prefer of what is actually happening in 2023 to now.
Ned Kelly,
You will have to forgive me for ignoring your 1,000-word essay. Perhaps you could cut out all the wordy stuff and present a more reasonably-lengthed account.
We are, of course, spoiled for choice in ways of comparing wobbles in the ENSO cycle. If I were to seek the one showing the weakest 2023 El Niño, I’d plump for MEI (which I note has recently had a lost data source). But MEI also shows 2016 to be relatively weak and given the big 2016 temperature response, that itself is a bit of a problem for you “doomers.”
Of course, the peak ONI or peak NINO3.4 is not the best measure either. Perhaps the average NINO3.4 over the full El Niño would be more telling, and with 2023/24 still incomplete perhaps the period since last June can be compared with past El Niños. That would give 2.125 for 1997, 1.0075 for 2009, 2.205 for 2015 and 1.5325 for 2023. Or perhaps use a similar-type average using SOI which shows 2023 & 2009 equally powerful, and likewise 2015 & 1997.
So what is the take-away?
I would suggest it is that 2015/16 and 1997/98 are roughly similar,which raises the question of the relatively massive 2015/16 global temperature response relative to 1997/98 if both wobbles are driven by similar-sized El Niños. (See graphic of NOAA data posted 14/2/24 on this webpage.) Maybe that would be worthy of a 1,000-word explanation!!
nigeljsays
MAR. This leaves the question of why 2023 and 2015 / 2016 were both so unusually hot. The climate scientists say part of the warming is el nino and underlying AGW and in 2023 possibly sulphate aerosols but this doesn’t fully explain why they were so unusually hot.
The remaining heat cant be due to a step change in CO2 or methane levels because there wasn’t any that I’m aware of. The tongan volcano seemed to affect the S hemisphere and doesn’t fully account for the excess warming.
By a process of elimination this leaves natural variation but nobody is sure exactly what natural variation. A change in winds in the northern oceans in 2023 has been posited but is not 100% certain. However it all suggests next year will be a cooler year.
Makes me sound like a minimiser but its simple logic really. I do agree with Hansen that aerosols and tipping points will cause and might have already caused an acceleration in AGW so we are still in big trouble. Deep in the cow manure.
Lavrov's Dogsays
MA Rodger says
12 Mar 2024 at 9:01 AM
What 1,000-word essay are you talking about Rodger? I wrote no essay, let alone 1000 words.
I’m concerned about your wild imaginations / exaggerations or whatever they are – RU OK?
But thanks for acknowledging the fact you also have no idea about Enso or global warming rates recently. None at all.
nigelj,
I have struggled in vain to find any evidence for any cause for the ‘bananas’ except for this perceived bizarre trend in the earlier arrival of the global temperature response to El Niño and the speculation that this is due to the growing size of the early NH Ocean responses (thus stronger ocean currents?) followed by this being massively amplified by the NH Land response. I await the development of these anomalies to see how it pans out.
(The NOAA monthly data I’ve been plotting out here 13/2/24 has yet to be posted for Feb. The March-to-date global anomaly in ERA5 today sits down alongside the January +0.7ºC but that is the measuring the bottom of a wobble. The rolling 31-day average-to-date sits is only a little higher. If the previous ERA5 wobble is grafted on to the rest of March, the March anomaly rise back above the Feb anomaly of +0.8ºC to the same level as the 2023 ‘bananas’ +0.85ºC.)
Lavrov’s Dog,
Well done!!
You have managed here to confirm you are but a sock-puppet.
The 1,000 word essay you deny writing sits up-thread here.
Ned Kellysays
Lavrov’s Dog says
13 Mar 2024 at 8:04 PM
sorry, a drop down box accident. my bad, woof
Ned Kellysays
Correction, sorry — ” to compare 2023 Temperatures with would be the 2010 El Nino period”
Ned Kellysays
2020 fwiw
Advances in understanding large-scale responses of the water cycle to climate change
Richard P. Allan
Rapid adjustments to forcings, cooling effects from scattering aerosol, and observational uncertainty can explain why observed global precipitation responses are currently difficult to detect but are expected to emerge and accelerate as warming increases and aerosol forcing diminishes. Precipitation increases with warming are expected to be smaller over land than ocean due to limitations on moisture convergence, exacerbated by feedbacks and affected by rapid adjustments. Thermodynamic increases in atmospheric moisture fluxes amplify wet and dry events, driving an intensification of precipitation extremes. The rate of intensification can deviate from a simple thermodynamic response due to in-storm and larger-scale feedback processes, while changes in large-scale dynamics and catchment characteristics further modulate the frequency of flooding in response to precipitation increases. Changes in atmospheric circulation in response to radiative forcing and evolving surface temperature patterns are capable of dominating water cycle changes in some regions. Moreover, the direct impact of human activities on the water cycle through water abstraction, irrigation, and land use change is already a significant component of regional water cycle change and is expected to further increase in importance as water demand grows with global population.
Thanks, good paper. Bullet points at the end are a useful list, though as we know there has been an exacerbation of all effects since this was published.
Barry E Finchsays
All sudden & large such as 12 months & up or down >0.20 degrees must be entirely or mostly due to a change in the vertical mixing rate of the relatively-cold ocean below up to the surface waters (I mean could be an eclectic regional mix (hey a mix of mixes)) because there’s no other source of such sudden & large power change (I mean setting aside a huge volcano, but only in the cooling direction, or an asteroid the size of the Isle of Wight hits Earth).
Jonathan Davidsays
I had the same thought. The most obvious explanation is a release of thermal energy that is already present. We know the ocean absorbs energy. Once this happens there is no simple way for this energy to be released except by diffusion through stratified ocean layers to the surface and then dissipation from convective flow. Potentially this can become an unstable system if too much energy is accumulated in the deeper ocean or the loss from surface interactions becomes too small. This is typical Rayleigh Benard convection. Once this instability occurs overly warmed lower ocean layers will create a convective cell where lower warmer ocean layers replace cooler upper layers. I’m not a climate scientist so this is just speculation, of course.
A thermocline is a metastable system. In temperate climates, freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears (either twice or once a year). An ocean basin is essentially a knife-edge sea-saw that has a similar instability, but in this case the thermocline is sensitive to massive inertial changes caused by well-characterized cyclic changes in the Earth’s rotation rate. This leads to sloshing of the thermocline back and forth, either raising or lowering the thermocline, and that’s what causes all the non-annual variation in climate indices such as ENSO, IOD, AMO, etc. And it’s not shifts in prevailing wind that’s causing the sloshing, since it’s been shown by Lin & Qian that the wind lags thermocline motion. Wind only exists due to pressure differentials and so changes in the wind result from spatially-resolved changes in atmospheric pressure due to differential heating of the thermocline sea-saw. That’s why the wind slightly lags all the sub-surface movements of the thermocline depth.
This narrative would of course all be conjecture if we were unable to correlate the changes to some other known inertial forcing. The only one that makes sense is to take the Earth’s rotation rate variation, aka the LOD, and feed that directly into a fluid dynamics forced response formulation. I’ve published that approach several years ago, and have been updating the cross-validation studies ever since — not yet by pricey paper publishing but by updates to github and a blog. Latest cross-validation is here: https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/08/dynamic-time-warping/
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite Mar. 15. A thermocline is a metastable system. Freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears (either twice or once a year). An ocean basin is essentially a knife-edge sea-saw that has a similar instability.
Why would you bring up lakes? There is very little similarity between them and the ocean. MOST of the ocean, unlike your lakes – does NOT overturn: thanks to its larger depth and the Thermohaline Circulation – MOST of the ocean deep water is permanently denser than the surface waters above them – hence no overturning there.
Ironically, in the few places and times in the ocean, where the overturning DOES happen – there is no thermocline to speak of.
So you’re not aware that subsurface waves (aka internal waves) in the middle of the ocean are often 100’s of meters in height?
“Ironically, in the few places and times in the ocean, where the overturning DOES happen – there is no thermocline to speak of.”
The region that has the most delineated thermocline is along the equator. Not surprisingly. the equatorial subsurface waves are the most closely monitored as they are the most directly causal indicator of interannual global temperature changes.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: “ Freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears
Piotr: “Why would you bring up lakes? MOST of the ocean, unlike your lakes – does NOT overturn”
PP: “So you’re not aware that subsurface waves (aka internal waves) in the middle of the ocean”
I know about internal waves. It is you who “is not aware” of the difference between “internal waves in the middle of the ocean ” and “overturning “.
PP: The region that has the most delineated thermocline is along the equator.
And 2+2=4. Still doesn’t make the undulation of that “well-defined thermocline in the middle of the ocean” into an “overturning“. Don’t use the words you don’t understand.
These are actually kind of hard to find as they were originally hosted on a NOAA web site that has since disappeared. I don’t know why they aren’t shown more, as they are an eye-opener — note that as the thermocline approaches the surface the temperatures then plummet.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite (@whut) 22 MAR: “ So you’re really not aware how large subsurface internal waves along the thermocline can get?”
I know how tall the internal waves could be, Genius, so what I questioned is not their height but your claim that they cause ocean “overturning” -which in oceanography means swapping vertically deep waters with surface waters.
Thermal/thermohaline overturning happens in fall/winter in lakes and high latitude oceans without pronounced thermocline. And we care about it because it is important in the vertical transport of heat, is a source of nutrients to the surface layer and of oxygen to deep waters, moving some of the atm CO2 into the ocean. In case of N. Atlantic – “overturning” is the driver of the AMOC and thus the global Thermohaline Circulation.
Your internal waves “in the middle of the ocean with a well defined thermocline”
have none of the scale nor importance of these thermohaline overturnings. We can conclude that from two independent lines of reasoning:
1. no scale to cause any significant overturning
– the internal waves would have to reach into the deep waters (below the thermocline) and they are too small to do so, given that your “well-defined” thermocline is typically several 100 metres thick
– and reaching there would still not be enough – the wave would have ALSO to BREAK. And the 100+ m internal waves typically don’t break “in the middle of the ocean”.
Hence, you latest effort to make your area of interest important seems to be destined to the fate of your previous attempts to do so (see your claims that a better prediction of the exact timing of the next El Nino could “ save countless lives“… ;-) )
Nice Piotr, you understand the diff between a lake and an ocean.
As far as origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions, the failed consensus still seems to be that shifts in prevailing winds are the causative agents. Yet, no cause for why the wind shifts. In exasperation, when something is not well understood, the explanation is often the dog chasing its tail, or turtles all the way down. .
There’s hope tho — the fellas at THE Ohio State University seem to understand the real mechanism behind ENSO : “Switch Between El Nino and La Nina is Caused by Subsurface Ocean Waves Likely Driven by Lunar Tidal Forcing”https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w
They only lack the fluid dynamics math behind it, which is necessary to synchronize the tidal periods. I got that part covered.
Piotrsays
“ Nice Piotr, you understand the diff between a lake and an ocean”
derisively says Paul Pukite (MAR 29), in response to my pointing om Mar 21 that …. HE didn’t get that difference:
“Piotr Mar 21: “Why would you bring up lakes? There is very little similarity between them and the ocean”
Derision toward an opponent works ONLY if you have shown them being wrong.
The same derision when they were right and you were wrong, discredits only you.
As far as origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions
Again – nobody discussed here “ origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions“, but your post from Mar.15 in which :
– you compared effects of the oscillations of the thermocline to “complete overturning” in a lake – which I have shown to be false
– you confidently claimed that these oscillations around the mean somehow “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change“. When I asked you to prove this claims – you “replied” with:
“ there is no such thing as a proof in the physical sciences” , Paul Pukite
Correction. My classic work is in applied math and applied physics, starting from way back in the day.
I ponder why Piotr has such a personal vendetta against me, as I am in the progress of dismantling all of Richard Lindzen’s early work in interannual variability. This is stuff that’s 50 years old and all I can wonder is why no one thought to work it through?
Piotr, do you have a theory as to the sudden rise in oceanic temperatures? I’m not a climate researcher, my background is in engineering and later applied mathematics so I claim no authoritative opinion. However, obviously exceedingly large amounts of thermal energy cannot appear by magic. Also it seems counterintuitive to me that these phenomena are a result of changes in atmospheric phenomena such as aerosols or other gaseous causes due to thermal inertia of the oceans. This makes me conjecture that this energy is already present somewhere in the physical system. Interested to get your thoughts on this sudden temperature rise.
nigeljsays
Jonathan David. I’m not a climate expert. My background is in infrastructure design ( I dont want to be too specific because people should be judged on what they say, not qualifications). However fyi this source below makes some interesting comments on the last 9 months of unusually high ocean temperatures, the potential impacts of aerosols and other possible causes for the very high temperatures.
“Aerosols: are SO2 emissions reductions contributing to global warming?”
Paul Pukite Mar 22: “ I am arguing over with Piotr in the thread above concerns the metastability of the ocean’s thermocline. Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change.
To have your “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change” – you would have to raise or lower the thermocline “permanently ” .
Internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline.
So the only way they could have ANY (much less “HUGE”) effect on changes in SST would be if they reached deep into the thermocline enough AND be able to break and in doing so – erode the significant thickness of thermocline. Which they can’t today, and couldn’t in the past – PARTICULARLY in the places you that identified as the BEST locations for it (“equatorial waters with most delineated thermocline “).
And the final point from our previous discussion – for the global climate CHANGE – only the effects that CHANGE matter
So not only you would have to prove that the oscillation around the mean affect the depth of the thermocline, but also that this effect increases or decreases over climatological time-scale, despite that your driving force – tidal – doesn’t.
Good luck with both.
Physics is not about proofs — only math can prove something starting from a proposition. Alas, you’re fortunate to make the above assertion at this time, since I had recently finished a blog post showing the difference between a mathematical proof and a physics-based hypothesis intended to explain an observed behavior.
As I state in the blog post, the first half is my try of a proof of a mathematical construction, which appears very similar to an abstracted ideal QBO, matching it in topology. That part is laid out in a gray background.
In the second half of the post, I map the abstracted construction to that of the real QBO — not to prove anything but to provide a model that matches the empirical observations, and thus to offer it as a candidate that is superior to other models that have been presented to explain the QBO.
The specific explanation laid out in the post is an important finding as it strongly suggests to re-evaluate the research that Richard Lindzen published 50+ years ago to explain QBO. Ask ChatGPT and it will tell you that Lindzen is the “Godfather of QBO”. But of course, Lindzen never proved anything and my finding indicates that he completely overlooked the constrained topology and external forces that could lead to a much more plausible and parsimonious model for QBO. See, that’s the point of physics models — they don’t need to prove anything, they just need to perform better than any of the preceding models at explaining the empirical observations.
I’m not sure if Lindzen himself claimed that his model was proof, but being an educator, I hope he taught his students the difference between a proof and a scientific model.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: MAR 25: “Physics is not about proofs”
I have already answered the last time you were making that claim:
====
Paul Pukite MAR4: “First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
Piotr MAR4 : As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics – after claiming that better predicting of timing of the next El Nino could “save countless lives” – he failed to show how – so he claimed that by “ countless” he didn’t mean “very many”, but .. .unknowable number (i.e. maybe a lot, maybe none at all, who knows). Now: there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
So how about: “demonstrate”, “justify”, “show the likelihood of being significant”?
===
Which part of that post from Mar 4, you didn’t understand, Paul?
Paul Pukite, Mar25 :” Alas, you’re fortunate to make the above assertion at this time ”
Alas, not fortunate enough to see Paul Pukite answering the direct challenge to his claims on RC from Mar22:
Paul Pukite Mar 22: ” Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change.
Piotr Mar 24: “To have your “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change” – you would have to raise or lower the thermocline “permanently ” Internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline. […]
And for the global climate CHANGE – only the effects that CHANGE matter
So not only you would have to [demonstrate] that the oscillation around the mean affect the depth of the thermocline, but also that this effect increases or decreases over climatological time-scale, despite that your driving force – tidal – doesn’t.”
Nobody has asked you about your thoughts on your blog about “ abstracted ideal QBO, matching in topology.”
So grow a pair, and justify your Mar.22 “huge implications” claim.
” As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics “
Well, you hide behind rhetoric.
I know it might be difficult to accept, but semantics are important in devising a math proof — as it provides the meaning behind the symbols and expressions used during a proof’s construction. It’s not a mechanism to hide behind but a means to convey unambiguously and consistently what one is trying to prove. More generally, semantic reasoning is defined as the capability of inferring new facts from existing data based on inference rules & ontologies. Which is in a sense what classical semantic AI is all about.
So for the post I linked to https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/25/proof-for-allowed-modes-of-an-ideal-qbo/, I provided essentially a math proof, applying semantic reasoning as appropriate, to try to prove how a wavenumber mode of an idealized QBO can be realized via a topological connection. This is not a proof as to whether the real QBO follows from this principle but an example of how to use math to create a hypothesis that can eventually be tested against the empirical observations.
For this particular case of trying to pin down the physical mechanism driving the QBO, I have been evaluating the basic model since publishing it in 2018 (and presenting at conferences a couple of years before that). The model fits the QBO observations well and readily cross-validates as shown in this blog post https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/16/are-the-qbo-disruptions-anomalous/
Yet, despite the excellent agreement, no peer-reviewed work in atmospheric physics or climate science has attempted to cite the publication or directly refute the findings. It’s been over 5 years now, and still nothing — perhaps its a case of Hiding in Plain Sight. Of course it’s easy for someone like Piotr to launch rhetorical attacks against some meaningless subjective remark that I’ve made on a blog comments page, but that’s the way that deflection works — get people preoccupied with some inanity rather than the salient findings.
It’s also easier to counter some strawman sunspot theory than try to debunk a solid geophysics model, but in the case of QBO the problem my lay with the gatekeepers that are guarding the consensus view — the main scientists being Richard Lindzen, Tim Dunkerton, and Paul Roundy. What a bloviating trio you got there! Dunkerton has told me that he will cite my work in an article he is working on, but based on his WaPo reported ethical problems, not sure how that will pan out.
supposed to be approx. a unit vectorpointing from Earth to the Moon? (PS I would have switched the x and y formulas but perhaps you’re using a left-handed system or intending to have z pointing generally Southward)
Otherwise (if not approx. pointing to the Moon), I can’t make heads or tails of it.
I’m not surprised you’re having trouble getting your QBO work cited. I don’t believe it’s all due to closed minds.
(And don’t forget, Holton worked with Lindzen on the QBO.)
Piotrsays
Piotr said:” As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics “
Paul Pukite”Well, you hide behind rhetoric”
Prove your claim the way I was able to prove mine:
1. Arguing for more research into his area of interest, Paul Pukite claimed that a better predicting of timing of next El Nino “could save countless lives” Asked how – couldn’t offer a plausible scenario so he hid behind semantics – argued that by “ countless lives he didn’t mean: a very large number of lives, but … an unknowable number of lives (i.e. maybe many, maybe none we are not able to predict).
2. PP claimed that waves along the thermocline “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change”.
– I pointed out that the internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline.
– Unable to prove his claim that internal waves “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change” he replied: “Physics is not about proofs” and instead of explaining HOW the internal waves “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change his attention drifted away onto “ abstracted ideal QBO, matching in topology” from his blog.
I pointed that instead justifying his claims about “huge implications” Paul is hiding behind semantics … “Physics is not about proofs” and then changes the subject.
Paul Pukite replies with ” Well, you hide behind rhetoric” and …continues his monologue on … “ a math proof, applying semantic reasoning as appropriate, to try to prove how a wavenumber mode of an idealized QBO can be realized via a topological connection
(And then divide by √sum of squares, of course, to get the unit vector. Still an approx., of course.)
… unless, of course, you were finding something other than a vector pointing toward the Moon (from Earth).
Anyway, the xy plane is still in Earth’s orbital plane (for above formula); my point about the importance of the tropical month to the declination of the Moon still stands.
(Remember that in addition to zonally-symmetric tides (½ ~tropical month (modulated by 18.6 year cycle), anomalistic month, ½ tropical year, anomalistic year), anything which modulates the amplitudes of the diurnal and semidiurnal tides (all cycles just listed) also potentially has a wavenumber-0 effect.)
Patrick,
The issue is one of understanding that the tropical lunar month is more related to a specific longitude of the earth — local tides and LOD torqueing is associated with the influence on specific locations. However, there are geophysical behaviors that are not dependent on the local latitude — the QBO is one of these. It’s situated high up in the stratosphere and so completely decoupled from the earth’s surface, thus the longitude can have no effect on the initiation of a “wavenumber=zero” behavior. So the main factors to consider are the draconic/nodal tide (the 18.6 y cycle plays a role in the strength of the excursions of the 27.212 day period) and also the 2nd-order factor anomalistic cycle of perigee. Have no idea if Lindzen is even aware of the issue — Holton died 20 years ago. Tim Dunkerton, who’s on the younger side of that era, having first studied it in the 1970’s knows exactly what I’m getting at, but he has his own skeletons he’s dealing with. (Dunkerton is a Piotr-level impediment, but on the flip side of the argument. )
The QBO anomalies of 2016 and 2020 may help resolve the mess that Lindzen created. Recall how the existence of Neptune was predicted based on an anomaly of the Uranus orbit? Well, that anomaly is no longer an anomaly because it gets absorbed into the gravitational pull of Neptune. Same thing will happen with the QBO — those anomalies of 2016 and 2020 are only anomalies because the fundamental mechanism behind QBO is not currently understood. However, once the detailed lunar forcing is included in the QBO model, those anomalies will disappear and just be accepted as part of the complex tidal dynamics.
And, as I stated above, the QBO is not the only geophysical behavior that has this curious longitudinal invariance. The Chandler wobble of the Earth’s axis is a wobble on the Z-axis, which is a related topology. To get a wobble the North and South poles have a difference of mass, but of course the poles have no longitude as the lines of longitude converge to a singularity or degenerate case. Well, lo and behold, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Chandler wobble has a period EXACTLY commensurate with the draconic lunar cycle. I also published this several years ago — with the same reaction of silence. Many researchers have occasionally revisited the tropical lunar cycle as a Chandler wobble forcing, not realizing that topologically it can’t have an effect. OTOH, it does on the LOD because that’s in the X-Y rotational plane.
There seems to be a blind-spot in the geophysics and climate community when it comes to elementary topological considerations. I would have given up on it long ago if it wasn’t for the fact that the empirical observations match the predictions to within the measurement error. I come from a background where we do controlled experiments — there are laboratory analogs for both QBO and Chandler wobble that substitute E-M forces for gravity and you can validate the numbers, FWIW.
But I think you’re still not getting it. The draconic month is a complete cycle back-and-forth through the plane of the Earth’s orbit (the nodes are intersections with that plane). As I understand it, the tropical month is a complete orbit relative to the direction Earth’s axis points (projected onto Earth’s orbit), and on average is the cycle length for declination, of the Moon going North and South through/relative to the Earth’s equatorial plane (it would be an exact match if the Moon’s orbit were coplanar with Earth’s). Earth’s obliquity (axial tilt) is a few times larger than the inclination of the Moon’s orbit, so the tropical month dominates in the lunar declination cycle.
“However, once the detailed lunar forcing is included in the QBO model, those anomalies will disappear and just be accepted as part of the complex tidal dynamics.” – bear in mind, as with ENSO, QBO is immersed in a complex system and other bits of weather might be capable of interrupting it on occasion (I believe this is the accepting hypothesis of what happened). I’m not saying it’s not worth further inquiry, but the assumption of a tidal explanation is premature at best, IMO.
Chandler Wobble – in case anyone was wondering what that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_wobble
What I learned is that the period is related to the difference between the I values (principle moments of inertia) for the principle axes: L_i = ω_i I_i; I_z is just slightly larger for Earth’s symmetry axis z (≈ rotation axis) due to equatorial bulge, so when the instantaneous rotation axis, and therefore ω (angular velocity, a.k.a Ω, are not exactly parallel with that axis, then L (angular momentum) is just slightly closer to the symmetry axis. The result can be visualized using a Space cone (centered on L) and Body cone (centered on the symmetry axis), which contact along ω; the Body cone contains the Space cone and rolls around on it (it’s inner surface rolls on the outer surface of the Space cone); in the Earth’s frame of reference, the Space cone rolls on the inside of the Body cone. Because the Body cone is much bigger than the Space cone, the period of revolution around the symmetry axis is much longer than a day, while the the period of revolution around L (in an inertial frame) is similar to a siderial day (=2π/ω) (I worked this out ~ a decade ago) because of the Body cone’s much larger size. PS the vertices of both cones are at Earth’s center. See also Tennis Racket Theorem (what happens when all three I_i are different values).
I haven’t studied the effects of non-rigidity of the Earth in detail, but I’d expect that elastic+plastic deformation would shift the instantaneous symmetry axis (ISA) toward alignment with ω, thereby shrinking the Space cone relative to the Body cone (centered on the permanent (average) symmetry axis (PSA)), making the period of the wobble even longer, while the viscosity will cause the ISA to lag behind, causing the revolution around PSA to become an inward spiral (a flubber planet could have an outward spiral).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_wobble : “An investigation was done in 2001 by Richard Gross at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology. He used angular momentum models of the atmosphere and the oceans in computer simulations to show that from 1985 to 1996, the Chandler wobble was excited by a combination of atmospheric and oceanic processes, with the dominant excitation mechanism being ocean‐bottom pressure fluctuations. Gross found that two-thirds of the “wobble” was caused by fluctuating pressure on the seabed, which, in turn, is caused by changes in the circulation of the oceans caused by variations in temperature, salinity, and wind. The remaining third is due to atmospheric pressure fluctuations.[6]”
To make a long story short, don’t forget:
** Correct geometry and topology **
***** F = m∙a *****
patrick o twentysevensays
“and the z part could probably use some fine-tuning as well”
Yeah, for one thing the angles should be added before applying tan:
Still a bit clunky for my taste, and still … etc. (see above); I’d prefer just using angles in spherical coords, but I don’t feel like doing the math right now. The qualitative points made in the text still stand.
** sig.figs: one source gave 5.145°, another gave 5.14 or 5.15 with a range of 4.99 to 5.30 deg., so …
patrick o twentysevensays
“As I understand it, the tropical month”… – if my understanding is wrong, the error must be subtle and not have any appreciable effect on my point, or otherwise it must be the declination cycle itself; either way, placing the primacy in the draconic month for lunar declination is erroneous.
Jonathan, I wrote a book on analyzing various forms of Earth’s energy, titled Mathematical Geoenergy (Wiley/AGU, 2018). I have a chapter on thermal inertia (Chapter 14) and do agree with your conjecture on uptake of energy leading to only gradual warming based on diffusion and radiative forcing means. However, there are other convective means that can lead to much more rapid changes in temperature. One of those I am arguing over with Piotr in the thread above concerns the metastability of the ocean’s thermocline. Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change. This is a reduced gravity effect and I have another chapter in the book where I work out the applied math, solving a fluid dynamics formulation (Chapter 12), in which I can apply tidal forces and show how the erratic cycles of ENSO emerge.
Recall that any force will produce responses inversely proportional to the effective gravity (think Neal Armstrong) and so therefore the thermocline interface is highly sensitive to inertial changes caused by the tidal forces. I early on discovered that the key to cross-validating a model that best represents the data is if a seasonal metastability point is assumed and the tidal forces are applied then, and sustained until the next metastability point is reached.
There really is only one way that a model like this will be accepted, and that will be through extensive cross-validation evaluations — training on one time interval and extrapolating on another time interval — just as is done with conventional tidal analysis. Unfortunately this is not as easy — a day’s worth of conventional tidal measurements is comparable to a year’s worth of inferred thermocline data. Why this occurs is that as the effective gravity is reduced, the resonant inertial periods grow longer and spatial extent grows larger, so that only the so-called long-period tides have an effect. Forget about analyzing this at diurnal tidal periods. That’s the fatal flaw of most researchers that look at this — they all think that if diurnal or semi-diurnal cycles are not seen, then it’s not tidal. Wrong.
In the final analysis it may emerge that the very long period tides such as the 18.6 year nodal cycle may play a role in producing the extremes as shown by this last year’s temperature spike. As each ocean basin has a different thermocline inertial response sensitivity set by the standing-wave boundary conditions, a constructive interference of peaks may be a cause.
patrick o twentysevensays
re Paul Pukite
Δx x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ;
– h’/H = ∂x’/∂x = – k· Δx ·sin(k x – ω t) ;
c = ω/k ; k = ω/c
~ 2.55 m/s (Kelvin wave), ? 4 km (thermocline) Δh’ ≈ 1.59 cm
(? but should I use the depth of the layer above or below the thermocline instead?; Rossby-gravity mode?)
Boost from resonance?
—
Streamlines may form an overturning pattern but not necessarily result in overturning due to trajectories being short (before a reversal or shift of the streamlines) – eg. geostrophic adjustments to small perturbations in a stably stratified layer, waves in such a layer.
Alterations of the potential density profile caused by heating, cooling, evaporation, mixing (by wind or internal wave breaking – which involves overturning but may be over a limited depth) – aside from horizontal heterogeneity in that, which can result in geostrophic adjustments and waves, this is otherwise like a nothing on a damper – ie grab a block on a table, slide it around, release it – it stays put. In a sense this is stable, though not in the energy-well sort of way.
Stable stratification – this is like a mass on a spring (with a damper, in this context) – it is stable. Oscillations in an energy well. Even with reduced gravity, this just means that it is much less stable than the ocean’s surface. But that’s not metastable or unstable.
The instability/bistability/metastability? of ENSO is AFAIK a result of feedback between wind and SST (which is connected to thermocline displacements), not AFAIK intrinsic to the thermocline(?).
“seasonal metastability point” – are you suggesting that the equatorial Pacific thermocline almost disappears at some times?
(sfc)Tides in the ocean are discernable and predictable because they are AFAIK approx. linearly superimposed on whatever else is going on (storm surges, sea level rise, etc.) – I’m guessing that nonlinearities tend to come in more near the point where the energy is dissipated or converted to other motions (tidal bores, internal waves and wave breaking, …). In contrast, I believe, from what I’ve read, that ENSO is more completely immersed in the chaos of weather, even it there are tidal influences.
Patrick said: ” But that’s not metastable or unstable.”
It’s fairly obvious that they are. Consider that as part of the equatorial waveguide, there is a recurring behavior called Tropical Instability Waves (TIW). They occur in both the Pacific and Atlantic. These are massive wave-trains that always result in the same wavenumber (wavelength~1200 km) and feature very sharp delineated interfaces.
Noticed that you were trying to estimate the magnitude of the waves from some standard formula for wave height. Well, that’s all out the window once you realize that you really need to estimate the effective gravity at the thermocline interface with the basic knowledge that it has a proportionality to the difference in the density (divided by the mean). So it doesn’t make sense to justify the height observed since it is what it is . Tides or angular momentum (AM) variations are the only way that a subsurface nternal wave can grow massive — recall that AM impulses are responsible for tidal waves. Consider how massive a surface tidal wave aka tsunami can get based on a seismic occurrence — now consider how much more massive a subsurface internal wave will get. Seriously now, has no one really considered what impact the impulse of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic event of 2022 had on the subsurface equatorial thermocline and if it has modified the standing wave response of the 2023 El Nino? Recall how many climate scientists and meteorologists have noted that the El Nino occurred earlier in the season than is typical? Could an extra impulse have modified the usual seasonal instability thus causing an El Nino slosh to arrive early?
It’s timely that we’ve been having a discussion on the possibility of adapting a new fluid dynamics software package called SpeedyWeather for use in the open ocean instead of atmospheric dynamics). Much of the discussion is centered on making adjustments to the effective gravity, read the thread https://github.com/SpeedyWeather/SpeedyWeather.jl/issues/412#issuecomment-1860778800 which the main sw developer has just closed.
After very quick read, I found “Mathematical modeling studies indicate that TIW are generated by velocity shear between the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current and the eastward flowing Equatorial Undercurrent and Equatorial Countercurrent.[1]” vertical shear in geostrophic or gradient wind (current) balance requires an isobaric horizontal density gradient (horizontal potential density gradient), which could involve a sloped thermocline or some other horizontal variation in the thermocline… okay, it seems I was wrong, and thank you for pointing this interesting phenomenon out. Sounds like it may be a combination of barotropic and baroclinic wave instabilities.
—– —–
PS Pardon my poor editing:
“Δx x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ; ” should be x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ;
“(sfc wave, open ocean 4 km) ≈ 2.023e-4 m ≈ 0.110 mm”: skip the “2.023e-4 m”
The idea I was using is a horizontal shove against the ocean’s inertia will produce a horizontal divergence or convergence which, in the approx. of incompressibility, must be balanced with vertical contraction or dilation. The horizontal divergence is increased by smaller phase speed c. Reduced gravity is taken into account via its effect on c. I looked up relevant terms and found a reference to (presumably) internal Kelvin waves with c between 2 and 3 m/s (PS interesting stuff about ocean dynamics that link https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC014838#:~:text=The%20waves%20maintain%20an%20average%20phase%20speed%20of,150%C2%B0W%20and%20minimum%20of%202.35%20m%2Fs%20near%20175%C2%B0W ). I didn’t want to try to calculate a value for c, given that the thermocline is not in reality a discontinuity in potential density but a layer with enhanced gradient, as I understand it. (Is it actually thicker than the surface layer?).
Of course, ~2 ms is the range (2×amplitude if cycle) of LOD over a year; a fortnightly cycle (if it is a such a cycle) may be different?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length_fluctuations . And the inertia of the ocean, via the Coriolis effect, tends to involve a speeding up or slowing down of rotation in response to the fortnightly and other zonally-symmetric tides, and this may be of similar magnitude as solid Earth ΔLOD (?), perhaps tending to cancel out some ΔLOD (or it may be solid Earth ΔLOD cancels out some of the Ocean’s inertia) if the later (solid Earth ΔLOD) is caused by the same mechanism, as I mentioned earlier.
If the waves you are discussing are real, I believe that there should exist also means how they can be observed. Are there indeed no such observations yet that could help decide if the waves have the calculated kilometer or rather the calculated centimeter size?
Thank you in advance for your comments on this question, and happy Easter.
Greetings
Tomáš
patrick o twentysevensays
Me: “okay, it seems I was wrong,” – but wait, did I say that there was no instability caused by the existence of the thermocline absent the atmosphere or tides…, or just that ENSO required more? Maybe I wasn’t wrong? – although I had forgotten about baroclinic instability in the ocean so… ? … the important thing here is I learned something.
re Paul Pukite: “Tides or angular momentum (AM) variations are the only way that a subsurface nternal wave can grow massive”… I’m very doubtful that AM or AV (angular velocity) variations do anything so big (AFAIK significant tsunamis are caused more directly by local displacement near the quake/slide; the AV route is indirect); anyway:
“Kelvin waves are typically forced in the west Pacific Ocean by anomalously westerly surface winds that can arise from a variety of atmospheric phenomena (Luther et al., 1983) such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), monsoon, extratropical intrusions, and twin cyclones (Seiki & Takayabu, 2007, and references therein). Anomalous westerlies oppose the prevailing easterly trade winds in the equatorial Pacific that are responsible for maintaining the zonal thermocline slope and the deep reservoir of warm water in the west Pacific Ocean. The weakening of the trades relaxes the thermocline slope and redistributes thermal energy from the west Pacific to the east Pacific. Equatorial Kelvin waves are a critical component of this process because, by oceanic equatorial wave standards, they swiftly (2–3 months) transport energy across the basin. The anomalous wind stress modulates mass along the equator such that westerly (easterly) wind stress drives a downwelling (upwelling) Kelvin wave that propagates eastward with anomalous eastward (westward) surface currents. The downwelling Kelvin wave depresses the thermocline by tens of meters which, in turn, increases the ocean heat content (OHC) above the thermocline and raises the sea level elevation by several centimeters (e.g., Kutsuwada & McPhaden, 2002).”
…sounds like the wind can accomplish some significant wave amplitude at/in the thermocline.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “Dear Sirs! […] Are there indeed no such observations yet that could help decide if the waves have the calculated kilometer or rather the calculated centimeter size?
Buy the damn oceanography textbook Tomas, and do your homework first before
making conjectures (“Are there indeed no such observations”)
And no – there are no “ kilometer size” waves on top of the thermocline, and in the context of mixing across the main thermocline in equatorial ocean (many 100 metres thick) – nobody cares about the “cm size” waves
If you didn’t know, the discussion started with Paul Pukite claiming that the CHANGE in these internal waves may cause “overturning” and would “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change“.
To which I pointed ocean overturning does NOT happen where he claimed it might
(“ in the middle of the equatorial ocean“) – and for that all you need to do is
a) check any oceanography textbook
b) look for evidence of such overturning across the main thermocline there (heads up: there isn’t one)
So much for Paul’s “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change“.
patrick o twentysevensays
AV, a.k.a ω , a.k.a Ω, a.k.a angular velocity, and
AM, a.k.a L, a.k.a (angular momentum)
“ I’m very doubtful that AM or AV (angular velocity) variations do anything so big” – referring to ΔLOD effects; of course local changes in PV (potential vorticity), or the curl of the velocity ((relative) vorticity), of fluid parcels is of great importance in fluid dynamics.
Also, while I expect zonally-symmetric tides to result in ΔLOD, there are other causes (including weather, AFAIK). Seismic waves may cause tsunamis at some distance from the epicenter AFAIK(?).
Piotrsays
Jonathan David: “Also it seems counterintuitive to me that these phenomena are a result of changes in atmospheric phenomena such as aerosols or other gaseous causes due to thermal inertia of the oceans. This makes me conjecture that this energy is already present somewhere in the physical system.”
I am not sure I follow your conjecture. First, a minor clarification – most aerosols cool, not warm (directly by increasing albedo, indirect serving as cloud condensation nuclei that in the presence of humid air – seed the clouds, most of which cause net cooling). What warm the Earth are GHGs , and amplified by the temp. related changes in the water cycle.
Second, more important – I am not sure what why would you question the above known source the net heat entering the ocean, and look instead for … an unknown source of extra heat present somewhere “in the physical system” of the ocean that is …much larger than the AGW.
I don’t know of any INTERNAL source of heat LARGE enough to match the rate of observed warming of the ocean:
– it is not a massive increase in the heat from the crust – background values are about 0.1 W/m2, so their % CHANGE in the recent year would need to have been MASSIVE to explain the increased heat stored on the ocean
– it is not the dispersion of the energy from tides – I have no idea about its magnitude – but I don’t have to – the tides have NOT increased massively in the last few decades – so something that does not change cannot be a cause of a massive change
– the same goes for radioactivity – regarless of its size – it hasn’t massive increased in recent decades – if anything it is slowly reduced, the efforts of the Japanese releasing the radioactive waters from Fukushima into the Pacific notwithstanding ;-)
To sum up – in the atmosphere-controlled processes
– we have the plausible mechanism for the source of observed heating of the ocean,
– and its size is SUFFICIENT to explain ALL of it it: ocean heating ~= 90% of the Earth’s extra heat from AGW. Given that, I would start look for the ALTERNATIVE UNIDENTIFIED sources only, if the observed ocean heat uptake was substantially larger than 100% of the AGW heat. Until then I’ll stick with the simpler and sufficient explanation. Occam’s razor, you know.
As for the mechanism of the heating of the ocean you have asked about – I will try to answer in my next post.
Jonathan Davidsays
Piotr, thanks for the response as well as those form Nigelj and Paul Pukite. I did read the link supplied by Nigelj and I am not rejecting other explanations for the anomalous heating including aerosols. What actually motivates my post is the statement of Dr Schmidt that “we don’t really know what is going on” (since last March) this is a somewhat unsettling statement. I assumed that this meant that there was (for him) no obvious explanation for the anomalous heating. This prompted me to speculate on other non-atmospheric causes. I would certainly assume that Dr Schmidt is familiar with the properties of aerosols as well as other phenomena of atmospheric physics. If that was the explanation then why would he not be aware of this as an explanation? Or does his statement refer to something else?
Piotrsays
Jonathan David Mar 24: “ the statement of Dr Schmidt that “we don’t really know what is going on” prompted me to speculate on other non-atmospheric causes”
Aaa, the famous statement, prompted by the fact that 2023 was warmer than predicted.
The deniers were happy to run with that by implying that 2023 being warmer than predicted supports their beliefs that …. we have nothing to worry about global warming …. ;-)
Their opposite extreme – the Cassandras – were also happy to see it – they basked in the impending doom of humanity, since this bestowed on them the aura of a prophet I told you that for years, but you never listen…). However, as I show below this elation may be premature.
As for people like you who wondered whether this mean that we need to invoke “ other non-atmospheric causes” – in my previous post I already indicated why I think them unlikely – I know of no non-atmospheric cause that would be sufficiently large and quick to create the 2023 spike and still not being easily detected.
Among the plausible reasons for this discrepancy I see:
– underestimation of the rate of aerosols drop ?
not because Gavin didn’t know about role of aerosols, but modelling them correctly may be tricky, particularly in the forecast mode (when you don’t know yet how much they would fall in the forecasted period)
– the aftermath of the massive Tonga underwater eruption? Which sent in stratosphere both SO2 and water vapour – which countering effects on global temp. are further complicated by their height and how long they linger there
– the correction for El Nino wasn’t sufficient? During El Nino equatorial (and coastal) upwellings in Pacific may weaken or stop – which means less uptake of heat by the ocean and more of it staying in the atmosphere. Gavin applied the correction, but the timing and/or magnitude of the correction, based on past El Ninos, might have been off.
Any of the three could be responsible for the discrepancy between predicted and observed, and if so – it would render new unknown “non-atmospheric source of heat” – an unnecessary hypothesis.
Furthermore – all three mechanisms are short-term – hence do not affect the prediction of the long-term (climatological, i.e. averaged over ~3o years or more) models.
Therefore, the Cassandras should wait a while to see whether the 2023 overestimation persist over long time scale, you can relax a bit – we don’t need the non-atmospheric Deus-ex-machina to save climate change models, while the deniers, well – perhaps should take a course in logic (and ethics)?
zebrasays
@Jonathan David,
I think Gavin’s quote is simply a speculation along the lines of what you and I discussed previously about systems and instability and chaos.
“All of these statistics that we’re talking about, they’re taken from the prior data. But nothing in the prior data looked like 2023. Does that mean that the prior data are no longer predictive because the system has changed? I can’t rule that out, and that would obviously be very concerning.”
I’ve posed the question before: Why should we be surprised if GMST shows an anomalously high excursion, given that we are continuously increasing the energy in the system?
Of course the system is changing, and as I said, we don’t have the resolution in the physical models at this point to do more than speculate on the details. (And there I am referring to the actual specialists in all the different sub-disciplines involved, not internet pseudo-experts and YouTube fans.)
Consider my example of the double-pendulum; about as simple as it gets, but it covers all the possibilities from periodicity to instability to formal chaos.
Piotrsays
Second part of my answer to Jonathan David Mar 22:
As for the mechanism of the heating of the ocean – in a great simplification : heat flows between air and surface ocean, and then can be exchanged with deep ocean via downwelling, upwelling, and mixing. The mixing happens effectively only in the parts of the ocean with strong storms and weak to non-existent pycnocline – because strong and thick pycnocline in most of the ocean is very difficult to mix through it heat or matter. So I will concentrate on the upwellings and downwellings.
The most important downwelling in the global ocean is in N. Atlantic high lats (near Greenland). As the warm surface waters originating in the south is brought to Greenland, it gives off its heat to air. Colder (and saltier due to formation of sea ice) water is denser, so it sinks toward the bottom (downwelling) and pushes the deep water already there forward – thus driving the AMOC, which is a part of the global Thermohaline Circulation (aka The Great Conveyor Belt).
The cold NADW (N.Atl. Deep Water) moves along this Conveyor Belt first toward Antarctic, then to the Indian and Pacific ocean, where, after ~ 1000 years it comes back toward surface. With its temperature formed in winter off Greenland, it is still very cold – so when it comes toward the surface it gets warmed by solar radiation and by hot tropical/subtropical air – thus there the ocean GAINS heat.
Before AGW – these two major heat fluxes: ocean losing heat to air near Greenland and gaining heat from air in upwellings in Ind. and Pacific – were the same size so they cancelled each other out. However under AGW – if the winters near Greenland is not as cold, the sinking water is also not as cold as they used to be. At the other end – the upwelling water is 1000 yr old, so it sunk before AGW – and brings to the surface its pre-water with pre-AGW temps, and then warms to the current higher (AGW) surface temperature
This way the sea-to-air heat transfer in Greenland is less, the air-to-sea heat transfer in upwellings in Pacific is more, so these two are no longer the same in size -> we have net accumulation of heat from air in the ocean.
Jonathan Davidsays
Good comment, Piotr. It would be nice if one of the moderators did a post on this. My personal interest is in stability and bifurcation phenomena in fluid convective systems. Given the complicated system of convective flow you describe it can occur that “weak links” in the convective system may reach points of instability. I am quite interested in the discussion on the AMOC instability, for example. If such instabilities occur, the resulting flow can be quite unpredictable. I have no evidence that this is necessarily happening but it’s something I like to keep an eye on.
Piotrsays
Jonathan David Mar 27: “It would be nice if one of the moderators did a post on this”
They had. Most recently: the parallel thread “ New study suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation AMOC “is on tipping course from Feb.8. Or you can do a search for “AMOC” in the archive to bring up earlier references.
Piotrsays
Johnathan David: “ We know the ocean absorbs energy. Once this happens there is no simple way for this energy to be released except by diffusion through stratified ocean layers to the surface and then dissipation from convective flow.
There is another “simple way” – through upwellings. And it happens every few years – during El Nino – with the E->W Walker air circulation weakened – equatorial upwelling of cold nutrient rich water weakens or even reverses (downwelling). As do the coastal upwelling off Peru and Chile.
Less heat from air entering the ocean to warm the recently upwelled cold water – the more heat stays in the air.. This is why El Nino years are typically warmer than non-ElNino years – and that’s why the deniers, in looking for the elusive “hiatus” always start with El Nino – the hotter the starting year – the less likely to see warming from that in the immediately following few years. “After a heat-wave, everything would feel like cooling…”
That’s why in the most famous hiatus, the deniers started counting “how many years and months since the end of global warming”, using as their reference 1998 year, i.e. one of the strongest ElNino on records. To make it better, those counting “years and months” started counting from hottest MONTH of the 1997/1998 El Nino season … ;-)
Then they started counting the hiatus from the-then hottest year on record (2015), but since 2016 was even warmer, the poor guys had to re-start their hiatus clock at 2016.. I guess now they will have restart the end of global warming on 2023 …
Ned Kellysays
“Thank you for your supportive feedback. I am trying to model to the scientists that it is possible to talk about all this in accessible language. Many people I know are put off by the jargon and complicated academic debate. That is the language of academia but given the significance some of them could try harder to translate imho.” JD
If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
BPL: No. Ask a climate scientist.
Ned Kellysays
Barton Paul Levenson says
16 Mar 2024 at 1:17 PM
That has not worked for 30 plus year, why would it suddenly be effective now Barton?
Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years.
They could all fit on the head of a pin.
nigeljsays
Ned Kelly says “Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years. They could all fit on the head of a pin.”
Numerous climate scientists understand best whats really happening in the climate system. They developed the following: The basic physics that describes how earths climate (and weather) operates, discovered the greenhouse effect, have done the research attributing burning of fossil fuels to warming, developed climate modelling etcetera ad infinitum.
If you mean which climate scientists understands best whats happening with the climate system right now. nobody is fully sure why 2023 – early 2024 is so unusually hot, and nobody is being particularly convincing. Hansens explanations. for 2023 are not that convincing. Neither are Manns. I havent seen any laypeople coming up with a great answer either.
Climate scientists as a group did not predict that 2023 would be so unusually hot. Neither did Hansen, or Killian, or you or I.
It will take time and analysis to figure it out why it was so hot, and we really do need this and next years temperatures to help that process.
You suggested somewhere that 2023s temperatures may be influenced by methane emissions. Not a bad suggestion, They spiked unusually high in 2021 but that is a couple of years ago so why would it manifest only two years later and in northern sea surface temperatures?
“If you mean which climate scientists understands best whats happening with the climate system right now. nobody is fully sure why 2023 – early 2024 is so unusually hot, and nobody is being particularly convincing.”
2023 has been a very strange year weatherwise at least from my perspective as a resident of southern England. 2023 has been notable for very warm sea surface temperatures across much of the north Atlantic ocean (marine heatwaves) which have been very persistent. I’m sure that has contributed to the excessivce rainfall across the southern half of the UK since March (March 2023-February 2024 was the fourth wettest 12 month period on record for England and Wales, records go back to 1765). My question is what caused these marine heatwaves, the North Atlantic is a bit far removed from the ENSO regions for that to be the cause. For the UK, the notable feature abouot the weather over the last year is the rainfall, over central and southern England in particular. This is down to a jet stream which has been persistently further south than normal steering low pressure weather systems across England instead of northern Scotland. My other question is why has the jet stream over the north Atlantic been displaced south on average relative to climatology over a full 12 month period? Something like that ought to have a pre-cursor but I am not aware of anything, in fact February 2023 was exceptionally dry across the UK.
Nigeljsays
Oops. I misinterpreted Ned’s comments. Asimov is a scientist with great skills explaining things to general public. But general public will always struggle to fully grasp science because it’s complex.
nigeljsays
Adam,
the following commentary by Copernicus has some interesting suggestions on reasons for the very high ocean temperatures last year particularly in the Atlantic.:
New Zealand had horrendous flooding events twice last year related to low pressure weather systems coming up against blocking highs, so hanging around causing days of intense rainfall. The higher sea surface temperatures in recent decades due to warming were also part of the reason for more intense rain:
The blocking highs seem to have become more common in recent years, and this has been related to the influence of global warming on the southern jet stream. But I cant find the reference to that.
Killiansays
Climate scientists as a group did not predict that 2023 would be so unusually hot. Neither did Hansen, or Killian, or you or I.
Not completely true: I predicted a large El Nino after the series of La Ninas, specifically after the second was announced. The 3rd one made it a virtually certainty.
Yes, publicly.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years. . . . They could all fit on the head of a pin.
BPL: I’d recommend starting with an introductory climate science textbook., Robinson and Henderson-Sellers have a pretty good one. For something with more math, try Dennis Hartmann’s “Global Physical Climatology.”
Ned Kellysays
A short semi-relatedf ollowup on Todd and reactions …
Ron Susskind wrote in his portrait of the first years of the Bush junior presidency: Faith, Certainty And The Presidency Of George W. Bush (archived) – Ron Susskind / New York Times, Oct 17 2004
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.
He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Reality or what we perceive as such is layered. In the fiction movie “Inception” the protagonist De Caprico is always carrying a spinning top as a testing device. If it keeps spinning he is in a dream, if friction does its job and it stops after a while, he made it back to reality.
At the end of the movie, when he successfully exited multiple dream layers, we find the protagonist in his happy place with the woman he loves. Then the camera zooms in on the spinning top that is still doing its marry-go-round like forever but he is no longer watching it.
People like Karl Rove created your realities, the dichotomy of left and right, the puppet show of today’s politics that we call democracy to divide the people. And you are studying, judiciously. Your spinning top is still going but you’ll have to exit another layer of fake realities if you are genuinely looking for the real thing.
The refs from Geoff and all the others like them are gently pointing you in that direction.
Radge Haverssays
NK,
Plenty of ink has been spilled concerning Rove, who has a reputation for being a kind of evil genius. He certainly did his share to hasten the descent of politics into what we see now, but there’s plenty of blame to spread around; including for that outsized enemy of reality, that vector of festering solipsism from Australia, Rupert Murdoch.
Anyway, your struggles with the simulacrum are noted.
Susan Andersonsays
The “you” is wrong and the resultant attacks spurious as well as nasty.
In any case, Schopenhauer (and earlier) identified the trickery which Rove simplified. These poisonous screeds are part of the problem, not part of the solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
— here’s a cleanse: Elizabeth Kolbert on ocean temps (imho a simple lay-accessible summary)
In early 2023, climate scientists—and anyone else paying attention to the data—started to notice something strange. At the beginning of March, sea-surface temperatures began to rise. By April, they’d set a new record: the average temperature at the surface of the world’s oceans, excluding those at the poles, was just a shade under seventy degrees. Typically, the highest sea-surface temperatures of the year are observed in March, toward the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. Last year, temperatures remained abnormally high through the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn and beyond, breaking the monthly records for May, June, July, and other months. The North Atlantic was particularly bathtub-like; in the words of Copernicus, an arm of the European Union’s space service, temperatures in the basin were “off the charts.”
Since the start of 2024, sea-surface temperatures have continued to climb; in February, they set yet another record. In a warming world, ocean temperatures are expected to rise and keep on rising. But, for the last twelve months, the seas have been so feverish that scientists are starting to worry about not just the physical impacts of all that heat but the theoretical implications. Can the past year be explained by what’s already known about climate change, or are there forces at work that haven’t been accounted for? And, if it’s the latter, does this mean that projections of warming, already decidedly grim, are underestimating the dangers?
“We don’t really know what’s going on,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me. “And we haven’t really known what’s going on since about March of last year.” He called the situation “disquieting.”
Last winter, before ocean temperatures began their record run, the world was in the cool—or La Niña—phase of a climate pattern that goes by the acronym ENSO. By summer, an El Niño—or warm phase—had begun. Since ocean temperatures started to climb before the start of El Niño, the shift, by itself, seems insufficient to account for what’s going on. Meanwhile, the margin by which records are being shattered exceeds what’s usually seen during El Niños.
“It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years. That’s how strange this looks.” It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand metres of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules. For comparison’s sake, the world’s annual energy consumption amounts to about 0.6 zettajoules.
A variety of circumstances and events have been cited as possible contributors to the past year’s anomalous warmth. One is the January, 2022, eruption of an underwater volcano in the South Pacific called Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai. Usually, volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide, which produces a temporary cooling effect, and water vapor, which does the opposite. Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai produced relatively little sulfur dioxide but a fantastic amount of water vapor, and its warming effects, it’s believed, are still being felt.
Another factor is the current solar cycle, known as Solar Cycle 25. Solar activity is ramping up—it’s expected to peak this year or next—and this, too, may be producing an extra bit of warming.
Susan Andersonsays
fwiw, I cut off the quote. A bit more:
But, possibly, something else is going on—something that scientists haven’t yet accounted for. This spring, ENSO is expected to transition into what scientists call “neutral” conditions. If precedent holds, then when this occurs ocean temperatures should start to run more in line with long-term trends.
“I think the real test will be what happens in the next twelve months,” Wijffels said. “If temperatures remain very high, then I would say more people in the community will be really alarmed and say ‘O.K., this is outside of what we can explain.’ ” …. if the projections are missing something, that’s potentially even more terrifying, though scientists tend to use more measured terms.
“The other thing that this could all be is, we are starting to see shifts in how the system responds,” Schmidt observed. “All of these statistics that we’re talking about, they’re taken from the prior data. But nothing in the prior data looked like 2023. Does that mean that the prior data are no longer predictive because the system has changed? I can’t rule that out, and that would obviously be very concerning.”
Ned Kellysays
Lakoff is so right.
Schmidt observed. “All of these statistics that we’re talking about, they’re taken from the prior data. But nothing in the prior data looked like 2023. Does that mean that the prior data are no longer predictive because the system has changed? I can’t rule that out, and that would obviously be very concerning.”
Gavin does NOT say anything like that here. Gavin and Co. do NOT write an article on it here. Instead he wastes his time arguing nonsense with Soon and Spencer instead – which changes nothing, helps no one, educates explains nothing to anyone!
Show me anywhere where Gavin Schmidt et al are speaking climate science truth to Power about the urgency of this completely out of control unknown system now!
When Killian and many others say almost identical things here (about changing data patterns, the UNKNOWNS and the serious RISKS involved) they are abused and ridiculed by all comers.
“I think the real test will be what happens in the next twelve months,” Wijffels said.
No no no! The real test has been what has been happening [ more over NOT happening ] for the last decade and what has NOT been getting done about that both from a climate science perspective and policy.
All are total failures. Lakoff is spot on. As am I. The rest of you folks here are off in lalaland.
For these four reasons—values, connection, authenticity, and trust—voters identified with Reagan; they felt he was one of them. It was not because all of his values matched theirs exactly. It was not because he was from their socioeconomic class or subculture. It was because they believed in the integrity of his connection with them as well as the connection between his worldview and his actions.
Hence why progressives will follow more the Gavins than the Neds of this world.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: All are total failures. Lakoff is spot on. As am I. The rest of you folks here are off in lalaland.
BPL: You’re a legend in your own mind.
Ray Ladburysays
“The most important thing is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”–attributed (in various versions to Steve Allen, George Burns, Groucho Marks and many others.
Ned Kellysays
@ JCM, Patrick, Tomas et al
In our new study, published in One Earth, we investigate how the effectiveness of well-established adaptation options in relation to water changes as the world warms.
Our findings show that the effectiveness of water-related adaptation declines markedly once warming passes 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – from a central estimate (median) of 90% to 69%, 62% and 46% at 2C, 3C and 4C, respectively.
With the implementation of adaptation already lagging behind what is needed, our findings show that warming beyond 1.5C needs to be avoided for effective adaptation to be possible.
Measuring the effectiveness of adaptation
The latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that current adaptation efforts are insufficient to cope with the increasing severity of warming-related impacts across the world.
This “adaptation gap” – the difference between what is needed to reduce impacts and what has been implemented – is growing, despite increasing adaptation efforts across all world regions.
Where adaptation has been documented, many benefits – such as economic gains, better educational outcomes or infrastructure improvements – have been observed. However, we still have very limited evidence and knowledge about how effective adaptation is in reducing climate risks – arguably the key purpose of adaptation.
More encompassing definitions of effectiveness include the multiple benefits adaptation can have on a broader set of outcomes, such as human well-being and equality.
A better understanding of the risk reduction potential of adaptation is crucial, as climate impacts will become more severe over the next decades. With limited resources to invest, it is essential that informed decisions can be made.
Many thanks for references provided!
I will definitely need some time for studying it in detail.
Greetings
Tomáš
Ned Kellysays
“Todd describes the profound effects of undermining religion as a societal binding factor (along with seminal insights about family structures).”
Exactly. But the same applies to any other binding factor, including Marxism as practiced by a party that commands the assent of a large proportion of society. Where Todd goes further than other proponents of a multi-polar world is that he sees that Western attempts to dominate their adversaries are bound to fail, not just because of their hypocrisy and moral degeneracy, but because they are based on a blindness to the deep unconscious structures that underlay our different societies.
Just as Freud realized that we could only understand neurotic symptoms (and what we are no longer supposed to call “perversions”) if we cast aside subjective moral judgement, so Todd provides objective empirical, anthropological reasons for doing the same when analyzing other societies.
I saw him in a TV studio discussion at the height of the Afghan war, where various experts were predicting imminent NATO victory. He interjected something like: “Anyone who has spent five minutes reading studies of the structure of Pashtun society knows the West isn’t going to win.”
He was ignored of course. There is no place for original, empirically based thinking in current Western intellectual life. As there is no place for original, empirically based thinking in Western controlled Climate Science, Economics or Politics either.
Therefore the urgent demands of facing up to the catastrophic climate changes and ecosystems destruction are being constantly missed.
Ned Kellysays
Some more on what could be adding to the present record high temps
Key Points
The rapid growth in the atmospheric methane burden that began in late 2006 is very different from methane’s past observational record
Recent studies point to strongly increased emissions from wetlands, especially in the tropics
This increase is comparable in scale and speed to glacial/interglacial terminations when the global climate system suddenly reorganized
Plain Language Summary
Atmospheric methane’s unprecedented current growth, which in part may be driven by surging wetland emissions, has strong similarities to ice core methane records during glacial-interglacial “termination” events marking global reorganizations of the planetary climate system. Here we compare current and termination-event methane records to test the hypothesis that a termination-scale change may currently be in progress. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GB007875
The latest monthly global CH4 is at Record high levels.
November 2023: 1934.16 ppb
November 2022: 1923.63 ppb
November 2013: 1820.6 ppb
Last updated: Feb 05, 2024 This is the highest methane concentration ever recorded by NOAA.
November 2022 gives an increase of 10.5 ppb/a which is below the 10 y average of 11.4 ppb/a,
and below the average increase rate of the years 2020-2022.
But wait, there’s more…
NOAA has published the last monthly average on global SF6.
November 2023: 11.55 ppt
November 2022: 11.15 ppt
November 2013: 8.04 ppt
Last updated: March 05, 2024
The annual increase is at 0.40 ppt – the highest ever recorded rate increase but tied with some months in the past. No question, it is the highest SF6 concentration in human’s, probably in earth’s history, and its value rises continuously.
An index was set of 100 for the year 1980 [0.848 ppt]. November 2023 is at 1,362 – iow a 13 fold increase since 1980.
THis were the traditionalists will pipe up and say … yes but, it doesn’t make any difference by itself. And that would true. It’s true about everything. A CO2 rate increase on 4-5 ppm doesn’t make any “difference” either.
Until someone starts adding it all up. Unfortunately everyone is so busy whining about “deniers” like Soon and Spencer (or a Tomas or a JCM or whoever else is deemed annoying enough) there’s no time left for such mundane boring activities like calculations of what is actually happening in the world of Science.
It’s left to the “amateurs” all over the Internet blogosphere and forums instead.
The discussion on pages S85-90 lists a large number of long-lived gases with their abundance, trends, atmospheric longevity, and radiative forcing – including SF6. The combined radiative forcing of all the industrial gases combined is shown in figure 2.57. It had risen to about 0.4 W/m^2, compared to 0.56 W/m^2 for CH4. For comparison, CO2 forcing was estimated at an additional 2.26 W/m^2 over pre-industrial levels.
Solar Jimsays
That’s interesting. So we have 0.56 W/sq. m. forcing for about 2 ppm (ie. now approaching 2000 ppb) of methane and 2.26 W for some 420 ppm of carbonic acid gas (c. 2022). And the albedo flip forcing and water vapor forcing? Those are some mighty ppm’s for our friend: fossil, fracked, unnatural gas.
As the rising incoming planetary heat flux, as well as rising Earth temperature, try to equalize with all this ongoing contamination “it’s getting hot in here.”
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: everyone is so busy whining about “deniers” like Soon and Spencer (or a Tomas or a JCM or whoever else is deemed annoying enough) there’s no time left for such mundane boring activities like calculations of what is actually happening in the world of Science.
BPL: You might try consulting the journals. People are, in fact, “calculating” that sort of thing.
Geoff Miellsays
In the YouTube video titled Greenland: Ice Loss Accelerating, published 8 Mar 2024, duration 0:25:33, Peter Wadhams, Emeritus Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University and Climate Scientist, Paul Beckwith describe what is happening on this sensitive continent. The latest research shows that Greenland’s glaciers are shrinking at seven times the rate of just a few years ago, an average of 30 million tonnes an hour. Paul Beckwith says from time interval 0:03:58:
“We have very good data on measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica; [from] the gravity anomaly satellites ah, flying in tandem, and we’ve seen melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years typically, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica. And, ah, we’re still focussed mostly on the Northern Hemisphere, but with all that missing Antarctic sea ice and warming water, people are very concerned also with the Antarctic ah, glacier melt, and they’re tied together because if melt rates greatly increase at one pole, you know, the rising sea level can lift up floating ice shelves and, and cause accelerated melting at the other pole. So, there’s a connection, of course, between them. People are going to be very surprised, I think, at the, at the accelerated growth of sea level rise, in the next ah, you know, decade, decade or two, let alone…”
Host Dale Walkonen interrupted from time interval 0:04:54:
“What, what are we actually looking at? I mean, if all of Greenland melted, it would be 25 feet of sea level rise, according to what I’ve read. What, what is it likely to be within the next… Are we likely to see something significant within the next couple of decades?”
Paul Beckwith responded from time interval 0:05:09:
“Well there, the jury’s out on that. We don’t know for sure, but ah, I mean Hansen has said in the past, ah, he wouldn’t be surprised if we had five metres of sea level rise by 2100. He said that a number of years ago when the IPCC models were showing about ah, half a metre.”
Host Dale Walkonen interrupted from time interval 0:05:28:
“Yeah, that of course is James Hansen, the famous NASA scientist, um, who testified before Congress famously and warned everybody years ago and has now written several papers that are quite alarming!”
Paul Beckwith responded from time interval 0:05:40:
“Right. You know, it’s a work in progress. I mean, the rates are definitely accelerating, and of course we’re seeing a huge acceleration in global average temperatures. We’re seeing a huge acceleration in ocean water heating, so all of these things um, are, mean, mean that the sea level rise rates will have to, to be revised continuously, um, and ah, you know, I, I fully expect ah, you know, I think Hansen’s probably underestimating with his five metres by 2100.”
With Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melt rates apparently doubling “seven to ten years … typically”, then that suggests the current sea level rise (SLR) rate of 4.5 mm per year observed over the period 2013–2021, per AR6 WG1, is likely to accelerate. I did a calculation for the rate of SLR for 7- & 10-year doubling rate acceleration scenarios with a starting point of 4.5 mm/y in 2024:
That suggests the global mean SL, relative to today’s (year-2024) levels, may perhaps be of the order of:
• 39.2 to 43.2 mm higher by 2030;
• 141 to 190 mm higher by 2040;
• 345 to 583 mm higher by 2050;
• 514 to 985 mm higher by 2055;
• 752 to 1,643 mm higher by 2060;
• 1,090 to 2,724 mm higher by 2065; and
• 1,567 to 4,496 mm higher by 2070.
So potentially, multi-metre SLR is possible well before year-2075 for both the 7- and 10-year doubling time acceleration scenarios, and 5 m SLR before 2100 is easily plausible.
Is there any jurisdiction planning for this order of magnitude of SLR?
I’ve done my share of exponential extrapolation, usually WRT deployment of cleaner technologies. I think it was Gavin who pointed out that exponential trends are ‘exponential, until they aren’t’. Real world trends run into limits of one sort or another. In the present case, melting ice takes energy, and at some point, the energy just won’t be available to double at those kinds of rates.
That’s not to say that “everything’s OK,” of course. I have friends on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, and even that paltry 6.8 mm by 2030 will be very expensive and troublesome indeed:
And while I really don’t know how long exponential growth might continue in this case, my gut feeling is that the total SLR observed is likely to be considerably greater than that–and certainly by, say, 2040.
nigeljsays
KM.
“I think it was Gavin who pointed out that exponential trends are ‘exponential, until they aren’t’. Real world trends run into limits of one sort or another. In the present case, melting ice takes energy, and at some point, the energy just won’t be available to double at those kinds of rates.”
Good comments.. It also depends on what has caused the exponential trend in Greenland ice loss. I have a recollection that it was largely natural variation of limited duration and that trend has slowed down a bit. It seems most likely Greenland would follow a non exponential but curvilinear trend in ice loss long ter,m trend which will be quite bad enough.
But the Antarctic is different. There is apparently a possibility that western ice sheets melting could cause further ice sheets to speed up movement towards the oceans. That sounds like a tipping point thing, that doesn’t require increasing energy input as such once its tipped, and might be exponential for a limited period of time , but long enough to cause considerably enhanced level of ice loss. to set in.
IPCC still predict 2 metres of SLR are possible by 2100. This is the result of just a curvilinear trend in melting ice form all sources, as opposed to a long term exponential trend. Again quite bad enough.
Geoff Miellsays
Kevin McKinney: – “That’s not to say that “everything’s OK,” of course. I have friends on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, and even that paltry 6.8 mm by 2030 will be very expensive and troublesome indeed: …”
The “6.8 mm by 2030” is for the global mean SLR rate of 6.8mm/year for the 10-year doubling acceleration scenario in year 2030.
Unfortunately, the Georgia and South Carolina coasts are likely to see faster rates, per Table 2.2 in NOAA’s Feb 2022 report on SLR, which shows relative SL projections in 2050 for various US regional coastlines, relative to the year-2000 baseline. For the Southeast coastline, the projected median range is 0.28 to 0.49 m for various (Low to High) emissions scenarios. Figure 2.3 shows observation-based extrapolations for eight coastal regions around the United States from 2020 to 2050 relative to a baseline of 2000. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html
Kevin McKinney: – “And while I really don’t know how long exponential growth might continue in this case, my gut feeling is that the total SLR observed is likely to be considerably greater than that–and certainly by, say, 2040.”
I’d suggest certainly while the EEI generally keeps increasing the global mean acceleration of the SLR rate (and that may vary for regional locations due to subsidence, uplift and/or gravitational changes) will continue. And the ocean heat content will likely keep driving SLR for centuries. The Earth System is already committed to more than 20 m of global mean SLR, per Prof Jason Box. The only way to reverse this process is to begin cooling the planet:
Unfortunately, the Georgia and South Carolina coasts are likely to see faster rates, per Table 2.2 in NOAA’s Feb 2022 report on SLR, which shows relative SL projections in 2050 for various US regional coastlines, relative to the year-2000 baseline. For the Southeast coastline, the projected median range is 0.28 to 0.49 m for various (Low to High) emissions scenarios. Figure 2.3 shows observation-based extrapolations for eight coastal regions around the United States from 2020 to 2050 relative to a baseline of 2000. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html
Oh, trust me… I know! But thanks for a good link on the topic. The last National Climate Assessment is also good on this, as it has regional impacts broken down.
One aspect that isn’t overtly stated, but is clearly implicit in the data they give, is that the characteristic salt marshes of the Southeastern coast are all at risk for conversion to mangrove swamp.
I find that heartbreaking change, given the ecological, historical, and cultural losses implied–and here I’m not insulting mangrove swamps, which are perfectly good ecosystems too. And I’m not even a native to this place. But “this place” won’t be “this place” anymore if that happens, because its character will have change into something else.
It’s an example of “solastalgia”–or would be, should it occur, as it well may.
@Geoff Miell
“I did a calculation for the rate of SLR for 7- & 10-year doubling rate acceleration scenarios with a starting point of 4.5 mm/y in 2024:”
Excuse me, but I fail to see there is a direct 1:1 correlation between Greenland/Antarctic ice melts volume or acceleration, and measurable SLR.
The (false) assumption must be made that the 4.5mm/yr current rate is a direct cause of Greenland/Antarctic ice melt alone. And it is not.
and
The latest research shows that Greenland’s glaciers are shrinking at seven times the rate of just a few years ago, an average of 30 million tonnes an hour. Paul Beckwith says from time interval 0:03:58:
“We have very good data on measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica; [from] the gravity anomaly satellites ah, flying in tandem, and we’ve seen melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years typically, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica.
Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.
Geoff Miellsays
Ned Kelly: – “Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.”
Paul Beckwith may exaggerate, but I’d suggest we ignore James Hansen at our peril.
Per Global warming in the pipeline (bold text my emphasis):
Discussion [184] with field glaciologists¹³ 20 years ago revealed frustration with IPCC’s ice sheet assessment. One glaciologist said—about a photo [185] of a moulin (a vertical shaft that carries meltwater to the base of the Greenland ice sheet)—‘the whole ice sheet is going down that damned hole!’ Concern was based on observed ice sheet changes and paleoclimate evidence of sea level rise by several meters in a century, implying that ice sheet collapse is an exponential process. Thus, as an alternative to ice sheet models, we carried out a study described in Ice Melt [13]. In a GCM simulation, we added a growing freshwater flux to the ocean surface mixed layer around Greenland and Antarctica, with the flux in the early 21st century based on estimates from in situ glaciological studies [186] and satellite data on sea level trends near Antarctica [187]. Doubling times of 10 and 20 years were used for the growth of freshwater flux. One merit of our GCM was reduced, more realistic, small-scale ocean mixing, with a result that Antarctic Bottom Water formed close to the Antarctic coast [13], as in the real world. Growth of meltwater and GHG emissions led to shutdown of the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean overturning circulations, amplified warming at the foot of the ice shelves that buttress the ice sheets, and other feedbacks consistent with ‘nonlinearly growing sea level rise, reaching several meters in 50–150 years’ [13]. Shutdown of ocean overturning circulation occurs this century, as early as midcentury. The 50–150-year time scale for multimeter sea level rise is consistent with the 10–20-year range for ice melt doubling time. Real-world ice melt will not follow a smooth curve, but its growth rate is likely to accelerate in coming years due to increasing heat flux into the ocean (Fig. 25).
I’ve updated my calculations for Global mean sea level rise rate scenarios to include 7-, 10- & 13-year doubling rates, for the period 2024-2075:
And then I derived a Global mean sea level scenarios graph.
The 7-year doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2056 and 2 m around 2062;
The 10-year doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2064 and 2 m around 2074;
The 13-doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2072.
The 10- & 13-year doubling curves sit within the upper end of the range 0.15 to 0.43 m by 2050 in Table 3.2 in NOAA’s Feb 2022 report on SLR. The 7-year doubling rate curve may well be an outlier, but then who would have believed a few years ago that the rapid rate of warming happening now were possible?
The point of this exercise is to show how quickly SLR could get out of hand. As the late Albert Allen Bartlett said:
I’d suggest SLR will be relentless for centuries, regardless of how quickly we reduce our GHG emissions.
I’d suggest no jurisdictions want to upset the developers…
Ned Kellysays
Thanks for the qualifications Geoff. I’ve read Hansen in detail and get his reasoning and others like him. I reject the IPCC models outright now (well have a long time for good logical reasons). The system is too flawed and not credible (and the people who abide by it). Finally some are saying publicly they have no clue at all, do not know what’s happening or how fast or why. But they are still not the ones to listen to.
anyways, keep on doing what you’re doing while you still have the motivation and energy to do it.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: I reject the IPCC models outright now
BPL: Does anyone still doubt that Ned is a denier?
BTW, there is no such thing as an “IPCC model.” The IPCC doesn’t write its own models. They simply summarize what has been published in the literature.
nigeljsays
BPL
I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier (denies greenhouse effect or that humans are warming the climate) . Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does.
I would say Ned is a well meaning hard left wing concern troll who genuinely believes humans are warming the climate, but that the IPCC and mainstream science hugely underestimate the warming.
I believe he also criticises renewables at least partly because the corporates and millionaires are benefitting from those investments. Based on things hes written. I’ve probably read more of his posts than you, being a retired guy with some time to spare.
I disagree with Ned on some stuff and agree with him on other stuff – at least to a point.
The truth on some of this stuff we discuss is often somewhere in the middle of different peoples views. The IPCC lean conservative on climate issues, but Hansen seems too far out in the speculative extreme for me. Truth is likely in the middle but of course can only be fully determined by better science or the unfolding reality..
Ned Kellysays
The models conclusions of models forecasts predictions conclusions of predictions graphs tables anecdotes quotes from published papers, meta study summaries rants abbreviations whatever the f you want to call the content found in IPCC Assessment reports and their Summaries Authored by IPCC Authors etc etc etc I REJECT THEM NOW AS CRITICALLY FLAWED AND UNRELIABLE AND POLITICIZED …. LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN HOW THE CARDINALS ELECT THE POPE …. IT’S EXTREMELY BIASED AND UNSCIENTIFIC AND UNREPRESENTATIVE SWILL
THE IPCC and their REPORTS are CRAP ….. does that sum it enough for you to understand Barton the High Priest of Real Climate?
Same goes with CMIP6 models individually and averaged ….. crap, a waste of time and money.
>>> INSERT here where you cry me a river and I still do not give a f what you say or think !
Radge Haverssays
BPL,
Not much doubt.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: I REJECT THEM NOW AS CRITICALLY FLAWED AND UNRELIABLE AND POLITICIZED
BPL: If you type it in ALL CAPS it really convinces people.
Piotrsays
[ Again – my screen blinks and my post … shows as submitted, before I have had the chance to finish it – Here is a proper, edited version:]
Nigel: “ I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier. Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does”
Nigel, that’s like saying that a guy who called an opponent the N-word, is not a racist, but only “made himself look like a racist through his choice of the N-word“. Even if he assures you “I am not a racist“, particularly if he follows it with a “… but “.
So if it quacks like a denier (their “choice of a denier language“) and walks like a denier:
a) saying “the so called anthropogenic warming“, dismissing the climate science as a “church” that wants to “exterminate” anybody who dares to question its orthodoxy, dismisses the existing GHG mitigation as “doing more harm than good”, and claims that irrigation could counter the entire GHG forcing, or even cause the net cooling,
OR
b) rejects “outright now” the science of climate change based on his strong opinions on the matter, and dismisses GHG reductions projects in favour of proposing, well, what have your proposed instead, Ned ?
then it is a denier, even it assures us that it is not.
Piotrsays
Nigel: I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier. Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does. ”
that’s like saying that a guy who called an opponent the N-word, is not a racist, but only “made himself look like a racist through his choice of the N-word“.
Even if he assures you “I am not a racist“, particularly when he follows that line with “… but “.
So if it quacks like a denier (your: “chose of a denier language“) and walks like a denier:
-calling the AGW “ the so called warming“, dismisses the climate science as a “church” that “exterminates” anybody who dares to question its orthodoxy , dismisses the existing GHG mitigation as “doing more harm than good” and claims irrigation could counter the entire GHG forcing or even cause the net cooling that proposes to
replace them
or rejecting “outright now” the science of climate change in favour of … own strong opinions )
If somebody calls the AGW “ the so called anthropogenic warming” and dismisses existing ways of mitigation of GHG emissions, saying that they do “more harm than good” and has no real alternative to them, or reject the climate science “outright now”, dismisses existing ways of mitigation of GHG emissions
and does not propose any viable alternative in its place – then in they are both deniers of the urgent need to mitigate GHGs emissions NOW.
then it is denier, even if it declares itself not being one.
nigeljsays
Piotr, I certainly think that when someone uses denialist talking points it means someone is most likely a denier, however its not always the case and we have to be careful we dont jump to conclusions. We get so used to the pattern, we assume things about people when they might have a reasonable sceptical point or are just being unclear.
I would say Ned Kelly is not a denier. Ned did write a couple of posts absolutely trashing climate models but he clearly meant they are underestimating warming if you have read his other posts and know his style. His climate model posts are not very clear is the problem.
If you read his many comments he is arguing quite clearly that IPCC badly underestimate warming and so do climate models, and Hansen is one of the few who really understand whats going on. This is not the views of a denier or even a luke warmer. Its more of a contrarian view. You may not have read many of his posts.
I would say Tomas Kalisz is more likely a luke warmer than a denier. I posted the following previously in response to one of your comments, but I cant remember where so I post it again fyi as follows with a couple of small amendments.:
Piotr, I understand denier to mean someone who denies that we are warming the climate by burning fossil fuels. I asked TK if he accepted the greenhouse effect and that burning fossil fuels warms the climate, and he said yes to both (in a very convoluted way but he did say yes)
I understand luke warmer to mean someone who accepts burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, but minimises the role of burning fossil fuels in the warming, and this minimisation fits TK perfectly. Like a hand in a glove. He minimises the role of anthropogenic CO2 and maximises the water cycle. Although his position seems ever shifting like the sand dunes.
Although you are right that TK pushes (completely crazy impractical) irrigation schemes as a major way of cooling the planet, he does seem to accept a role for renewables etc, (you may not have read these posts). But again that suggests he fits the definition of lukewarmer more than full on denialist. He has rejected CCS and the hydrogen economy, – but even I have my doubts about those things.
Of course this could all be hair splitting. Its not as if there is a crystal clear differentiation of denier and luke warmer. They are just terms of general convenience. Both conflict badly with the scientific consensus and IPCC reports.
I understand the duck test. Apparently it was Invented by the US military. I just think the test shows TK is a luke warmer.
And I agree TK is sea lioning. And its classic textbook sea lioning. But luke warmers also do that.
—————————–
Tomas Kalisz.
“Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? ”
Yes in respect of the issue of “Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that: .”
Of course you may have made a mistake in what you really meant – but such a thing can be tidied up if you just clarify in concise, plain unambiguous language what you really mean (something you are not great at doing). You should also be prepared to admit to what you said or admit when you are wrong, or at least not go on defending the indefensible.
The problem is you make yourself look like a denier all the time with your incessant denialist talking points, and you also sometimes look dishonest and you are frequently ambiguous. When I first read your posts I thought denier and my reaction was same as Piotr. It was only later I shifted you mentally into the luke warmer category.
“Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. ”
I try to look at what people post and be civil and objective and avoid exchanges of insults and vendettas against people. If I agree with some point they make I say so. If I disagree with some other point I say so.
But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
Clearly people may also have ideological motives for their positions as well. Piotr summed it up nicely as ideological, psychological or vested interests.
” I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?”
Please see my response to Piotr directly above.
PS: I do not agree with Piotr over everything, but I cant recall him ever making a huge mistake, and I dont have time to respond to everything and I tend to concentrate on the crazy denialists claims. Its important they get rebutted, and I enjoy the mental exercise and I enjoy reading the informative technical responses.
I do not have a science degree, but I did some physical geography at university which deals with the climate basics, and I have other qualifications relevant to aspects of the climate issue and I hope I add something to discussion.
(One other comment Piotr. I agree with at least 90% of your criticisms of what TK and JCW says. Very hard to fault what you say. I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.)
Ned Kellysays
nigelj says
23 Mar 2024 at 10:20 PM
Of course I am not a climate science, global warming, nor climate change denier Nigelj. So thanks for that small mercy.
But there is no point arguing the point with people like Piotr and all the rest of the clowns who infest this forum. They’re literally obsessively brainwashed having lost their ability for objective analysis and thought. They cannot even read what is written let alone comprehend it.
So I do not bother. My comments are not for them, It doesn’t matter to me what they say or what they think. They are all nobodies of no importance. They and this website make no difference to anything nor anyone. It’s only value is as an intellectual exercise. Like make believe military exercises to test systems and approaches, and to observe the responses.
Piotrsays
Nigel: “we have to be careful we don’t jump to conclusions”
Even if they happen to repeat inadvertently a denier talking point, the test is in what they do after that – do they accept that they have been duped, and learn from it, or do they double down? See the production of Ned and Tomas for the answer.
I don’t think the distinction between a denier and luke-warmer is particularly productive – it is a poorly defined term: it means different things to different people. Most of the deniers would describe themselves as lukewarmers. From the other end – anybody who does not share their orthodoxy, who is not fully on board with the highest projections of temperature rise, like Gavin, and with the all-or-nothing response, like you or me) – is lukewarmer. So the term more hides than it illuminates.
As for specific cases – Tomas and Ned – by their fruits you shall know them.
After your earlier defense of Tomas, I started writing a response – a list of the denier talking points he promoted, and a list the denier techniques he has used (cherry-picking data to support them, not answering the direct questions, changing the subject, unable to make an honest apology, presenting cherry-picked fragments from their opponents as a support for him).
Then looking for a last quote I closed the wrong window and lost the draft. Decided … not to waste even more time on Tomas. What he is – everybody can see. And he declared it himself – he admitted to be a denialist and … demanded the respect other religions and beliefs command.
As for Ned – his attempts to discredit climate science and scientists, based not on his scientific expertise, but his … strong opinions, his disparaging available technologies and actions to reduce GHGs, while not offering feasible alternatives, are identical to those of many deniers. By their fruits you shall know them.
Particularly that Ned’s psychological motivation is likely the same as that of many climate change deniers and other conspiracy theorists –if everybody else got fooled, but me, then I must be smarter than them….
It appears that although I personally perceive our interpretations of many climate discussion topics very distant from each other or exactly opposite, others see us basically as two sides of the same “anti-science” coin. I am aware that a common basis may indeed often exist for extremists of varous kind, however, I still doubt that such an explanation applies also to us.
I would like to propose, as a kind of an experiment, a discussion between you, as a “convicted alarmist” and me, as a convicted “denialist” and/or “lukewarmer”. We could try it, at least temporarily, as a replacement for some of previous exchanges in which we participated on this website. This way, we could spare time and efforts of others, and perhaps somewhat relieve their pain. Moreover, I am quite curious if this alternative perhaps might have finally appeared more productive in comparison with our previous discussions invloving other participants.
If you wish, please feel free to challenge any of my views on climate science and climate policy topics that differs from yours, and we can – preferably in a competely new thread – try to discuss. If you do not see such a preferred topics, I would like to explain in which aspects I do not agree to your view that present mainstream climate science may be distorted because it strives to minimize the fears of the public about the consequences of the ongoing climate change.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Ned Kelly: Piotr and all the rest of the clowns [are] literally obsessively brainwashed
Fortunately, nobody can literally obsessively brainwash Ned Kelly, nobody!
Which brings us to the reason for your presence on this forum – you don’t come here to share your climatological insight with others, since you have none, nor you are here to learn about climate science: “I reject the IPCC models outright now” NK,
Which leaves the remaining possibility, the default motivation of the “skeptics”, “contrarians” and conspiracy theorists: boosting one’s ego:
If everybody else got “literally obsessively brainwashed”, BUT NOT YOU – then you must be really, really, smart – much smarter than Gavin Schmidt and the other IPCC clowns. Hence:
“ I reject the IPCC models outright now”
Ned “Of course I am not a climate science denier” Kelly
Piotrsays
Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
me: “I’ve never said that he has NEVER been correct. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
Nigel: “ I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.”
… to the broken clocks, perhaps. You seem you choose calling the glass 1/10 full,, I call it 9/10 empty. If it offends the glass – so be it.
Pulling your punches achieves nothing – it won’t open JCM or Tomas to being convinced, because they are not here to learn, but for an ego boost: if a lay person like them can see what the best minds in the field have missed, then he must be VERY smart. You just can’t compete with _such_ psychological reward.
And my response has nothing to do with emotions (“frustration”) – I _could_ be frustrated for 2 reasons
1. for being unable to prove an opponent wrong – not the case here (see above), or
2 for seeing the other person failing to accept/understand a valid logical argument. But this applies only to the people who _can_ change their minds. Not the case here either.
JCMsays
Assuming a glass 9/10 full represents an exclusive generic focus on atmospheric forcing and feedbacks to climates, this leaves a 1/10 of the glass for niche interest. I notice that the 90% of the glass has been discussed to exhaustion, with available citations for such matters relentless.
In this 9/10 glass full perspective, the most complex factor is deemed to be the atmospheric radiative transfer aspect, and feedbacks thereto. I could play around with semigray and semianalytical games of tau and subsequently gain praise by affixing fundamental change on the fields as a consequence. Then I can claim to be an ally in improving the prospects of sustainable food production, and dismiss rural conservative insight.
An entire academic career can be borne from a niche interest in high latitude low-cloud optical depth feedbacks, for example, which represent far less than 1/10th the climate influence. If I pontificated on this subject does this make me a 9/10 glass full personality? If that is presumed to be the case, it’s supposed that I could pack up shop of landscape restoration initiatives, and instead contribute to academic citations on high latitude low cloud optical depth feedbacks – and therefore participate more meaningfully in climate stabilization as an approved ally. It is only then I could gain the status as a legitimate observer and quantifier of change in the fields. However, then still, that leaves an additional 1/10th the glass unfilled, and for what?
Piotrsays
– Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
– me: “I’ve never said that he has NEVER been correct. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
– Nigel: “ I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.”
– me: … to the broken clocks, perhaps. You seem you choose calling the glass 1/10 full,, I call it 9/10 empty. If it offends the glass – so be it.
JCM Mar 28: “Assuming a glass 9/10 full represents an exclusive generic focus on atmospheric forcing and feedbacks to climates”
and … why would you assume that??? As you can see from the quotes above, the glass metaphor was NOT about the topics of RC site, but about the quality of your arguments. And you remember it wrong – it was “9/10 EMPTY,” not “9/10 full”. Nobody claimed the latter – patrick defense of you was …much more modest than that: “it’s not like JCM has NEVER been correct” ;-)
Since you based your entire post on that initial misunderstanding of the subject, there is no point to comment the rest of it, Garbage in, garbage out.
Geoff Miellsays
Ned Kelly: – “Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.”
In addition to my earlier comments (at 17 MAR 2024 AT 7:23 PM):
I’d suggest Paul Beckwith is not exaggerating about Greenland’s ice sheet loss. Nature journal published on 17 Jan 2024 a paper by Chad A. Greene et al. titled Ubiquitous acceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet calving from 1985 to 2022. In this paper, Fig. 2 | Cumulative mass change resulting from glacier retreat since 1985, shows almost every glacier in Greenland has lost substantial mass since 1985. It seems per Fig 2, the Greenland ice sheet mass loss has doubled over a period of about the last 7 years.
The paper includes:
None of the three most commonly used methods of measuring ice-sheet mass balance are designed to measure the mass loss we report, meaning that the GrIS has probably lost 20% more ice since 1985 than has recently been reported¹,⁴,²⁵–²⁷,²⁹,³⁰. The most recent update to the Ice sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) provides a reconciled estimate of 27 independent observation-based estimates of ice-sheet mass balance, finding an overall loss rate of 221 Gt year−¹ between 2003 and 2018. We find that, over the same period, terminus retreat caused a further 43 Gt year−¹ of ice loss that was not captured by any of the three geodetic techniques used in the IMBIE consensus, has not been accounted for in any large study of GrIS mass balance and represents a source of solid freshwater flux that has not been included in previous budgets of discharge to the ocean³¹.
There are multiple contributors to sea level rise (SLR), including ordered from largest to smallest:
* Thermal expansion;
* Greenland ice sheet;
* Terrestrial storage;
* Antarctic land ice;
* Other glaciers;
* Canadian arctic glaciers;
* US Alaskan arctic glaciers;
* Greenland glaciers;
* Scandinavian glaciers;
* Russian arctic glaciers.
See the Arctic Monitoring & Assessment Programme (AMAP) Figure 9.3 Comparison of Arctic sea level rates 2004–2010 with other global sea level components, at: https://www.amap.no/maps-and-graphics/search?keywords=arctic+ice#3406
I’d suggest AMAP needs to update their Figure 9.3 to reflect more recent data.
Ned Kellysays
Barton Paul Levenson says
16 Mar 2024 at 1:17 PM
NK: If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
BPL: No. Ask a climate scientist.
SusanA Quote: “We don’t really know what’s going on,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me. “And we haven’t really known what’s going on since about March of last year.” He called the situation “disquieting.”
Susan Andersonsays
Elizabeth Kolbert, not Susan A. I’ve put in the conclusions of her article in reply to the cite just now.
Blaming potential allies who are trying to make progress in the real world is unhelpful at best, a terrible waste of time and energy. It’s so much easier than making an effort to inform the real offenders who are good at ignorance, exploitation, and backlash and have pots of money and power.
No matter how satisfying it is to get it off one’s chest, it’s not telling us anything we don’t already know.
Ned Kellysays
Cognitive science can explain why climate science and climate scientists, their committed groupies, the IPCC, the UNFCCC and COP system, Nasa and every other pro-climate action institutions are failures. Because their whole being is based on multiple cognitive myths and flawed beliefs, their communication is ineffective, a failure to change anything substantial.
Facts will never change someone’s opinion or beliefs or values. 98% of reasoning, or thought, is unconscious.
SCIENTIFIC FACT: All Reason is indirect.
One of the most shocking Myths about Enlightenment reason and thought is that you can reason directly about anything in the world. You assume know you have this capacity for reason and you say: “Well anything in the world whether it’s in politics in economics in the environment in human relations in science we can reason directly about it.”
It’s not true! Because you think with an embodied brain reason is only indirectly connected to the world (not that it’s disconnected entirely.) You can imagine things, but you can only reason about and understand what your body and brain will allow. You cannot understand just anything at all and this as you’ll see is crucial in politics.
If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you may not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You may not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!
Grade school level – Metaphors and how we think and speak and why.
Life is a Metaphor – Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
12 mins book summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcQcwUfo8c
From 1980s but ends up being one of the world’s best kept secrets.
If you don’t understand how brains think, then you’ll never understand why climate scientists and climate science, and the IPCC have all been such a failure to date and will continue to fail.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
NK: Cognitive science can explain why climate science and climate scientists, their committed groupies, the IPCC, the UNFCCC and COP system, Nasa and every other pro-climate action institutions are failures.
BPL: It can also explain why Ned is a vicious serial killer who has left a trail of mutilated bodies across seven southern and midwestern states.
The logical fallacy is that an explanation is being offered for a “fact” which does not, in fact, exist.
nigeljsays
NK.
Lakoff: “If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you may not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You may not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!”
Agreed. Our ideological tendencies for example liberal versus conservative are deep in our genetic structure, so we are born leaning one way or the other:
Although I sense it doesn’t seem too rigidly fixed as some people do modify their political leanings over time. Probably a bit of nature plus nurture going on. Genes plus environment. And self awareness of ones own leanings and intelligent analysis of them helps counter the tendency to be excessively influenced by them.
Lakoff is right that such political and ideological leanings do define what facts we accept but I would suggest its not rigidly so. Firstly leanings towards liberal and conservative do not seem absolutely rigid as previously mentioned. People also often find common ground. And facts do eventually get through to most people. If this was not the case we would still be living in the stone age.
But its presumably important how such facts are presented. They need to be framed to appeal to different ideologies and they need good evidential basis according to the experts. Beyond that its hard to see what more can be done.
Ned Kellysays
N: And facts do eventually get through to most people.
NK: No they do not. That was the point of the research / conclusions.
N: If this was not the case we would still be living in the stone age.
NK: This silly thought bubble flies in the face of 50 years of cognitive research. It’s a nonsense fallacy you are throwing out here.
N: But its presumably important how such facts are presented. They need to be framed to appeal to different ideologies and they need good evidential basis according to the experts.
NK: No. You are being obsessed with ideologies and poltics. The issue is COGNOTIVE ie MENTAL not merely “political ideological”.
N: Beyond that its hard to see what more can be done.
NK: You are talkig as if what could be done is alreasdy being done. Nothing is being done. Look, Gavin keeps wrtiign silly “fact based” arguments to Soon and Spencer …. over a dozen anti-denier article sin the lst 12 months continually spinning his wheels and wasteing his and everyon eelse time and energy.
What more could be done? One thing is Gavin could EDUCATE HIMSELF …. then there are another at least 60,000 other climate scientists who could do the same …. and then ……. but just like Gavin has repeatedly refused to do so, so will all the others. So will everyone reading here remain ignorant speaking and acting like fools imagining they are making a difference.
They are not.
Nothing is being done Nigelj. Nothing is going to change here Nigelj.
Only after the catastrophes might somethings begin to change. In a world that will be much more manageable and simple for surviving humans. No one then will care what Gavin said either.
nigeljsays
Ned Kelly.
N: And facts do eventually get through to most people.
NK: No they do not. That was the point of the research / conclusions.
N. I still suggest facts do get through eventually to most people. An example. A majority of Americans ( a small majority) now accept the theory of evolution which is a considerable change on previous decades and centuries, and despite being a very religious country. So clearly the religious adherents would be very, very resistant to those facts yet some of these people have changed their views.
Lakoff is clearly saying ithat SOME people are resistant to the facts for psychological and political or religious reasons and SOME of those people wil never change their views. We admittedly still have a flat earh society. But hes not saying all are. Remember Lakoff said: “If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you MAY not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You MAY (emphasis mine) not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!” ( And I dont dispute that)
So Its important to still state the facts. Even just for the benefit of fence sitters and mild sceptics.
NK: No. You are being obsessed with ideologies and poltics. The issue is COGNOTIVE ie MENTAL not merely “political ideological”.
N: I bought up politics because the article you posted bought up politics! Repeatedly.
NK: You are talkig as if what could be done is alreasdy being done. Nothing is being done. Look, Gavin keeps wrtiign silly “fact based” arguments to Soon and Spencer …. over a dozen anti-denier article sin the lst 12 months continually spinning his wheels and wasteing his and everyon eelse time and energy.
N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer. They are the very guys that would influence politicians. However other things need discussion as well and in ways the general public can easily grasp otherwise its a bit pointless.
NK: “Only after the catastrophes might somethings begin to change. In a world that will be much more manageable and simple for surviving humans. ”
N: This is thought provoking statement. It will probably take a climate catastrophe for really serious action to be taken on climate change given the many reasons people are complacent about mitigation. But in your post catastrophe extinction level event simpler world of fewer humans, will we be any wiser or will all the old bad habits emerge again? You could end up with a Mad Max like society of warring groups.
However fewer people left surviving does equal fewer environmental pressures. But what a grim way to fix environmental problems. Hopefully we wake up and get the climate problem solved before it kills vast numbers of people.. However I alternate between hope and despair on that issue.
Radge Haverssays
nigelj,
The age old problem, how to deal with a Gish galloping roo…
Jonathan Davidsays
Nigel, it might be instructive to examine instances in the past in which political opinions have changed both radically and nearly instantaneously. One interesting example is the American South. Following the US Civil War the South voted for the Democratic Party almost exclusively. The saying “yellow dog” Democrat was around. Meaning a Democratic candidate in the South would receive votes even if the candidate was a yellow dog. This voting pattern persisted for over one hundred years but changed completely within a couple of decades.
Ned Kellysays
NIGELJ ….
yes, many things you say are fine. But can I suggest you spend much more time to go learn what he says and why. I cannot educate you here, no matter how well I try.
eg N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer.
If you knew Lakoff you’d already know HOW Gavin is doing this is NOT effective and is counter productive. It’s a waste of time. I’ve said it’s a waste of time. and it is not even important.
YOU see it differently, sigh, ok fine. Double down if you wish, I am not going to argue, with you, or the fools who call 50 years of cognitive science and psychological science as gishgallop.
This place is full to the brim with really stupid fools. You’re not one of them Nigelj — but it’s impossible to explain all the issues you raise in back and forth posts to this dysfunctional forum.
You are on the right track though …. I humbly suggest go read more about it, videos etc and think about it more broadly. And watch Nate hagens guests …. some are already acting as if they know Lakoff inside and out, there’s a lot of wisdom there nigel, there is none here.
cheers, take care.
Radge Haverssays
NK,
You mistakenly opined:
the fools who call 50 years of cognitive science and psychological science as gishgallop.
Nobody implied that. Gish galloping refers to the rhetorical tactic that you use which, along with your bragging, name calling and mischaracterizations, is either a red flag for trolling, or an indication that you’re not in a position to be lecturing people on communication.
Killiansays
Arguing about arguing is one of the worst things humans can do at this point.
Stop, the lot of you.
Radge Haverssays
Killian,
Why are you arguing with me about arguing about arguing?
Radge, it could be argued that Killian was rather admonishing than arguing with you.
But, frankly, I fear the assertion might be perceived as argumentative.
Radge Haverssays
Kevin,
Indeed, well put. We could argue about whether or not Killian is arguing about arguing about arguing, but then we’d be arguing about arguing about arguing about arguing.
I’m still not convinced, however, that this rises to the level of being “one of the worst things humans can do at this point” as Killian asserts. Personally I’d argue that this is an overstatement as there are a large number of things that are worse.
Jonathan Davidsays
Nigelj I would argue that both yourself and Ned Kelly are correct. I agree with you that it’s possible to convince others based on logical argumentation and presentation of facts. Except, and this crucial, as long as the information you are trying to impart does not contradict and conflict with another individuals deeply held beliefs and sense of identity. In that case the information will be registered as a threat and rejected.
The fossil fuel lobby, Fox News etc. seem well aware of this and exploit it by associating terms like “climate change” with concepts we have been taught to fear such as “communism”.
There are workarounds, I believe. The best is simply generational. Later generations are not bound by the fundamental beliefs of previous generations and overall acceptance can increase.
Another workaround is the brute force method in which emotional manipulation is used to convince a person that their currently held beliefs are, in fact, more threatening to them than the alternative. An example is the political shift in the traditionally heavily Democratic South (USA) following the introduction of legislation that eliminated segregation. This caused an ideological crisis in the South and almost complete shift to the Republican party. Generally this is not a pleasant alternative and not something I would approve of except in the most extreme cases of risk. This may be what Ned is trying to do.
Disclaimer: I have no background in psychology or cognitive science, just my personal observations.
Ned Kellysays
” N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer. They are the very guys that would influence politicians. ”
You might like to reflect on why you believe Soon and Spencer are so INFLUENTIAL, when all Gavin is doing is trying to influence them they are wrong, while looking good on some obscure climate science platform no one ever reads and no one ever quotes in the media and no politicians would even know existed.
The rhetorical question might be why is Gavin Schmidt NOT himself making any efforts at all to “influence denier leaning” POLITICIANS himself?
I think the answer is self-evident.
If you look close enough, you will see it in everything LAKOFF has to say on the issues, and the dozens of ineffective retorts to his favourite “denier” scientists Gavin has written about on this platform over the decades ……
Instead of criticising no bodies like me, why not take the people to task with expertise who are doing nothing to influence the politicians instead? Answer that question honestly and your own duplicity and denial of reality will be exposed. Cheers
Killiansays
It IS a serious problem. I encounter so many conversations that turn into arguments about HOW people say things and the content gets ignored, buried under a bunch of stupid rhetoric. This site in has been a perfect example of this. Important messaging was dismissed for 8 years due to petty, nasty nonsense that had nothing to do with the solutions or science and everything to do with biases, personal dislikes, and patronizing attacks on people who didn’t toe the conservative climate science line.
How much further along would we be if people had taken the ECS forcing issue more seriously 15 years ago? Or the EN-ASI connection? Or the lack of hysteresis? Or the acceleration of warming? ALL of these things were raised and all of them were buried under huge piles of aggression. And this is just one site.
So, yeah, to me it is a big issue. Thankfully, most of that seems to be gone here – though I note the denialists and others still get a good shot to the ribs on the regular. A couple have taken a shot at flame wars, but I have refused to play that stupid game any longer.
Maybe there is hope for the future yet…
But, yes, anything not a sincere effort at problem-solving is maladaptive. The boat’s sinking. Everyone bail, please, and save the angry, nasty rhetoric for when we either solve the problem or there is no hope left.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
K: How much further along would we be if people had taken the ECS forcing issue more seriously 15 years ago?
BPL: Well, ECS isn’t a forcing. But you’re right about the general situation. The world needed to act 40 years ago, and every year since then has been a lost opportunity.
Jonathan Davidsays
Hi Ned, I would have to disagree with some of your points. The first is that this blog’s intended readership is the “general public”. Dr Schmidt has himself stated why he makes particular posts. This is for the simple reason that he receives requests for comments from colleagues. Writing a post is more efficient than issuing multiple verbal rebuttals. Scientists are not trained to engage in dialog with the general public. There should be an intermediary layer of educators (such as Zebra, perhaps?) journalists, non-specialist scientific colleagues, and popularizers who can function as go-betweens.
As far as Dr Schmidt himself, he does appear to have a significant public presence. It’s true that he is not storming into Joe Biden’s office and pounding his fist on his desk. But seriously, your question as to why he and others are not doing more to hold politicians to account has a simple and obvious answer. That is, that he and other climate scientists have not contributed a few million dollars to their election campaigns. Absent that scientists really have no agency or authority to influence any powerful actors, politicians, multi-national corporations, Wall Street, etc.
Why are you not advocating holding the politicians and money mangers to account? I have to say though that I have always suspected that, in the the end, the climate crisis will be blamed on scientists. There are too many previous examples of disasters that have been blamed on a convenient scapegoat. That’s just the way the powerful act in the end.
Radge Haverssays
Jonathan David
There should be an intermediary layer of educators (such as Zebra, perhaps?) journalists, non-specialist scientific colleagues, and popularizers who can function as go-betweens.
Exactly. That is worth repeating. The status of evolutionary theory, for instance, might be very different if not for “Darwin’s Bulldog” T. H. Huxley.
With that in mind, the Real Climate About page:
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists and has been operating since Dec 2004. We aim to provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary on climate science. The discussion here is mostly restricted to scientific topics though we maintain open threads for the political or economic implications of the science and for discussions of possible solutions. All posts are signed by the author(s), except ‘group’ posts which are collective efforts from the whole team. Please note this is a moderated forum.
This is certainly not a site for science bashers with a grudge.
Ned Kellysays
update on Mauna Loa CO2.
Week beginning on March 10, 2024: 425.74 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 420.08 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 400.31 ppm
Last updated: March 17, 2024
The annual increase of 5.68 ppm is the second highest increase rate since 1959.
Last week also saw the highest ever recorded daily value (March 15: 427.93 ppm).
A comparison with the last ten years avg rate increase gives the real dimension of what is going on right now:
a 2.54 ppm/a increase on average…
Have no fear for La Nina will save us and all will go back to normal again. Peace will prevail upon the Earth. /sarc
If you wish to do the nerd-thing with the MLO CO2 data, you do need to be more attentive.
The weekly data from MLO has only been published by NOAA since 1974, not 1958.
Also, March is the most wobbly part of the CO2 annual cycle at MLO so not the best time to be comparing inter-year weekly data. Additionally, comparing today’s numbers with ten-year-old ones may encounter methodological issues as the process for accepting/rejecting measurements will almost certainly not be consistent. Note that both these 7-day periods you are comparing have missing days.
If folk are into number crunching, the NOAA MLO CO2 daily record since 1974 is now published (rather than just graphed on their 2-year Interactive Plot).
But to save us all the bother, NOAA do publish the Annual Growth Rate. They use Nov-Feb averages so the 2023 Growth is not long published
At +3.36ppm, 2023 shows the highest Annual Growth on record, with 2016 now 2nd highest (+3.03ppm), above 2015 (+2.95ppm), 1998 (+2.97ppm) & 2018 (+2.85ppm). This is wobbly data with a big El Niño signal in it.
So while 2023 recorded the highest Annual CO2 Growth, it should be noted that 2022 recorded the lowest since 2008 and that 5-year rolling averages have been flat since 2015-19.
Of course, these Annual Growth Rates don’t just need to stop getting bigger, they urgently need to begin dropping, and dropping rapidly.
Ray Ladburysays
Ned Kelly, Nigel et al., The result that humans tend to reach their beliefs more by emotion than by examination of the evidence is not really a new one. Francis Bacon developed the scientific method precisely to combat such tendencies–and it has proven the most reliable method humans have developed for developing reliable understanding of the natural world.
I understand that the slow, methodical pace of science may be frustrating–especially when we are confronting a potentially existential threat with a short (at least geologically speaking) fuse. However, science is the only reliable way forward. We should not think ourselves immune to illogical tendencies merely because we are “on the right side” of an issue.
Despite concerted efforts by Vulture Capitalists and other merchants of doubt to discredit science and scientists, science remains the most trusted human endeavor across the political spectrum. Facts presented as independent entities may not be persuasive, but facts with the imprimatur and understanding science provides can and do make a difference for all but the most ideologically blinkered individuals.
The facts, the truth, remain our most important powerful weapons in confronting the anti-science trolls precisely because, if we adhere to them, they are weapons that cannot be turned against us. Appeals to emotion…not so much.
nigeljsays
RL. Agreed. None of us are immune from cognitive biases, effects of emotion on thinking and evaluation of facts, illogical thinking and cherry picking, but some of us are aware of such influences and dont let them rule us or at least counter them to some extent. It just takes discipline and anyone can do it. Of course science also trains people to avoid such things. I was lucky as a child I stumbled across a book on logical fallacies which made a big impression on me and helped. This stuff should be taught in school.
“The result that humans tend to reach their beliefs more by emotion than by examination of the evidence is not really a new one.”
And it’s irreducible, because even from a strictly rational perspective you’ve got to have some givens–which, by definition, can’t be arrived at from previous considerations, or logical processes.
When we’re dealing with matters that are of concern to humans, that means values, which while they may be informed by logic and reason, or examined by logic and reason, are also to some extent a priori to either. I’m a musician because I care deeply about music, and while I may employ rationalizations about its role in human development on both individual and social levels, or its value to the economy (see the “Taylor Swift” effect, which has national governments bickering about alleged subsidies), or its potential to facilitate communication and build community as the late, great Pete Seeger was so adept at doing, none of that is actually why I care. I care because of the emotional responses I have.
In the climate realm, some people value life, and some people value immediate profits, and the latter will not be much moved by the prospect of hundreds of millions of climate refugees (presumbably, they think they can wall them out)–or lost biodiversity (they just think “who cares about snail darters or barred owls, anyway?”)–or threats to agricultural productivity (“Let them eat cake–or Spam?–or maybe Soylent Green?”)
Ray Ladburysays
Kevin: “And it’s irreducible, …”
I don’t fully agree with this–the key to reducing the illogical aspects of human cognition is the scientific method–especially the part where we emphasize evidence that conflicts with our beliefs rather than that which supports those beliefs. We need to look at the predictive power of what we believe rather than the explanatory power.
Of course, we know that science is fun ’til somebody’s ox gets gored, but goring oxen is the key to progress. And we need to be especially ruthless with pseudo-scientific narratives that pretend to profundity while in reality merely being a place where curiosity goes to die.
I do not dispute that this is difficult, but it is essential if humans are to overcome the limitations of our own brains and survive longer than a geologic instant.
Ray, I think we are talking past each other a bit. I agree that:
…the key to reducing the illogical aspects of human cognition is the scientific method–especially the part where we emphasize evidence that conflicts with our beliefs rather than that which supports those beliefs…
However, I’d view “beliefs” as essentially posterior, meaning that they emerge (in my mental model of this, at least!) from the interplay of data with what I called
“values” meaning here something like “the personal significance weighting of the various aspects of the world.” “Values” in this sense are essentially prior to the process of belief formation. They are also hard to change.
Substantial quotes from this article above, search ‘kolbert’
Mal Adaptedsays
Excellent short science communication by Elizabeth Kolbert, who does that kind of thing extremely well. Gavin is quoted:
“We don’t really know what’s going on,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me. “And we haven’t really known what’s going on since about March of last year.” He called the situation “disquieting.”
I don’t know about all y’all, but if Gavin is disquieted, so am I.
Geoff Miellsays
Chuck Hughes: – We’re in serious trouble…”
…and most people are still oblivious.
Leon Simons tweeted on Mar 20:
4 years after the initiation of the aerosol termination shock, most people are still oblivious.
See @chrislhayes learn about it from @dwallacewells.
Most climate models still don’t take this into account.
With some sulphur and Ocean Temp data visualization from me at the end.
See the full interview by Canadian Prepper with Leon Simons in the YouTube video titled ⚡ALERT: ITS MUCH WORSE THAN WE’RE BEING TOLD, EXPECT EXTREME EVENTS IN NEXT FEW MONTHS, duration 1:04:48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
Barry E Finchsays
New Yorker: “It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand metres of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules”. So minimal heat into the ocean then, so the concern is that Trenberth’s Missing Heat has gone on steroids. Who stole it all this time ? I know I know I’m just kidding. El Nino is heat out of the ocean and off to space so heat uptake, delta-OHC, should be low during El Nino (I vaguely recall OHC going down during 1997/98 from ORAS4 and recall calculating in 2013 roughly 45 zettajoules out of the ocean to space through 1997/98 from a single colour-coded temperature section across tropical Pacific and very-vaguely recall NOAA or NASA having 35 zettajoules out of the ocean to space through 1997/98). I just find it so predictable that the News Media will provide no information even when they provide quantities, like above.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
Note: Just had my ninth publication in a peer-reviewed science journal:
Levenson, B.P. 2024. A comprehensive semigray climate model. Planetary and Space Science 243, 105866.
These are radiation physics terms. A body with the same absorptance, reflectance, and transmittance (A + R + T = 1) at every wavelength is “gray.” A special case is where A = 1.0, R = 0.0, T = 0.0, and a body like that is “black” (a “black body”). My climate model splits the electromagnetic spectrum into two bands, shortwave and longwave (the split coming at 4 microns wavelength), so it’s “semigray.”
Barry E Finchsays
I’m breaking the 1-comment rule at 8:35 pm because I’ll forget tomorrow. Straight cut’n’paste of mine to a rather-lazy ignoramus and bit of a Parrot, though he was too pleasant and unofficious in his ignorance for me to get infuriated with like I usually do for 11 years and a few tens of thousands of fruitless exchanges.
—————-
Barry to @Your point that simply extrapolating past performance indefinitely into the future is pretty much worthless is a correct point that you made. In 1968 I wrote IBM 360/44 computer program to extrapolate seismic time series, as directed by my Bosses. It was understood by the mathematicians, geophysicists, (former astronomer) at our office that accuracy worsens with each additional extrapolated time step. Thus Dr. James Hansen “10 year or 20 year doubling time” and a far worse “will double every 7 years” from a rather-sickening “Paul Beckwith” character is precisely worthless (and jaw-droppingly LAZY) Junk Science. That ain’t the hard-working pursuit of a physical science, which is the STUDY OF ALL RELEVANT PROCESSES to form an accurate prediction. Of course, past performance must be studied as an important part of studying how these processes already operated, but to simply fit a trend through past performance and extrapolate that trend beyond 1% past the end of the measured time series becomes increasingly uselessly inaccurate (Your “There may be beneficial factors” and also ) because past performance DOESN’T GUARANTEE future returns. Shame on Jim Hansen for doing that, blotting his copybook, and that “Paul Beckwith” is a sickening creature with his ABSURD “I predict 7 metres of sea level rise by 2070”. For crying out loud !!!!!!
————-
Barry to @ after response: “fair to say that while atmospheric greenhouse gas levels increase, or even remain stable at present levels, the decadal average sea level increases will likely increase”. The rate of ice loss from Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and Antarctic ice sheets (East EAIS, West WAIS) WILL increase. This is obvious. The ocean takes 400 years to warm 85% and has only just started. Ice sheets are even far slower so this WILL increase over the coming decades & centuries (future humans decide whether it’ll slow over Millenia). “I wouldn’t be surprised if we have several meters sea level rise by the end of the century myself”. Well no because you’ve obviously never studied it and thought about it at all and you are musing. “several meters sea level rise” is meaningless. Here’s my 5-second assessment of prediction quality & brain quality any place you find it (the predictions) by 2100 CE relative to 2024:
0.5m – 1.0m certain to likely enough
1.0m – 1.5m likely enough to definitely plausible
1.5m – 2.0m definitely plausible to sort-of plausible
2.0m – 2.5m sort-of plausible to quite unlikely
2.5m – 3.0m quite unlikely to highly unlikely
3.0m – 3.5m highly unlikely to unrealistic, losing touch with simple reality
3.5m – 4.0m unlikely to unrealistic, losing touch with simple reality to Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land
4.0m – 4.5m Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land to just plain imbecilic
beyond 4.5m beyond imbecilic
There you go. Where do you stand, wonders me.
It’s not the mechanics of the vast ice sheets that must flow hundreds of kilometres to reach the ocean & discharge that I’ll cite here because that’s extremely complicated for this sad venue of Googles comments. I’m not doing that. No, it’s a matter of lack of heat, much simpler to ponder on ultra-eye-blink time scales like 76 years. Where’s the heat coming from stud ? To melt ice requires a special heat called “latent heat” just to convert solid ice at 0 degrees to liquid water at 0 degrees and it’s a VERY LARGE AMOUNT. Where’s that heat coming from stud, did you ever ponder that a little bit ? I did. Thing is you see that the vast heat required to melt the 1,440 trillion (with a “T”) tonnes of ice for the 4.0m Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land scenario is 480 Zettajoules which would be a huge 26% of the present Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) but only 3% is now being used to melt ice and 93% is being used to heat the ocean. The only way to make that vast adjustment is to get that ice off Greenland & Antarctica and into the ocean in billions of little bits, not millions of big bits, so’s the ocean can use a quarter of its “new heat” to melt ice bergs instead of warming water. However, ice reflects a lot more sunlight than ocean so it’s cutting down the heat by doing that. Also, surface warming sends more radiation to space. That’s the “Planck feedback” or “Planck response” to warming and there’s no reason to think that surface warming will stop just to make it convenient for you to hold back 480 Zettajoules to melt the 1,440 trillion tonnes of ice. A Lump of Heat can only be used EITHER to raise surface temperature thus sending the heat to space OR to warm the ocean, warm the ground or melt ice. It CANNOT both melt ice AND raise surface temperature. It’s a choice. Also note that a single 1 trillion tonnes of ice berg slab broke off Larsen C in August 2017 and then floated for 3 years before finally finishing melting. Lastly, ponder that 4.0m of SLR by ice loss could be done hypothetically (not in reality) by new sea ice 4.4m thick covering the ocean from ice off Greenland & Antarctica. Antarctica sea ice is mostly 1m-2m thick, Arctic sea ice is mostly 2m-4m thick. So picture 4.4m thick sea ice covering the ENTIRE GLOBAL OCEAN. It’s massive is what I’m saying. It’s a non-starter Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land.
——–
Barry to @ after response: “If said icebergs then take 3 years or even 10 years to melt somewhere in the wide open oceans is neither here nor there”. Not at all “neither here nor there” because of ice albedo vs ocean albedo as I explained. You’ve failed to produce any viable scenario that would get even close to 4m SLR over 76 years starting now. You’ve established 34.2 zettajoules which melts 7% of the ice that has raised sea level by 4m SLR over 76 years so then in 76 years there’s about 1,340 trillion tonnes of ice floating on the global ocean which averages ice 4.1m thick if the thousands of trillions or millions of trillions of pieces are well dispersed. This reduces ocean albedo so much that intense global cooling has started. You made no effort at all to quantify a workable scenario for 4m SLR over 76 years and you obviously never will so I’m done now. Bye bye.
Geoff Miellsays
Barry E Finch: – “Thus Dr. James Hansen “10 year or 20 year doubling time” and a far worse “will double every 7 years” from a rather-sickening “Paul Beckwith” character is precisely worthless (and jaw-droppingly LAZY) Junk Science.”
And you seem to be disputing the statement in the peer-reviewed Hansen et al. (2023) paper:
Concern was based on observed ice sheet changes and paleoclimate evidence of sea level rise by several meters in a century, implying that ice sheet collapse is an exponential process.
Do you deny the observed ice sheet changes and paleoclimate evidence, Barry? I’d suggest if it has happened in the past then it can happen again, if the conditions are suitable.
The current rate of CO₂ and temperature change is almost unprecedented in the entire 4.5-billion-year geological past, per the late Will Steffen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2C6NfFIK_g
The Greenland high plateau has been experiencing ice ‘surface darkening’ and rainfall events. These are accelerating the ice loss. The Antarctic is also experiencing some rainfall events.
See the YouTube video titled Arctic climate insights and low fidelity climate models, duration 0:07:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbpbm_1Qss
See the YouTube video titled insane flooding rain to Greenland – rapids in an atmospheric river, duration 0:11:26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tua4p9ns2JY
Barry E Finch: – “You’ve failed to produce any viable scenario that would get even close to 4m SLR over 76 years starting now.”
Barry, did you miss my earlier comment? Reiterating:
The 7-year doubling rate curve may well be an outlier, but then who would have believed a few years ago that the rapid rate of warming happening now were possible?
Of course you did! It seems to me you only want to see what fits within your ill-informed ideological narrative and limited imagination. Bye bye…
Ned Kellysays
the late Will Steffen?
Jeez, how did I miss that. RIP Will, he was a wonderful human being and a really decent scientist and a great respectful communicator.
Geoff Miellsays
Barry E Finch: – “You made no effort at all to quantify a workable scenario for 4m SLR over 76 years and you obviously never will so I’m done now.”
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761–3812, 2016, James Hansen et al., Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous, included (on page 3766):
A sea level rise of 5m in a century is about the most extreme in the paleo-record (Fairbanks, 1989; Deschamps et al., 2012), but the assumed 21st century climate forcing is also more rapidly growing than any known natural forcing.
cited from his own website dealing with oceanography. To my understanding, he objects among others that ascribing sea level rise (partially) to ocean volume expansion due to absorbed heat may be complicated, because although heating warmer upper layers must indeed cause a volume expansion, heating deep cold water may, oppositely, result in a volume contraction.
The function of the sea level as a global thermometer (mentioned by Dr. Benestad in the discussion to one of his articles) may thus be complicated and may depend on the fraction of the heat absorbed by the ocean that is transported to deep cold water.
As recently nicely summarized by Piotr, 25 Mar 2024 at 10:39 AM
this transport proceeds mainly in North Atlantic, and it is supposed that it drives the global “conveyor belt” current slowly mixing the entire ocean.
In this respect, I would like to ask three questions.
1) Is the ratio of deep and surface water heating known?
2) It appears that if the extent of heat transport into deep waters is high, climate sensitivity to external “forcings” may be low, whereas if the extent of this transport (in comparison with overall heat absorbed by the ocean) is small, sea surface temperature, sea level etc. can react with a significantly higher sensitivity, am I right?
3) If so, is it possible that the AMOC indeed slightly slowed down in the last year and that the observed “bananas” temperatures of the last ca 12 months might be partly caused by slower heat transport to the deep ocean and through a commensurately increased climate sensitivity?
Thank you in advance for your comments and best regards
Tomáš
Ned Kellysays
Tomas @3
Yes. And yes to many other possibilities too not captured in climate models, or mainstream thinking or discussions.
Everything is connected and everything adds up …. whether it’s counted (by the so-called experts) or not. :-)
First of all, a correction. As regards Dredd, I knew that water is not transparent for infrared radiation but I supposed that he at least knows what he writes about sea water density. Nevertheless, Piotr (29 Mar 2024 at 10:58 AM)
seems to be right that in ocean, absorbed heat can in fact cause volume expansion only. I do not posess a textbook of oceanography, however, I hopefully found the right reference
wherein in second paragraph under Figure 2, I found the sentence that Dredd has likely missed:
“Although maximum densities occur at temperatures of around 4°C for fresh waters, for Absolute Salinities greater than 23.8 g/kg, seawaters at the freezing point are most dense.”
In this respect, the idea expressed by Dr. Benestad (that the global sea level is a good thermometer (or, more precisely, calorimeter) showing a change in accumulated heat) seems to be still correct.
As regards my questions 1)-3), I am sorry that so far, only you commented thereon. Whereas 3) is a quite wild speculation (from the previous discussions in the “AMOC” thread, I have not noted any hint that the heat transport into deeper ocean layers indeed already slowed down), I still think that questions 1) and 2) can be rather relevant.
If climate sensitivity can change (and it does look like it really can change if ocean may react to its surface warming by changing its mixing regime), I would take any projections of the future climate very cautiously.
Greetings
Tom
John Pollacksays
Tomas, your final paragraph caught my attention:
“If climate sensitivity can change (and it does look like it really can change if ocean may react to its surface warming by changing its mixing regime), I would take any projections of the future climate very cautiously.”
My background is that of a forecast meteorologist. I am not a climate expert, although I always have had a strong interest in a subject closely related to my specialty.
As a weather forecaster, I have to be quite concerned about the quality of my predictions, and their utility for others. A weather forecaster has an advantage over a climate scientist in that we get to make lots of predictions, and see quite soon how they turn out. However, the principles are very similar. We rely on fundamental science, especially physics, plus observations and measurements that are also input for computer models. The models generate projections for the future that are always somewhat uncertain, and require interpretation to be most useful. Finally, we have a history of actual events that show what “normally” happens, and what can happen when things aren’t “normal.” As a small example, nobody would bother to discover what conditions might precede tornado development if tornadoes weren’t observed. They are rare events, but they do happen, and can bring sudden danger.
Projections of future weather and climate need to be taken cautiously, but perhaps not in the way you imagine. I could go to work every day knowing that my forecast would not be perfect. I would learn something from my mistakes, and hope not to repeat them, but there are very many ways to make mistaken forecasts. In some ways caution is always appropriate.
However, in my career, I have seen more grief from errors of omission than commission. It often occurs that for large weather disasters, the full gravity of the situation is not recognized in time – by the public if not by the forecaster. There is a constant pressure not to “cry wolf” over a potentially large event, because these are seldom realized to their full extent. But it is also true that the relatively rare situations that require dire warnings are the ones with the heaviest consequences. The forecasters themselves may not believe that things could get that bad, unless they know some history of similar past events. Even if they do issue a dire warning, these are often downplayed by a public who may not have experienced such a disaster. It is simply easier to disbelieve an ominous forecast and avoid having ones life disrupted. Of course, this doesn’t mean that dire warnings are always correct, but it is important to recognize that the forecasters who issue them have a serious reason to think that there is a potential disaster ahead.
The same applies to warnings about climate change. Those caught up in disputes about uncertainties in the correctness of the climate models will always be able to find something to pick at. Similarly, observations are never perfect, and can often be interpreted various ways. However, climate history is telling us that something very big is in the process of happening, well outside of human experience. We don’t know exactly how fast it will occur, since it will involve multiple tipping points. (Those include abrupt changes in important ocean currents.) However, it is clear that current greenhouse gas levels will bring us to a climate range that the Earth has not experienced for millions of years – and we are steadily making an already dire outcome much worse. What’s more, our present climate is now far out of equilibrium with current GHG levels, and will be so for thousands of years. The relatively steady climate we have been used to for most of human history will be a thing of the past.
Uncertainty about near-term sensitivity is not your friend in this situation. It is possible that there will be some escape from the worst consequences of fossil fuel burning before it is too late for most of the inhabitants of this planet. But the odds are looking worse all the time. Caution lies on the side of taking whatever actions we can before it is indeed too late.
Many thanks for your detailed comment. I perfectly agree that warnings before undesired consequences of human interferences with Earth climate mechanisms are desirable and necessary, and that the same applies for actions that should improve our preparedness to undesired and unexpected developpments.
My problem with media reporting about climate science and with the mood of discussions about climate change and climate policies is that they often provide a picture of knowledge and certainty, which is in my opinion heavily distorted and confusing. I am afraid that the real danger consists in our insufficient knowledge of the mechanisms driving Earth climate and its responses to human activities.
I am afraid that in fact, present climate science does not allow predicting / projecting future climate developments with any reasonable reliability. In this respect, I am afraid that the necessary risk management and relevant public policies may be also heavily distorted and very easily become counter-productive, if they are based on an assumed knowledge which may actually be a mere illusion.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz
“,i> Dear Sirs and Madam, in a parallel thread, participant Dredd, 18 Mar 2024 …
cited from his own website dealing with oceanography
Your “participant Dredd” is just another ignoramus, who thinks he that with his high-school level knowledge of physics, he just discovered things all the top scientists in oceanography have never thought of.
See BPL and John Pollack in the original thread patiently explaining to Participant Dredd that he knows nothing what he talks about: our boy-genius compared the speed of photons in vacuum with …the speed of ocean currents. ;-)
Consequently – Participant Dredd’s claims have no ability to make “ the function of the sea level as a global thermometer (mentioned by Dr. Benestad) [more] complicated“. Garbage in, garbage out.
Tomas: “heating deep cold water may, oppositely, result in a volume contraction”
Only if oceans were made of fresh water (and therefore 4C were the temperature of maximum density).
Get yourself an oceanographic textbook or take a course – don’t rely on Internet cooks. And please refrain from complimenting me in the same post in which you promote the ignorant idiocies of Participant Dredd as deserving our attention.
“Dredd” appears to me to be a crank of the highest order.
So, the fact that infrared photons in seawater, by way of radiation, carry OHC from one place to another, means that we need to know how many infrared photons there are in a particular kilogram (kg) of seawater in order to know the heat content value.
That seems to be wrong in multiple ways.
Apparently I stopped reading before I got to the claim that warming abyssal water could cause contraction, but that seems patently ridiculous. Contrast this statement:
The density dependence of seawater on salinity, temperature and pressure has been determined and formulated, and equations describing this relation can be used. The density of seawater is a function of temperature, pressure and salinity and is a fundamental oceanographic property.
I thought Leon was rather a “climate researcher,” Mike, erm, I mean Ned.
Susan Andersonsays
NK: You are not ‘educating’, you are alienating. I comprehend and share your fears, as do all but the few deluded deniers and/or fake skeptics who take advantage of this platform’s tolerance to promote their lies. Your activity here qualifies as ragebait and is not helping to solve anything.
RealClimate exists for a specific purpose, to provide good quality climate science information for those who seek it. Its mission predates your insults, which are a form of toxicity that is unhelpful at best.
Oh, well, if a Canadian prepper on X made a video about it, that must be right, then!
James Charlessays
Does the data ‘lie’?
“22:31 in the reality there’s the there’s much more sunlight being absorbed than the models assume which causes much more
22:39 heat accumulating in the system than the models assume but even the lead author hasn’t
22:46 published has hasn’t written about this and and shared this with the media so nobody knows about this right
22:53 so it’s and and people are still ignorant about it “? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
Ned Kellysays
James Charles says
20 Mar 2024 at 6:32 AM
Nice quotes James — fyi using transcript , click the 3 vertical dots you can toggle off the timestamps, and also edit it for clarity… . eg
QUOTE – Leon Simons
“… these are models, climate models from Schmidt et al 2023 (Gavin Schmidt) which show — (mouse pointing) here see, you see the climate models — and how much sunlight is being absorbed in these models — and then you compare it to the satellite observation and in reality there is much more sunlight being absorbed than the models assume — which then causes much more heat accumulating in the system than the models assume.
But even the lead author (ie Gavin Schmidt) has not written about this and has not shared it with the media — so nobody knows about this right — so people are still ignorant about it. ”
[end quote]
and then by clicking on one line before the beginning of a transcript passage like that, go to Share button, check-mark the “Start at” box and you have a direct link to that quoted passage. eg https://youtu.be/Rq34Xn4CZnI?si=XpCWul0UJTZzEGiC&t=1325
NK – Gee if only the lead author had a Twitter Account or his own Blog website. He would be able to communicate this knowledge to the world of how much these Climate Models models seriously underestimate global warming today. Damn. What a shame.
Ray Ladburysays
Canadian Prepper. Yep, now there’s a name I’ll trust for reliable, calm scientific info! Yessireebob!
Barry E Finchsays
At 19 MAR 2024 AT 8:09 PM my “This reduces ocean albedo” S.B. “This increases ocean albedo” but really correction is an excuse to obviate the Regulations here. Suppose surface wind speed reduced over sizeable ocean other than tropical Pacific (probably hasn’t and I’m certainly not spending time searching for a little thought experiment. Now there’s 2 entirely-different processes warming ocean surface (I mean additional to clean ships & less shiny clouds):
– ENSO El Nino regular effort where heat in the west down to ~400m spreads east & surfaces. This is discharge of a battery that had been getting charged from an internal Forcing cyclic EEI increase during La Nina (maybe neutral, I don’t know) and the deep water is ACTUALLY WARMER than the central & east surface). Heat’s coming out of the ocean. The EEI reduces due to increased Planck feedback. OHC over the region increases at a reduced rate.
– Unrelated (?) Wind slows elsewhere and reduces depth of the well-mixed layer below its typical so the shallower well-mixed layer is heated more by the Sun. So permanent thermocline + well-mixed layer (excluding Pacific) Tropical & Sub- is like 5.0 degrees (bottom) to 29 degrees (top) (or whatever like that, example only, I’m not searching around for the numbers) instead of a 5.0-27 degrees. The EEI reduces due to increased Planck feedback. OHC over the region increases at a reduced rate.
Maybe El Nino slowed some other winds ? I dunno, I’m burbling (but then Gavin Schmidt said they don’t know nothing neither).
This might explain the loss of the missing 13 ZJ (if El Nino isn’t enough) that a “New Yorker” said has gone missing compared to 2022 that I was accusing one of you of thieving and was gonna hold you’all back in the Forum without dinner until one of you steps forward and fesses.
Barry E Finchsays
Me: “increases at a reduced rate” S.B. “decreases or increases at a reduced rate”.
Also, same topic, statements on the amateur “Channels” that “heat is pouring out of the ocean” are junk-science drivel when not applied to ENSO because (apart from minuscule bits at -1.8 to 0.0 degrees). Ocean is 0.0 degrees at the bed warming to 5.0 degrees at 89% of the way up to surface, then warming to surface temperature and colder thing can’t warm warmer thing per 2nd Law of Whatsit (I finally got to be a Denier and say colder can’t warm warmer so it’s hoaxers) but rather my example (hypothetical, not necessarily happening) is one of the 2 ways (1) Solar heats shallower like I hypothesized) (2) Ocean reduces rate of bringing up its cold store (20 Sv AABW + portion of 17 Sv NADW) that took 2,200 or 3,300 years to store full cycle.
23:17 Leon Simons … actually they’re saying it themselves their research shows it right the
research shows it’s not it’s not me, like it’s me I’m saying it, but I’m just showing what
their Data says, what their paper shows right I’m showing you what the data shows which
they are presenting but not communicating of course they’re not apologizing but
with the data they show that they have been wrong and yeah that unfortunately we
and the data we present are correct …
The next section Leon then addresses the many negative issues surrounding the IPCC system and their failures to communicate.
Gee this Climate Science Communication issue thing really seems like a bit of a problem don’t ya think?
And these Models, so what’s with that? There are no climate science deniers required for these problems and errors or false reporting or cover ups! It is in fact, an own goal.
But you just watch the “denierosphere” grab a hold of these issues and run hard with it ….. LOL it’s like Tweedledee and Tweedledum go camping with the Three Stooges.
Did you get a good mental picture of that happening? I do hope so, because that is exactly what this is.
The Keystone Cops on Steroids.
Barry E Finchsays
2024-03-20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
2:25 Usual junk-science, entirely incorrect pseudo-description of the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere. I’ll not waste time describing it properly yet again here because no audience and nobody cares about facts on that simple physics, even important ones.
8:50 Good SWR LWR EEI pictorial
9:48 Worthless plot with no scales on it (trying out the never-fails, scale-free methods of Heartland Institute the last 20 years ? Hey, what’s sauce for the goose).
10:14 No date on the Forcings pictorial.
10:14 Aerosols Forcings pictorial. Direct=0.51 w/m**2 Cloud=0.69 w/m**2 Total=1.20 w/m**2 Jim Hansen asserts 1.5 to 2.0 w/m**2
(Incidental: There’s some babbling, lazy, faker comments on RealClimate from a bloke who heartily approves of this video & Jim Hansen video too even though they violently disagree on Aerosols Forcings. Lazy, unstudied babbler will babble absolutely any old rubbish, a Parrot basically).
12:21 I was SERIOUSLY misinformed by climate scientist talks (more like internal discussions than this low-level Public Social thing Leon does here) as recently as a couple years back by them saying that “Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI)” plot 2004-2023 at bottom RHS
17:28 Meaningless because Leon doesn’t bother to say compared to what.
19:30 Leon correctly points out that the increase in global heater from reducing Earth’s albedo is within weeks. That’s the simple theory. Yet the shipping SO2 emissions are clearly plotted, and at 10:29 Absorbed Solar Radiation is clearly plotted, and all that happens in 2020 when the SO2 goes sharply, hugely down is that Absorbed Solar Radiation goes DOWN, decreases instead of increasing. I’m a tad surprised that neither Leon nor the host noticed that since it’s specifically their jobs and what this video is all about. Aren’t you a tad surprised too you brain-dead sleep walkers supposedly watching this and supposedly listening to it ?
19:20 It’s true what Leon says about the ocean delaying warming for 400 years but be aware that Leon is challenged by top Climate Expert Doctor Guy McPherson who says Earth will warm 5 degrees “I’m talking in days or weeks” owing to Earth not affording an ocean like some of the planets in the more-fashionable wealthy arm of the Milky Way have got. Many people find McPherson’s science compelling and have bought his text book for British kindergarten children and all North American adults. In fact Doctor McPherson invented aerosols and they’re named after him.
27:40 and 33:44 For several years I’ve been finding it weird that nobody but me has mentioned that CO2 is THE ONLY FUEL FOR FOREST FIRES. It didn’t get burned 300 million years ago, it got buried. Now it’s dug up or pumped up and the bit that ain’t in the ocean is available for burning. The same CO2 molecule can burn endless times because Mister Sun sits there ready to unburn it for you as soon as it burns. The coal-oil-gas bunch keep calling it “Lovely greening up” and none of you half wits have ever noticed or realized that it’s THE ONLY FUEL FOR FOREST FIRES. I did though. I commented many times but of course nobody’s interested. I even heard Forest Fire Chiefs on CBC saying “fires seem to burn hotter we don’t know why”. Humans increased the fire fuel (CO2)by 50% and he “don’t know why”. Really ? Yes really.
——–
The entire video is absent a potentially very large thing and the video hoist failed to question it because he’s clueless about the science and Leon made no mention of it because he’s the aerosol bloke, has the air pollution Business, and doesn’t want to discuss big stuff that’s not what he’s all about, what’s best for him. So at 55:40 Leon misleads by implying that clouds are only uncertain due to aerosols. THEY SURE AREN’T. No mention of whether clouds increase or decrease WITH WARMING of the troposphere. It’s an argument goes back decades to Richard Lindzen’s “Iris cloud hypothesis” where he claims clouds will increase as it warms and limit warming to 1.6 degrees for doubled CO2 (or equivalent, which is 3.7 w/m**2). I think pretty much all other scientists disagree and think clouds will become less reflective as it warms (like has happened in the plot here at 11:53 since 2014) but the fact is that high cloud is understood with high certainty and low cloud is understood with low certainty and that’s a big problem and has nothing to do with human air pollution, it’s to do with the cloud changes because the air warms, a completely different thing and deliberately omitted here (Leon the pot calling scientists the kettle black). So how does Leon know that the push of increased Absorbed Solar Radiation at 10:29 is due to aerosols reduction, especially since the timings don’t match at all. Of course Leon doesn’t know, the cloud changes might just be a +ve feedback to the warming air. See the highly-varying Model assessments of cloud +ve feedback to the warming air at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc at 10:36, 11:28, 14:07 & 17:27.
Else it’s fine, nice thanks, hope you make good coin from it all.
Barry E Finch,
You say “he cloud changes might just be a +ve feedback to the warming air.” The CERES reflected sunlight (& OLR) data 2002-20 is plotted with ERA5 SAT data in a double-graphic HERE posted 5th Dec 2023. The bottom of thus double-graphic shows a very strong correlation between SAT and the reducing albedo for most of this period. It does go a bit odd 2006-12 when the SAT & albedo turn from a negative correlation to a positive one.
And I would caution all to be aware that Leon Simons spouts a high level of nonsense .
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger: – “And I would caution all to be aware that Leon Simons spouts a high level of nonsense .”
In the Foreword to Breakthrough’s Aug 2018 report titled What Lies Beneath: The Understatement Of Existential Climate Risk, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber concluded with (bold text my emphasis):
In conclusion, one should not be overly critical of the IPCC, since the scientists involved are doing what scientists are expected to do, to the very best of their ability in difficult circumstances.
But climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.
Therefore, it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf.
Unfortunately for us, the wolf may already be in the house.
Mainstream climate scientists run the risk of becoming the new climate deniers. As in:
1. The speed with which the climate is now changing is faster than (almost) all scientists thought possible.
2. There is now zero prospect of holding the average temperature increase this century to below 1.5°C; even 2°C is beginning to slip out of reach. The vast majority of climate scientists know this, but rarely if ever give voice to this critically important reality.
3. At the same time, the vast majority of people still haven’t a clue about what’s going on – and what this means for them and everything they hold dear.
4. The current backlash against existing (already wholly inadequate) climate measures is also accelerating – and will cause considerable political damage in 2024. Those driving this backlash represent the same old climate denial that has been so damaging over so many years.
5. The science-based institutions on which we depend to address this crisis have comprehensively failed us. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is incapable of telling the whole truth about accelerating climate change; the Conference of the Parties (under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been co-opted by the fossil fuel lobby to the point of total corruption.
6. By not calling out these incontrovertible realities, mainstream scientists are at risk of becoming the new climate deniers.
Geoff Miell,
To throw your quoting of Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber back in your face: I would agree with the line “…it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf” but note the words I embolden. The ‘voice’ under discussion is Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not “understand the issues.”
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger: – The ‘voice’ under discussion is Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not “understand the issues.””
Big call! I think this is another example of your judgement being flawed and I think you are at risk of becoming one of the new climate deniers.
In the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23, Professor Jeffrey Sachs moderated a discussion with:
* Dr. James Hansen, Lead Author and Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute;
* Leon Simons, The Club of Rome Netherlands, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands;
* Dr. Norman G. Loeb, CERES Principal Investigator, NASA;
* Dr. George Tselioudis, Author and Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies;
* Dr. Pushker Kharecha, Author and Associate Research Scientist, Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia Climate School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
MA Rodger, by you stating that “Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not ‘understand the issues.'”, it implies to me that you are also suggesting Hansen, Loeb, Tselioudis and Kharecha also don’t “understand the issues”.
I think it is you, MA Rodger, that is one of many that doesn’t apparently understand the issues.
Geoff Miell,
Your fixation with this Leon Simons continues, this despite the numerous times that you blindly present instances of his incompetence in these RC threads.
Quite why he merits third-place in the list of authorship in Hansen et al (2023) ‘Global warming in the pipeline’ I know not. He “provided ship emission information and aided interpretations’ but doesn’t appear in the list of references. (Mind, he is only listed as authoring two previous papers – here – and here and in those both well down a very long list of authors. And strangely, his talk of 2021 has not been followed by a proper write-up, this despite Hansen’s name on the presentation.) I would suggest Simons has not shown himself able to work alone without introducing an overly large level of error and thus he certainly should not be considered a reliable source of analysis.
Russell Seitzsays
For the record, I have for some decades asked if anyone wants to bet on a mean sea level rise in excess of 10 cm/decade in the next decade and , acceleration notwithstanding, have had no takers.
When will the bananas rhetoric turn into bets ?
Geoff Miellsays
Russell Seitz: – “For the record, I have for some decades asked if anyone wants to bet on a mean sea level rise in excess of 10 cm/decade in the next decade…”
Perhaps you’ve previously asked in the wrong decades?
Per AR6 WG1, a sea level rise (SLR) rate of 4.5 mm per year was observed over the period 2013–2021.
For scenarios with a starting point SLR rate of 4.5 mm/year in 2024:
* For a 7-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 11.0 mm/year is reached in 2033;
* For a 10-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 10.3 mm/year is reached in 2036;
* For a 13-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 10.0 mm/year is reached in 2039.
For doubling scenarios with a starting point SLR rate of 4.77 mm/year in 2024, the SLR rate exceeds 10 mm/year a year earlier, compared with a starting point of 4.5 mm/year.
Real-world ice melt will not follow a smooth curve.
I’d suggest it comes down to whether people think the SLR rate is doubling, at about a 13-year or less acceleration rate, or not, to take on your bet now.
Geoff Meill,
I see up-thread you have found another spouter of vacuous climate nonsense, educator Paul Beckwith.
“We have very good data on measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica; [from] the gravity anomaly satellites ah, flying in tandem, and we’ve seen melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years typically, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica.”
It would be better to ignore this fool and examine the GRACE-FO data which did show a worrying acceleration of ice loss from Greenland, but that acceleration stopped in 2012. And the Antarctic ice loss doublings? Were they ever a thing?
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger: – “It would be better to ignore this fool and examine the GRACE-FO data which did show a worrying acceleration of ice loss from Greenland, but that acceleration stopped in 2012.”
Per (former Australian Chief Scientist) Prof Penny Sackett’s Answers to Questions taken on Notice re the NSW Parliament Inquiry into Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023 (bold text my emphasis):
According to AR6 WGI, the average rate of sea level rise was 1.3 mm per year between 1901 and 1971, increasing to 1.9 mm per year between 1971 and 2006, and further increasing to 3.7 mm per year between 2006 and 2018. Global mean sea level continues to rise at an accelerating rate, with an average of 4.5 mm per year observed over the period 2013–2021³.
The SLR rate of 4.5 mm/y (averaged for period 2013–2021) has already increased to 4.77 mm/y (averaged for period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023).
If there is no acceleration of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica, as you assert MA Rodger, then why is the observed rate of SLR continuing to accelerate? Can you please explain that one, MA Rodger?
Geoff Miell,
This educator Paul Beckwith is talking specifically about “measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica” so is referring specifically to GRACE & GRACE-FO data. Is that showing “typically” the “melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years …, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica”?
Polar ice loss is one of the major factors feeding SLR. And SLR is accelerating, averaging 3.7mm/y over a period centred 2012 then 4.5mm/y for a period centred 2017. (If this were ‘typical’ SLR acceleration, it would be showing an 18-year doubling time with a projected 2012-2100 SLR of 3m.) So if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today, the SLR acceleration will be due to one or more of the other major factors feeding SLR.
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger: – “Polar ice loss is one of the major factors feeding SLR.”
So why would Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet loss stop accelerating while SLR continues to accelerate, MA Rodger?
And yet the 2024 Nature paper by Chad A. Greene et al. (I’ve referred to earlier and you appear to continue to ignore) indicates ubiquitous acceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet calving from 1985 to 2022. The authors estimate the Greenland ice sheet loss is now around 30.1 Mt/h.
MA Rodger: – “And SLR is accelerating, averaging 3.7mm/y over a period centred 2012 then 4.5mm/y for a period centred 2017.”
Again, you appear to ignore the latest WMO rate of SLR of 4.77 mm/year averaged over the period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023, and stick with the now apparently dated AR6 WGI figure.
MA Rodger: – “So if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today, the SLR acceleration will be due to one or more of the other major factors feeding SLR.”
The WMO’s report State of the Global Climate 2023, in Fig 6 (on page 6), indicates SLR acceleration is 0.12 ± 0.05 mm/y². It also states:
The rate of global mean sea level rise in the past ten years (2014–2023) is more than twice the rate of sea level rise in the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002).
MA Rodger, I think you are in denial of the accumulating evidence/data, and are attempting to denigrate the non-mainstream voices (that Schellnhuber refers to), or alternately ignore anything inconvenient to your ideological narrative.
Russell Seitzsays
Geoff, I framed my SLR bet question in response to the multimeter rise prediction books that greeted the Millennium.
After one London publisher’s best selling cover featured the inundation of St. Paul’s cathedral, I asked who wanted to bet on which decade would be first to see a 10 cm rise?
The decadal average SLR needed to get to 1 meter by 2001 has since risen past 1.3 cm/decade, so while last year’s exotically high SST’s have obviously altered the odds ,on future decades, any who bet on the first two (and likely the third) have already lost.
Geoff Miellsays
Russell Seitz (at 25 MAR 2024 AT 5:17 PM): – “The decadal average SLR needed to get to 1 meter by 2001 has since risen past 1.3 cm/decade, so while last year’s exotically high SST’s have obviously altered the odds ,on future decades, any who bet on the first two (and likely the third) have already lost.”
Per the WMO’s report State of the Global Climate 2023, in Fig 6 (on page 6):
* SLR rate at 2.13 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 1993 through Dec 2002);
* SLR rate at 3.33 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 2003 through Dec 2012);
* SLR rate at 4.77 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 1014 through Dec 2023);
* SLR acceleration at 0.12 ± 0.05 mm/y².
Evidence/data indicates:
* 2001-2010 (first decade of millennium) rate of SLR was well below 10 cm/decade;
* 2011-2020 (second decade of millennium) rate of SLR was well below 10 cm/decade;
* 2021-2030 (third decade of millennium) rate of SLR is, I’d suggest, highly unlikely to exceed 10 cm/decade, but in year-2024 it’s probably already exceeding 5 cm/decade.
But are there any takers for betting that the rate of SLR will exceed an average 10 cm/decade within the fourth decade (2031-2040)?
Geoff Miell,
This is all pretty-much up to your usual standard. (Or should that be “down to”.)
☻ If you are capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly, you will note they are saying the ice loss reported by GRACE-FO cannot detect subsurface ice loss which has been replaced by seawater. So, like the Arctic sea ice, this missing ice melt around Greenland reported by Greene et al does not impact SLR.
☻ If you were able to compare the acceleration implied by the 3.7mm/y, the 4.5mm/y and the 4.77mm/y, you would find the first pair suggest an annual 3.99% increase in SLR while the second pair suggest an annual 3.96% increase.
☻ The WMO ‘State of the Global Climate 2023’ report you quote gives SLR increasing from 2.13mm/y to the 4.77mm/y, this over a 21-year period, so an annual acceleration of 3.91%.
☻ And as I pointed-out up-thread, Schellnhuber wrote “…it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf” [my bold]. Your penchant for bring here cries of “It’s the wolf!! It’s the wolf!!!” have ever failed to achieved Schellnhuber’s listening requirement.
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger (at 27 MAR 2024 AT 9:48 AM): – “☻ If you are capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly, you will note they are saying the ice loss reported by GRACE-FO cannot detect subsurface ice loss which has been replaced by seawater. So, like the Arctic sea ice, this missing ice melt around Greenland reported by Greene et al does not impact SLR.”
The Greene et al. (2024) paper includes (bold text my emphasis):
By our estimates, almost 90% of the ice loss we report occurred below the surface of hydrostatic equilibrium and has since been replaced by seawater and, thus, cannot be detected by satellite gravimetry (and does not directly contribute to sea-level change beyond thermosteric effects). The remaining 120 Gt (about 0.33 mm global sea level equivalent) of ice loss from above the surface of hydrostatic equilibrium is theoretically detectable by gravimetry, but the areas of loss are too small in spatial scale for their locations to be pinpointed by GRACE²⁸.
I interpret that to mean that the GRACE system doesn’t accurately detect ALL ice loss. Some of that ice loss can contribute to SLR by thermosteric effects, which to date is the single biggest contributor. Some other ice loss is too small in spatial scale to be detected. MA Rodger, it seems to me you aren’t capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly.
MA Rodger (at 27 MAR 2024 AT 9:48 AM): – “☻ The WMO ‘State of the Global Climate 2023’ report you quote gives SLR increasing from 2.13mm/y to the 4.77mm/y, this over a 21-year period, so an annual acceleration of 3.91%.”
With the rate of global warming apparently accelerating, from +0.18 °C/decade (1970-2010) to at least +0.27°C per decade post-2010, per Hansen et al. (2023), I’d suggest the rate of SLR is likely to increase (and the doubling time is likely to shorten). https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
MA Rodger, I think you display classic reticence. Science is about explaining the data. I think you fail to do that and instead denigrate the people who do so that don’t fit with your ideological narrative.
nigeljsays
Geoff Miell
“But are there any takers for betting that the rate of SLR will exceed an average 10 cm/decade within the fourth decade (2031-2040)? ”
I’m not a scientist but this is my two cents worth. Extrapolating the existing decadal SLR trend ( a quadratic) gets to very roughly 7.2 cms decade by 2031 – 2041. So to get to 10cms decade by 2031 – 2041 would require a significant acceleration of the acceleration. An acceleration of warming beyond the recent trend would cause a further acceleration of SLR. If you believe Hansen that global warming is now accelerating sharply due to aerosols issue, 10 cms by the fourth decade might be possible.
The exponential trend in Greenland a while back has fizzled out and appears related to local natural variation. But reducing aerosols could possibly trigger something similar in coming decades. But there are uncertainties about future SLR, especially the rate at which ice sheets might destabilise, and the timing of SLR this century,. So while 10 cms by fourth decade looks possible, I wouldn’t be betting serious money.
Evidently you are not capable of reading Greene et al (2024) You actually only need to read the Abstract to find them telling you that the “mass loss we report has had minimal direct impact on global sea level” and if you dig a little deeper you will see this “minimal direct impact” is “minimal” because within the ocean volume, the ice is being replaced by seawater. Thus the only direct impact is due to the relative density of the two and thus this “minimal direct impact” would actually be negative.
Note also that, contrary to your assertions, this “minimal direct impact” would be “detected” by GRACE/GRACE-FO. What would not be possible is its “locations to be pinpointed by GRACE.”
The issue in Greene ey al (2024) which is perhaps controversial is the 20% figure. This is found using the 2020 IMBIE Team report but usual reports for GRACE numbers give a higher level of Greenland ice loss and thus the 20% figure shrivels to perhaps 4%. (See this graphic from US EPA which shows IMBIE numbers as ‘combined’ plus GRACE numbers as ‘NASA JPL’.)
The appearance of acceleration values for global SLR of 3.99%, 3.96% and 3.91% found comparing the SLR rates up-thread was pretty incredibly. The data (eg this) anin’t than smooth!!
I did myself point out up-thread 3.9%/y would suggest an 18-year doubling time, this with potentially four doublings up to 2100 were such an acceleration sustained that long. That would suggest SLR by 2100 would be something like +40mm/y & 340mm SLR appearing the 1990s, the cumulative 2100 total reaching 3m. But this is little more than convecture.
What isn’t conjecture is that we have already stoked up a pile of ‘in the pipeline’ SLR which doesn’t just stop at 2100. The acceleration today would (presumably?) end if AGW stopped but that ‘pipeline’ figure will not so easily disappear. Any rate of SLR reached in 2100 will not decline greatly for a long long time while AGW temperatures remain un-reversed. Perhaps the 2,000yr and 10,000yr commitment set out in IPCC AR6 Table 9.1 should be be more widely known (and to hell with the ‘low confidence’ caution). The pipeline (2,000yr) SLR for 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C are given as 2m-to-3m, 2m-to-6m respectively and pipeline (10,000yr) 6m-to-7m, 8m-to-13m and 10m-to-24m respectively. How much and when do these 2ky/10ky ‘pipeline’ values becomes unstoppable? In my opinion, these are the important SLR considerations and should not be drowned-out of discussion by silly projections to 2100.
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “You actually only need to read the Abstract to find them telling you that the “mass loss we report has had minimal direct impact on global sea level” and if you dig a little deeper you will see this “minimal direct impact” is “minimal” because within the ocean volume, the ice is being replaced by seawater. Thus the only direct impact is due to the relative density of the two and thus this “minimal direct impact” would actually be negative.”
So, where is the volume of water coming from to account for the observed acceleration of SLR, MA Rodger? As you stated earlier: “if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today“, then I ask again where’s it coming from? Can you please explain that one? It seems to me you would much rather denigrate people like Paul Beckwith, Leon Simons and Professor Eliot Jacobson, than offer an explanation of observed data.
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “I did myself point out up-thread 3.9%/y would suggest an 18-year doubling time, this with potentially four doublings up to 2100 were such an acceleration sustained that long. That would suggest SLR by 2100 would be something like +40mm/y & 340mm SLR appearing the 1990s, the cumulative 2100 total reaching 3m. But this is little more than convecture.”
I think you’re assuming the doubling rate of circa 18-years will continue much the same over the remainder of this century. The Earth System warming rate is already being observed to be accelerating. Why wouldn’t the rate of SLR accelerate (and thus the doubling time shorten) further? MA Rodger, I think you are displaying continued reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data.
The latest communication (dated 29 Mar 2024) by James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Pushker Kharecha titled Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium, includes:
Global warming in 2010-2023 is 0.30°C/decade, 67% faster than 0.18°C/decade in 1970-2010 (Fig. 1). The recent warming is different, peaking at 30-60°N (Fig. 2); for clarity we show the zonal-mean temperature trend both linear in latitude and area-weighted. Such an acceleration of warming does not simply “happen” – it implies an increased climate forcing (imposed change of Earth’s energy balance). Greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing growth has been steady. Solar irradiance has zero trend on decadal time scales. Forcing by volcanic eruptions has been negligible for 30 years, including water vapor from the Honga Tunga eruption.⁴ The one potentially significant change of climate forcing is change of human-made aerosols. The large warming over the North Pacific and North Atlantic (Fig. 1) coincides with regions where ship emissions dominate sulfate aerosol production (Fig. 3, from Jin et al.³).
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “The acceleration today would (presumably?) end if AGW stopped but that ‘pipeline’ figure will not so easily disappear. Any rate of SLR reached in 2100 will not decline greatly for a long long time while AGW temperatures remain un-reversed.”
I’ve highlighted this multiple times here at this blog before in earlier comment threads;
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box said (bold text my emphasis) from time interval 0:15:27:
“And at this level of CO₂, this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise. So, obviously it would help to remove a hell-of-a-lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and I don’t hear that conversation very much, because we’re still adding 35 gigatonnes per year.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “The pipeline (2,000yr) SLR for 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C are given as 2m-to-3m, 2m-to-6m respectively and pipeline (10,000yr) 6m-to-7m, 8m-to-13m and 10m-to-24m respectively. How much and when do these 2ky/10ky ‘pipeline’ values becomes unstoppable? In my opinion, these are the important SLR considerations and should not be drowned-out of discussion by silly projections to 2100.”
I’d suggest a global mean of only 1 m of SLR would be catastrophic for many coastal infrastructures and low-lying agricultural lands (e.g. Bangladesh & Mekong River delta) around the world, and I’d suggest that magnitude of SLR is guaranteed to arrive well within this century while we/humanity continue to pump more GHGs into the atmosphere, and not even begin to Reduce, Remove, Repair.
That raises critical questions about whether it would be worthwhile to continue defending coastal infrastructure/property or abandoning and retreating.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber believes if the Earth System goes much above +2.0 °C warming we will get to +4.0 °C warming because of tipping points and feedbacks, which would spell the end of human civilisation. https://twitter.com/CodeRedEarth/status/1751563836685942870
If we/humanity continue with BAU, then what happens beyond the next few decades may become moot for most of us/humanity.
Perhaps you need to check out the “observed acceleration of SLR” before you pose questions that rely on it existing at the rate your questioning implies.
SL data is lumpy, even at a decadal level. So the tidy assertions in the WMO 2023 report showing a +0.12 (+/-0.05) mm/y/y SLR acceleration has to cover over a lot of potholes and bumps in the data series. Using the same data WMO say they use, (reproducing their actual results would require knowing the method used) an OLR thro’ the monthly averages gives an acceleration 1993-2023 of +0.085mm/y/y (+/-0.04 2sd).
The decadal SLR averages found for the periods used by WMO yield +3.07mm/y, +3.25mm/y, +4.59mm/y. The WMO gave +2.13mm/y, +3.33mm/y, +4.77mm/y.
And attempting to calculate the acceleration…
5yr ave SLR increases &
their annual accelerations.
(Period centered on year)
1996 … + 2.91mm/y
2001 … + 3.24mm/y … +1.6% or +0.07mm/y
2006 … + 2.76mm/y … -3.2% or -0.10mm/y
2011 … + 3.75mm/y … +6.5% or +0.20mm/y
2016 … + 4.28mm/y … +2.7% or +0.11mm/y
2021 … + 4.90mm/y … +2.6% or +0.12mm/y
To give you a better take on what the data looks like, I post a graphic showing the rolling 12-month & 60-month annual SLR increase HERE (posted 31/3/24)
And given all this, and the literature such as it is of late, I’d say the data shows a lot of wobbles making its acceleration difficult to measure. But I do not signs of an exponential rise within these data. And if there were exponentiality, it would be a big job defending its continuation to 2100. (I don’t think Hansen et al (2016) achieves such a defense, interesting though the hypothesis is.)
So, while we would be idiots to ignore the threat of SLR, I don’t think it would be helpful to revisit your misunderstanding of the comments of Jason Box.
And tipping points? One step at a time, please. It is the “observed acceleration of SLR” that is the subject under discussion.
Geoff Miellsays
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “To give you a better take on what the data looks like, I post a graphic showing the rolling 12-month & 60-month annual SLR increase HERE (posted 31/3/24)
And given all this, and the literature such as it is of late, I’d say the data shows a lot of wobbles making its acceleration difficult to measure.”
Thanks for the graph. I’d suggest the graph clearly shows a general trend of acceleration of the rate of SLR over a period of roughly 2½ decades of satellite altimetry data, despite the “wobbles”. I note that there also appears to be a significant change in the rate of SLR from around 2010, with a general increase mainly above the 4 mm/y threshold in the 60-month average curve, and an apparent much higher volatility during the early- to mid-2010s in the 12-month average curve. That seems to coincide with the regulation by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for reductions of sulphur emissions over seas and oceans.
See the graph presented by Leon Simons in the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming from time interval 0:37:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “But I do not signs of an exponential rise within these data. And if there were exponentiality, it would be a big job defending its continuation to 2100.”
It seems to me you are obfuscating – classic reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data:
* The EEI has been increasing – that means more energy is being accumulated in the Earth System;
* The rate of global mean SAT is increasing, from +0.18 °C/decade in 1970-2010 to +0.30 °C/decade in 2010-2023, 67% faster;
* SSTs at record highs.
The acceleration of the rate of SLR will continue while ever the energy inputs into the Earth System, and more particularly into the cryosphere, increase.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “(I don’t think Hansen et al (2016) achieves such a defense, interesting though the hypothesis is.)”
There’s peer-reviewed evidence/data (Fairbanks, 1989; Deschamps et al., 2012) that suggests “5m in a century” SLR has happened before. MA Rodger, are you disputing this evidence/data? It looks like it to me.
I think it would be foolish to bet against Hansen on this issue.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “So, while we would be idiots to ignore the threat of SLR, I don’t think it would be helpful to revisit your misunderstanding of the comments of Jason Box.”
I’d suggest if there is any misunderstanding of Jason Box’s words, it would be yours, not mine.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “And tipping points? One step at a time, please. It is the “observed acceleration of SLR” that is the subject under discussion.”
An irreversible ice mass loss of the Greenland & WAIS directly affects SLR. Scientific consensus suggests that an irreversible tipping threshold is fast approaching (sustained at +1.6 °C warming level or higher for a long-term). I’d suggest that will accelerate observed SLR further.
MA Rodger, I think you are displaying continued reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data.
FWIW, U Colorado gives an acceleration rate since 1995 of 0.083 mm/y2, which would be a doubling rate of ~8.3 years, if I’ve done the conversion correctly. UCol’s margin of error on the acceleration is a pretty hefty 0.025 mm/y2, which at the slow end would yield a doubling time of just under 12 years.
The SLR curve is pretty noisy, though, and I’ve elsewhere questioned the applicability over time of an exponential model–though intuitively it would seem that it’s more likely to ‘go logistic’ relatively later than earlier. But based on those numbers, 10 mm/yr by 2040 would seem like a pretty fair bet. And the fast end of the margin of error would give a doubling time of ~6.4 years, which should easily get us to 10 mm by 2035, barring a big random drop such as we saw in 2011-12 or so.
Barry E Finchsays
Ray Ladbury “Canadian Prepper. Yep, “. Best watch it. I sit here typing at North Lake Huron retired in the forest wearing my 50% discount Canadian Tire camouflage carpet slippers for the hardy rural type into survival & heavy weaponry, yet liking the comfort of a really nice carpet slipper.
The daily ERA5 re-analysis data at Copernicus Climate Pulse webpage is now showing to 21st March, so easily enough to say with certainty that March 2024 will be the tenth ‘Scorchisymmooo!!!’ month in a row. The last-31-day average is running at +0.73ºC with the March-to-date (1st-21st) averaging +0.78ºC and (depending on whether we see rising or falling anomalies thro’ the rest of March) the full month should end up somewhere in the range +0.73ºC to +0.82ºC. (Jan & Feb 2024 were +0.70ºC & +0.80ºC with the last quarter of 2023 averaging +0.85ºC.)
The previous hottest March on thw ERA5 record was 2016 (+0.63ºC) with the next three hottest Marchs 2023, 2019 & 2017 pretty-much =2nd (+0.50ºC).
With March usually the month giving the top anomaly thro’ an El Niño, the potential of the ‘bananas’ anomalies seen in late 2023 being given an additional El Niño boost in early 2024 appears to have passed unfulfilled. The monthly SAT anomalies do suggest a decline in the 2024 ‘bananas’, this decline quite evident in the wobbly daily data (so not just due to the alignment of the wobbles. The 5-day, monthly & 151-day averages are plotted out in a graphic HERE first published 15/12/23.)
And when the continued AGW is factored in, (perhaps +0.17ºC since 2016), the ‘bananas’ in the SAT may be now withering away.
The slowly declining 2024 surface temperatures are not reflected in the TLT numbers with RSS and UAH recording 2024 monthly anomalies higher than the ‘bananas’ of 2023.
Updating the comment above.
With the merry month of March ending today, the ERA5 re-analysis has now posted to the 29th and the anomaly for the full month looks to be coming in +0.73ºC to +0.74ºC, so a tenth-in-a-row Scorchisymmooo!!!’ month.
The drop in the ERA5 anomalies since the start of 2024 has been down to the northern hemisphere anomalies. The southern hemisphere anomalies have remained wobbling along at the same level since June 2023. Yet the SH was a minor part of the 2023 “bananas” anomalies which roughly were 15% SH, 30% NH Ocean, 55% NH Land.
Ned Kellysays
Nate Hagens: “Episode 100 – The Great Simplification” (Interviewed by Kate Raworth)
Kate Raworth (00:27:26):
Well, you’re very kind. Actually, a podcast is high in my sights. I really think this
method of exploration, of ideas, of conversation is where so many people learn and
have time, whether you’re doing the washing up or the ironing or taking kids to school
or… Right? Certainly, for many adults, I know this is the only place I get to listen and
get ideas rather than reading. But I think conversation between people is a fantastic
way of all of us opening our minds, which is I think why this podcast has become so
popular in the way you host it.
So you’ve given us the big concept of The Great Simplification.
Now let’s just step back. How did you get into all this then? You didn’t
start out doing this work. Take us back to what you were doing before you were doing
this. I want to hear the start of that journey and what triggering events have led you
to be sitting here.
Nate Hagens (00:28:30):
How far back? https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/100-nate-hagens
Ned Kellysays
Ideas of Nate Hagens & Kate Raworth need to be Coupled with this SCIENTIFIC FACT: All Reason is indirect.
“If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you may not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You may not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!”
Paul Pukite: “ NY Times headline screams out: “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures”
Are you seriously using a … newspaper’s click-bait headline as …if it were a scientific argument ? ;-)
Second, even if “freaking out” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out: “ Good God! Paul Pukite was right – we do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so lets divert the scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “,
but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of that year’s of ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions. _This_ would be the grounds for freaking out, and have made climatologists study, NOT ENSO, but AGW even more intensely.
This is a direct quote from the article:
The climatologist Brian McNoldy seems to be adding to the hyperbole. Why is he having a hard time separating reality from some fantasy in his mind? That is a definition of the slang freaking-out — to enter a reality-altering state of mind.
If we don’t want journalists to hyperbolize, scientists shouldn’t egg them on with their own scare quotes. After all, the headline writer at the NY Times could have titled the piece “Scientist says Ocean Temperatures Don’t Seem Real, and It’s Quite Scary”.
Paul Pukite: “ This is a direct quote from the article:
“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real. …. It’s quite scary, …. ”
Here is my post to which you “reply”:
===== Piotr Mar 2:
“even if “freaking out” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out: “ Good God! Paul Pukite was right – we do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so lets divert the scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “, but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of that year’s of ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions. _This_ would be the grounds for freaking out, and have made climatologists study, NOT ENSO, but AGW even more intensely.
=============
Would you be so kind to indicate which part of the above your “direct quote” does falsify?
Get a journalist to quote me. I’d tell them that science is close to being able to model and cross-validate all these seemingly erratic natural cycles.
Paul Pukite Mar 7: “ science is close to being able to model and cross-validate all these seemingly erratic natural cycles”
So what? Who cares about your natural oscillations around the mean – unless you can demonstrate that they significantly affect what we care about: the climate CHANGE, i.e. the slope of the climatological TREND (conditions for which I listed in my other post you didn’t address), and which humanity can do something about (which we can’t).
I can’t believe that Piotr Trela marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to a blog subtitled Climate science from climate scientists by stating this:
I am absolutely certain that a significant fraction of climate science researchers actually care about natural oscillations around the mean. This field isn’t like pre-school soccer where all the kids run toward where the ball is.
Paul Pukite Mar 8: “ I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to a blog subtitled Climate science from climate scientists”
Wrong, I marginalize the value of the contribution by you, Paul, and your short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO) to the understanding/predicting/ mitigating the slope of the global warming climatological TREND.
And to make it easy for you, I have provided you with the blueprint how to prove me wrong:
Piotr Mar 7: “you can demonstrate that {ENSO oscillations around the mean] significantly affect what we care about: the climate CHANGE, i.e. they
1. change the slope of the climatological TREND (for which [the CHANGES in the ENSO would have to be systematic, asymmetric (the “up” increasing more than the “down” part) and the asymmetry to be large enough to significantly affect the slope of the AGW trend]) and
2. that humanity can do something about ENSO (which we can’t) ”
You, unable to demonstrate either somehow managed to combine in one sentence two different fallacies: “the argument from incredulity” fallacy with “the appeal to authority” one: “I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to [some] blog ;-)
Not knowing your “many climate scientists”, I see two possibilities:
– either you misconstrued? misrepresented? their opinions as supporting yours
– or if indeed they claim that ENSO does have a significant influence on the slope of the AGW trend, and that the humans can modify ENSO for their benefit – then … I would love to see their reasoning.
After all, if they did so – how hard would it be for you to summarize it here?
And yet … not a trace of that in your writings so far, Paul, other than … hiding behind semantics and appeal to relativism (PP: “there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“). Why is it so, Paul?
The fact is that RealClimate.org has always paid attention to climate indices such as ENSO, AMO, and PDO (among others). Go back in the archives and in the first month of blog posts, November 2004, there were dedicated posts to each of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (“ENSO”), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (“AMO”), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (“PDO”).
So this is nearing the 20th anniversary of off-and-on discussion of these climate indices, and no one can say any of these are fully understood and nailed down. But I try to keep the faith & hope alive that further progress can be made. Of course I know I won’t make much progress by commenting here, as this isn’t a great forum for writing math equations or posting charts or highlighting software snippets. but perhaps new stragglers will realize that it is challenging science to consider taking up, or at least follow. Most of the work I do is on my own blog, in which my latest post on modeling ENSO, PDO, and AMO is here: https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/08/dynamic-time-warping
I know this doesn’t answer Piotr’s questions, which I consider rhetorical.
Paul Pukite: The fact is that RealClimate.org has always paid attention to climate indices such as ENSO, AMO, and PDO
paid attention as the short-term oscillations around the mean, i.e.
– a statistical noise we may need to correct for in discussing how a one-year temp. fits the long-term AGW TREND (see Gavin using a correction for the the stage of ENSO in evaluating the _individual year_ temp.),
– oscillations around the mean that …. cancel each other over long-enough time-average (that’s the reason why for climate we use 30-year moving average: this averages out your short-term oscillations)
So it is still up to you to defend your
a) claims that a better prediction to the ENSO timing could … “save countless lives”
b) implying that we should shift our attention and research resources away from AGW, which you claimed is already known well enough and thus research resources should be redirected to your interests (ENSO)
c) implying that knowledge of ENSO is NECESSARY to predict the AGW trend, and that not accounting for ENSO effect on the AGW trend made the AGW climatologists to “freak out”. – see the footnote ^*
I have challenged repeatedly your claims a), b) and c) – so far your response was to hide behind:
– semantics (that by “ saving countless lives” you have meant …unknowable number (maybe many, maybe none) of lives; or refused to justify your claims by “There is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
– fallacies: e.g. “the argument from incredulity” combined with “the appeal to authority” in: PP “I can’t believe that [Piotr] marginalizes the contributions of the many climate scientists who contribute to [some] blog ;-)”
If you grow some, and are ready to stand behind your claim, by demonstrating that ENSO oscillations:
=== “1. can change significantly the slope of the climatological TREND – for which the CHANGES in the ENSO would have to be systematic, asymmetric (the “up” increasing more than the “down” part) and the asymmetry to be large enough to significantly affect the slope of the AGW trend], and
2. that humanity can do something about ENSO the way can do about GHG concentrations ” ====
… then let me know.
==== Footnote to point c) ==================
– Paul Pukite Feb 29: “ NY Times headline screams out: “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures”
– Piotr Mar 2: “Even if “freaking out ” were a fair description – those scientists wouldn’t freak out:
“ Good God! Paul Pukite was right! We do know ENOUGH about AGW climatological TREND, so let’s divert our scientific resources to Paul’s favourite oscillation around the mean! ) “,
but rather:
“ Hmm. the 2023 was warmer than we expected after accounting for the effect of 2023 ElNino. Therefore, if the pattern continues in future years, we may have underestimated, no, not the short-term oscillations around the mean (ENSO), but the sensitivity of the climate to our GHG emissions, i.e. the climate change may move faster than we thought, thus the humanity has even less time for the massive GHG reductions..
======================
I’ve decided not to try to answer to rhetorical questions any longer. I stand by the math and physics applied to the models of natural climate variability that I published over 5 years ago. Consider writing a critical review in PubPeer.com if you are seeking to force a retraction.
Paul,
“…as this isn’t a great forum for writing math equations or posting charts or highlighting software snippets…”
fwiw, at one point there was talk of setting up a space for that at overleaf.com — perhaps that’s not out of the question now
Radge saiid:
“fwiw, at one point there was talk of setting up a space for that at overleaf.com — perhaps that’s not out of the question now”
I got involved in natural climate variability research around the same time that John Carlos Baez started up the Azimuth Project over 10 years ago. He had a lofty goal => “The Azimuth Project is designed to create a focal point for scientists and engineers interested in saving the planet“. Saving the planet is perhaps over the top. But he did start with trying to solve the El Nino puzzle, which is also challenging. That eventually wound down to just a few of us participating as most of the project members lost interest, and then Baez deleted the entire project — fortunately, the remnants are archived on the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190130165945/http://azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Azimuth+Project
The forum had equation markup and one could easily post graphs, but that’s all gone. The vestige that’s left is a GitHub repository, which I got control of before he could delete it. The Azimuth Project discussion for that is below, which also allows equations and charts
https://github.com/orgs/azimuth-project/discussions
If you have a GitHub account, anyone is free to comment or discuss.
patrick o 27 Feb.29: “A change in climate generally could result in a change in modes of internal variability”
The discussion is not whether “could”, but whether the change would be systematic, asymmetrical AND large enough to matter.
– Systematic, because if the change a random – then it is just a noise most? all? of it removed by the 30-year averaging.
– Asymmetrical: affecting the “up” part more than the “down” part – if not: both parts are amplified comparably, or if the change is just in frequency – then the changes cancel each other.
– Large enough – that it significantly changes the slope of the climate trend (timescale of 30 years or more).
The onus of the proof of an unlikely thesis is on the proponent. So far Paul offer nothing. Instead he assured us the better predictions of the timing of the next Le Nino could “save countless lives“. When asked how – he tried to get out on a technicality – that by “saving countless lives” he meant … unknowable number – maybe many, maybe not.
Piotr claims:
First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical sciences (certainly, proofs exist in mathematics). Secondly, I enjoy working on models of climate variability, even though no proof is available.
So the way it should work (in lieu of a proof) is that all candidate models should be tallied and cross-validation results compared for these models, based on plausibility, precision, and parsimony. Plausibility is a subjective measure as many valid models may not make intuitive sense on first glance (see quantum mechanics, relativity, etc) but is not an immediate disqualifier (see neural networks). Precision/accuracy is quantifiable as a minimum error of model compared to results. Parsimony is quantifiable as the number of degrees of freedom in the model, and a guard against over-fitting.
I have plenty to offer but there is no process in place to allow comparisons. I have a feeling there is nothing because the field is far from getting model results that are even half-way decent. The recent NOAA post 50 Years of Getting ENSO Predictions *Mostly* Correct is highly misleading, Those results are all based on predictions for the current calendar year — current models are useless for really anything beyond that.
MathWorks (developer of Matlab) used to regularly hold online scientific programming contests with winners determined by metrics based on precision and parsimony of the results. Fascinating how the rules required submitted solutions being immediately made public, so competitors could “steal:” other solutions and make decisions on when to submit subtle improvements — with the possibility of last minute E-bay-like bidding. At some point these kinds of competitions will be updated, and competitors will apply machine-learning aids to gain an advantage.
Kaggle has provided such a platform for competitions — e.g. https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/widsdatathon2022 — this is a competition for energy efficiency to mitigate climate change.
Piotr: “The onus of the proof of an unlikely thesis is on the proponent. So far Paul offered nothing.”
Paul Pukite: “First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics – after claiming that better predicting of timing of the next El Nino could “save countless lives” – failed to show how – he argued that by “countless” he didn’t mean “very many”, but .. .unknowable number (i.e. maybe a lot, maybe none at all, who knows). Now:
there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
How about: “demonstrate”, “justify”, “show the likelihood of being significant”?
Paul Pukite: “all candidate models should be tallied and cross-validation results compared for these models, based on plausibility, precision, and parsimony”
… and this banal is supposed to falsify my point – how? You implied that it was the increase in El Nino that was responsible for warmer than anticipated 2023. To which I asked you to demonstrate that it is plausible that an OSCILLATION around the mean (ENSO) can significantly increase the slope of global warming climatological (30-yrs running average) TREND. To this end, I have identified the necessary conditions for such a plausibility: the ENSO has to change in way that is:
1. systematic (i.e. not a random noise),
2. asymmetric (the “El Nino” part increases more than the normal/LaNina part of the cycle) and
3. this asymmetry has to be LARGE ENOUGH to significantly change the slope of the global warming trend.
How is your answer answering THAT? Or “systematic”, “asymmetric”, “significantly change” and “slope” do not exist in physical sciences either?
An oscillation with a wavelength around a century could produce the effect for many decades on the rising side of the oscillation. That’s simple stats.
SHOWING the existence of any such cycle has been the work of many denial types like Soon and Scafetta and related as they realize the elementary fact that no shorter term factor will produce the observed data. That said, their work has been uniformly weak in showing any such effect.
Lastly ALL error can always be viewed as ‘oscilllations about the mean’. I’ve seen random walks produce perfectly wonderful-looking long term oscillations for example. And random walks are used to model error in many time series.
There is a reason Soon charges for his “deliverables”. And it isn’t better science.
To jgnfld (8 Mar):
Got stuck home by the snow storm so you have the time to join this discussion? ;-) Thanks for the wider context – Soon and Scafetta searching desperately for the perfectly in phase 100-year long natural oscillation to produce long enough “up part” to try explain the AGW trend without invoking humans.
That said, my points are specific to Paul Pukite, the tireless promoter of the importance of researching ENSO – first as a way to save “countless lives”, then as more deserving subject of research (and funding?) than research into AGW.
So I guess he didn’t get the memo that he needs a 100-yr oscillation, not the 3-7 years ENSO …
Yeah…bit of a dump.
A dump describes well the endless back-and-forth result of posing rhetorical questions. Got something related to geophysical fluid dynamics and I will continue to engage.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10341455/manitoba-storm-environment-canada/
patrick o 27: “ agricultural land = 12.6 % of the 127 M km² not covered by non-seasonal ice => “12.6%/3 * 6.82 K = 0.286 K ≈ 0.3 K (**??**)”
JCM: “Cool, you might be right.[…] 0.3K hypothetical globe”
Err, not really: 12.6% is not of “globe”, but of land without ice. So give up all crops in exchange for … 0.07K. Cool! ;-)
JCM: “ A 0.3K hypothetical globe can look like >1K in spot climatologies, with associated temperature and hydrological extremes
But to make it a 0.3K global average, for each spot with >1 K there must be more than 2 with 0K. And the deniers push the water cycle not as a way to obtain localized spot cooling, but as an alternative to reductions of GHG emissions to counter GLOBAL warmin. Hence the only relevant metric here is the GLOBAL avg. And as I’ve shown above – in the best case scenario – it is 0.07K, not 0.3K.
And it is a best case scenario – because patrick got also the other part of his argument wrong:
patrick: “And this is before accounting for irrigation or accounting for corn’s (maize’s) tendency to keep its stomata open”
His earlier claim of “0.3K”, i.e. 0.07K warming by replacing forests with crops – was based on the reduction of evaporation from cropland (like a desert for 1/3 of the year). On the other hand, both “ Irrigation and corn’s tendency to keep its stomata open“, INCREASE evaporation, hence
work against that 0.07K warming. Given that the most of the worlds bread baskets – rice cultivation in Asia, wheat and corn on prairies of North America and steppes of Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia – rely on irrigation so most of that 0.07K would be gone, if not overtaken.
To sum up – the effects of modern agriculture on the global warming via evaporation is tiny – a fraction of 0.07K. and offers no actionable advice to the society – the irrigation is already at its max – so you can’t increase it more.
And converting cropland back to forests as a way to combat global warming may work only … indirectly – by starving to death most of the humanity – those who survive would be too few to emits.
But hey – wasn’t this the reason for Bill Gates to engineer COVID?
Re JCM https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819638 “Cool, you might be right.” – thanks, but please note all the caveats, guesswork and hypothetical-for-the-sake-of-the-argument supposition that went into my 0.3 K figure. I actually suspect it is smaller (In particular I don’t believe exposed soil (uncovered by leaf canopy/etc.) automatically functions as ‘desert’), but I lack the background and time to go much farther with it.
Re Piotr (above) – “ 12.6% is not of “globe”, but of land without ice. So give up all crops in exchange for … 0.07K. Cool! ;-)” – yes, but the ~6.8 K (ΔGMST, whole globe) figure (**calc. from Fig. 1**) is for 100% of land without ice (not whole globe) so take 12.6%/3 = 4.2% of that ΔGMST …( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819617 )
**Fig. 3d seems to show a ΔGMST of ~ 8 K.
“ because patrick got also the other part of his argument wrong:” No.… “On the other hand, both “ Irrigation and corn’s tendency to keep its stomata open“, INCREASE evaporation” Yes, we agree.
I can see why my writing left room for confusion, but try reading again with the assumption that I actually do understand such logical implications, and I think you’ll see where I was going.
But I do admit there’s a lot I don’t know – see my re JCM. And there is only so much time, and other things I want to do (work on my blog about GHE physics, … artwork, …watch more Leslie the Bird Nerd videos). I want to be upfront about this: I haven’t read much more of the study; but I chimed in partly because I suspected you misunderstood the implication/context of the ≈0.3 W/m² TOA imbalance, given the magnitude of the ΔGMST:
(PS from the wording in the quote below, I wonder if this 0.3 value is a bounding magnitude of fluctuation, or/rather than a time-average value(??)) “ After 20 years, there is <0.1 K drift in global mean surface temperatures (figure 1); the top of atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance in these near-equilibrium simulations is near-zero (≈0.3 W m⁻²).”-Lague et. al. 2023 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1 , 1st paragraph of section 2.1. Unless the same flux number appears elsewhere (as given or calculated from given) in a different context…
More:
I forgot to include urband/built-up land area (1 M km² https://ourworldindata.org/land-use ) effects, but … does that include parks, lawns, sports fields, gardens, ponds?
https://ourworldindata.org/forest-area A significant amount of forest area loss has happened after 1950, so I expect it would/may be harder to separate this from anthro-GHE effects on the basis of timing alone (as opposed to agricultural expansion (at least for global total)).
The following is just following logic on my part, these are not things I’ve studied much:
Hypothesis: the more leaf area per unit land surface area, and the more spread-out it is vertically, the more ET (other things being =), thus more LH flux … and maybe more SH (sensible heat) flux – particularly when solar heating occurs in the leaves, so we needn’t worry about limited thermal conductivity of plants. How much heat is transported in xylem/phloem/etc.?… (in whole, I’m thinking of vegetation as acting like a heat-exchanger. On water, wind-whipped surf also helps, I’d expect)…so RH (relative humidity) will be higher.
Hypothesis: However, vegetation will reduce wind and reduce ET closer to the ground; a thick canopy can trap the humidity to some extent, reducing the ET (via high RH). (But also, vegetation can slow/intercept rain drops and spread precipitation over time at the surface and thus, along with mechanically stabilizing soil, reduce runoff.)
Hypothesis: A negative feedback should tend to reduce ET reduction due to leaf area reduction, because lower RH (and more wind exposure) should increase ET, including from soil (assuming liquid/solid H2O is available).
Hypothesis: moist bare soil will not be like ‘Desert land’. Although I believe dry (drought-baked) mud can limit permeability and thus increase runoff (?)and reduce ET from deeper soil(?). Note: snow can’t significanly runoff or seep into aquifers until it melts.
What creates the ‘Desert land’ is liquid/solid H2O going to the ocean before evaporating. Hypothesis: Runoff and drainage into groundwater is what to watch for, and then it must be noted how far they go (effect could be regional or even create microclimates, eg. dry hill, wet valley).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/california-is-missing-out-on-billions-of-gallons-of-stormwater-each-year-report-finds/ar-BB1jacL6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=940ad31d11ab4827aa7b35f3fe4b38ad&ei=17 (Don’t waste rain!)
PS It’s my understanding that CO2, via effect on plant stomatal behavior (species-dependent, also how much of this is via evolution to new conditions vs the capacity of an individual organism to adapt?), allows plants to grow in dryer and higher places. Is this considered part of the CO2 fertilization effect?
PS JCM – earlier you mentioned a choice between wind turbines and a land hydrology project and you said the later was the better option but the former was chosen. Was the need to choose a matter of funding (which seems a bit odd because wind turbines should supply income), or did one project preclude the other ie. same land area? Would the wind turbines have a drying effect, eg. via enhanced nocturnal T due to mixing of air?
patrick 5 MAR: I do admit there’s a lot I don’t know – see my re JCM
so is JCM. “Not knowing a lot”, not “admitting it”, of course;-) (The ability to regurgitate Lague’s numbers, formulas, and jargon – does not confer the credibility on the regurgitator, nor translate into knowing what Lague results mean for his own (JCM’s) claims.)
But let us get back to you – I have not questioned what you (patrick) admit that you don’t know, but what you suggested you know: I challenged your calculations:
– patrick 29 FEB: “ agricultural land = 12.6 % of the 127 M km² not covered by non-seasonal ice”; “12.6%/3 * 6.82 K = 0.286 K ≈ 0.3 K
that you confounded global with land-only. Your new explanations:
patrick 5 MAR: “ yes, but the ~6.8 K (ΔGMST, whole globe)is for 100% of land without ice (not whole globe)”
still have the same error. Rather than trying to explain where you went wrong, let me show how it should have been done:
– the global effect is an area-weighted average of local changes. Here the only change is over 16 M km² of croplands, which you assume that before agriculture had maximum max possible ET, but now for 1/3 of the year has ZERO ET. Since the Zero-Max over land is 12.5 K, but Zero lasts only 1/3 of year – we get annual warming over croplands of 12.5K/3= 4.17 K. Hence:
GLOBAL ΔT = (12.5K/3)* 14Mkm2/510km2 = 0.114 K,
NOT your “0.3K”.
Furthermore – it is an overestimation – pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, and currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either – hence the actual difference between in resulting temperatures is smaller than 12.5K, thus the global effect is LESS than 0.114 K.
Furthermore, without the agriculture there would be little need for irrigation, stopping which would reduce the already < 0.114K – even further..
Which is good news for you – you don't need to waste the time to learn all the details of agricultural effects on ET – since regardless of these details – the global outcome is the same – insignificant effect if any at all. Ergo – idea not worth the effort.
And Lague et al.2023 put to rest the wet dreams of the deniers – that we don't need to reduce GHGs, because we could just tinker with the water cycle and achieve significant cooling. We just can't change ET enough to effect any significant. Unless, of course, one counts on the indirect effect, along the lines of the Swift’s “modest proposal”: with several billion people starved to death by abandoning croplands – the global GHG emission would probably fall quite impressively.
thanks for the input patrick o
re: assuming liquid/solid H2O is available
Regarding the assumption of the availability of H2O, it’s conceptually easiest to view landscapes as moisture-limited when considering the rate and duration of ET, especially in highly degraded catchments and arid regions. Conversely, areas with unlimited moisture are considered energy-limited for ET, such as oceans and wetlands.
My interests are primarily in catchment degradation, i.e. the foundational soils (moisture source sponge) and wetlands which are widely recognized to be in a highly degraded state. Catchments continue to erode after landuse change; in fact, degradation is likely to accelerate then.
However, global accounting of catchment degradation is difficult and off-the-shelf information is sparse, with most major initiatives dating from the 1990s. I have made calls for renewed interest in consolidating landscape knowledge. https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/30423301.jpg
These aspects are not easily discernible through remote sensing spectroradiometry, and they won’t be found on ourworldindata. I’ve come to understand that a true appreciation of the landscape and its dynamic transformations is best gained through direct ongoing observation and experience. However, for those who prefer to engage with such insights through screens, analytical methods using observable climate changes offer a potential avenue for characterization.
Wetland drainage, filling, and loss is rapidly intensifying in recent decades. Topsoil sponge is mostly missing, and so chemical inputs and agricultural source material is applied to the exposed subsoil in increasing quantity. This imposes increased limitation in terms of ET, or suppression, irrespective of feedbacks to atmosphere or vegetation structure. Unnatural moisture suppression could therefore be deemed as a forcing.
Kleidon discusses such concepts in terms of maximum thermodynamic constraints. Therefore moisture limitation imposes a strict constraint on ET.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/14/861/2023/
In the CMIP world vs observation: Mueller 2013 report “a global average, the overestimation of ET amounts to 0.17 mm/d (CMIP5) and 0.09 mm/d (CMIP3)”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058055
This represents a bias within the range of about 10% of the present-day mean of 1.5 mm/day. That is models with 10% too high globally averaged ET. Obviously there are distinct seasonal and geographical variations in that, and the small proportion and clustered irrigated cropland (<20%) has interesting regional impact. For irrigated cash crops, watering ceases during the required drying period prior to market delivery for over a month. Chemical desiccants are often applied to enhance the drying.
CMIP3 did it better than CMIP5. I'm not sure about CMIP6 but my sense is that's it's low on the list of concerns. Nevermind that, it is my specific interest.
In connection to Lague, Liu 2023 report "Opposing trends of cloud coverage over land and ocean under global warming" https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/6559/2023/#
"The revealed opposing trends of continental and maritime cloud coverage highlight the land–ocean contrast under global warming. The detailed analysis we presented of correlations between annual cloud coverage and thermodynamic variables taken from ERA5 (207 in total) further suggests that the decreasing trend in relative humidity is the main driver of the decreased trend in continental cloud cover. Because of the limited availability of water vapor sources over land, terrestrial clouds are more likely to be humidity limited."
This directly connects increasing landscape moisture limitation to cloud limitation, via ET & humidity, which I think is the main point made in Lague's experiment to isolate ET.
I will stop there for now, as my interests are primarily in local circumstances and analysis, for which there are many scientists who work outside the scope and driving force of IPCC style interests and grants.
PS – in terms of the various factors which influence the directives of public regional boards and committees in environmental governance, I could only speculate on what motivates their decisions. Money, politics, confusion, and a disconnect from the reality outside in their own communities to name a few.
PPS Environmental degradation is not limited to farm land; the widespread decrease of moisture and nutrient cycling is everywhere, including the plantations. We (not the proverbial one) are removing the Scots Pine from sites that would prefer to be prairie savanna locally. Abroad I took a bus across Turkiye from Istanbul to Antalya in 2021 and the stuff is everywhere. I couldn't believe my eyes. That is a human caused change in the most classic sense.
clarification with respect to: “Conversely, areas with unlimited moisture are considered energy-limited for ET, such as oceans and wetlands.” I did not intend to lump ocean evaporation in with the landscape recycling ET aspects discussed, rather to note that oceans are energy limited in terms of maximum evaporative process.
Additional comments re: patrick Mar 5
Based on Lague 2023 – the difference in GSMT – between two extremes – SwampLand (MAX evaporation from land ) and DesertLand (ZERO evaporation from land) is large – according to your calc. = 6.8 K. But it is an maximum range – humans can affect directly ONLY the tiny portion of that range and consequently – achieve a tiny fraction of that 6.8K cooling. Further, different aspects of human activity have the opposite effects: e.g. converting forests into cropland reduces evaporation, irrigation of the same cropland increase it – thus at least partially cancel each other , rendering the previously tiny effects on global T even tinier ….
So I killed two birds with a single paper:
1. the paper (Lague et al. 2o23) showed the deniers that they can’t defend burning fossil fuels with a claim that they can counter AGW with ramped up evaporation – it won’t work since the latter can could Earth only by a tiny portion of the 6.8K of the extreme range evaluated there, thus in spite of JCM – we should build wind turbines and NOT divert the limited money to … increasing evaporation.
2. the paper rendered your (patrick’s) multiple hypotheses and questions … moot – the answer to them won’t change GSMT in any appreciable way and/or offer no actionable advice to the humanity on what to do differently about AGW.
Now, as long as you realize that the answer to your questions has as much relevance to human responses to AGW as the question how many …bacteria can dance on the head of a pin, we could discuss your hypotheses about evaporation, just for kicks. E.g.:
pat: “ I forgot to include urban and/built-up land area (1 M km²)
No problem – 1 M km² is 0.2% of Earth surface, so is of little consequence to global evaporation and thus to GSMT
pat: “ Hypothesis: moist bare soil will not be like ‘Desert land’. – which further reduces the effect of croplands replacing forests – since in your calculation you assumed that all agricultural land, when in a bare soil stage (1/3 of each year), has the evaporation of a DesertLand).
pat: “ It’s my understanding that CO2, via effect on plant stomatal behavior allows plants to grow in dryer and higher places. Is this considered part of the CO2 fertilization effect?”
Yes, that’s a major part of it. Another is that higher Co2 -> higher temp -> longer growing season. That’s the reason why CO2 fertilization benefits mainly boreal forests – which growth is limited both by temperature (short growing season) and availability of water – not much precipitation in the prime growing season: summer. Higher atm. Co2 allows you to load more Co2 with the same amount of evaporated water..
Thus we expect to see strong Co2 fertilization in boreal forest, but not in tropical rain forest – where there is no benefit in shutting your stomata quicker as there you have as much water as you want (it is a damn tropical RAIN forest!). In fact you want your stomata open at max, since to maximize your evaporation as this:
– keep your leaves cool (it is damn TROPICAL rain forest!)
– provide more nutrients from the poor tropical soils – if a tree doubles the evaporation it
doubles the volume of groundwater sucked in, and thus doubles the amount of nutrients plant extracted for the soil,
BTW – the negative feedback between atm Co2 and Co2 fertilization of boreal forest won’t last forever – people think that when temp. warms there by, say, 3 deg. C – the negative effects of warmer temp (faster respiration, better survival of the tree pests and pathogens, more intense forest fires, faster bacterial decay) may outweigh the positive effects of higher Co2 and longer growing season. And given that Arctic amplification, we may be already at or near that the 3deg. C level already.
“**Fig. 3d seems to show a ΔGMST of ~ 8 K.”
The text says “roughly” 8 K = ΔGMST (DesertLand – SwampLand), just after giving figures for global TOA flux density changes caused by clouds, just below Fig. 9., in section 3.2. That’s two against one. I’m not sure what’s up with Fig. 1, then (I looked more closely, and could see 7.0 K as being a better graphical estimate than my first attempt of 6.8 K, but that can’t be rounded to 8 K).
“Hypothesis: the more leaf area per unit land surface area, and the more spread-out it is vertically, the more ET (other things being =), thus more LH flux … and maybe more SH (sensible heat) flux – particularly when solar heating occurs in the leaves,”…
Other things being = (OTBE?), SH transfer from surface should be enhanced by larger area and distribution over a volume of air. Of course, ET (LH) cooling reduces surface T, or at least relative to air, reducing SH and LW net fluxes. Which reminds me of the catch: solar heating of dry flat surface should enhance LW emission via higher surface T (relative to near sfc air), and as some of this can escape directly to Space via the atmospheric window ~8 μm – ~12 (or ~13) μm (depending on H2O), this could have a net cooling effect (?) (lower GMSAT in exchange for higher GMST? – but then the cloud feedbacks… Lague et al. again). OTOH, there’s the effect of surface LW emissivity (https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812838 ) To the extent that the surface is a (relatively) poor emitter, a layer of H2O vapor (or fog) which hugs the surface such that its T is not too much colder than sfc T could enhance OLR. But anyway…
“(lower GMSAT in exchange for higher GMST? “… for land, and… maybe??
In Re to Patrick, March 6
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819792
and Piotr, March 6
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819787
Dear Patrick, dear Piotr,
Thank you for your discussion of Lague 2023.
It is my understanding that you now basically agree to each other that the models used by the authors suggest a significant difference in the Earth mean global surface temperatures between two extreme hydrological regimes, something between 6-8 K, am I right?
If so, I would like to ask Piotr another question.
Provided that real Earth land hydrology is somewhere between the “desert” and the “swamp” regime, how have you inferred from the disputed article (or from other evidence?) that human interferences with land hydrology during the last two centuries had a negligible contribution to the so called anthropogenic warming?
And, if we assume that this warming was 1.5 K, what do you specifically mean by the negligible contribution of the hydrology changes thereto? Less than a few %, that is something like less than 0.1 K?
Thank you in advance for clarifying and best regards.
Tomáš
A mask slipped, Tomas? No longer pretending to be open-minded and “just looking to learn about things“, but openly using deniers talking points:
that we can burn as much fossil fuels as we want, because we can just [enter your geoengineering scheme – in your, Shurly’s and JCM case: increase global evaporation)
and characteristic deniers’ phraseology: (“the so called anthropogenic warming“) ?
TK: “if we assume that this warming was 1.5 K, what do you specifically mean by the negligible contribution of the hydrology changes thereto? Less than a few %, that is something like less than 0.1 K? ”
Yes – MUCH LESS than 0.114 K to be specific. But you must already know this , because I have presented the calculations for that in my Mar. 5 post,
i.e. a DAY before the Mar.6 posts to which you “reply” now.
============== Piotr Mar 5. ===============
” GLOBAL ΔT = (12.5K/3)* 14Mkm2/510km2 = 0.114 K, NOT your “0.3K”.
Furthermore – pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, nor the currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either – hence the actual difference between in resulting temperatures is smaller than 12.5K
obtained from T (Max evaporation) – T(Zero evaporation) thus the global effect is LESS than 0.114 K.
Furthermore – without the agriculture there would be little need for irrigation, stopping which would reduce the already the LESS than 0.114K – even FURTHER… ”
=========================================
So before you demand answers from others, Mr. Kalisz, do your damn homework – READ the already available answers in the discussion you are chiming in.
Tomáš,
So apparently you work in a patent office, and I’m guessing you’re an engineer who regularly works with legalisms?
Maybe it’s time to entertain the idea that you’re out of your depth on this topic. The way I see it, you could; go to the primary literature and figure it out, and/or go back to school on climatology, and/or go the meta-literacy route.
Nothing wrong with relying on meta-literacy, even if by itself it’s not going to provide you with definitive answers. You need it if you think the state of climate science is some how comparable to that of Copernicus. That’s a bad analogy for a number of reasons.
At this point, I’m about ready to categorize you as a debate-me-bro masquerading as a concern troll and suggest that you move on to something more productive.
In Re to Radge Havers, March 8
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819851
and Piotr, March 7
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819831
Dear Radge,
I indeed work as a patent engineer, and read this blog (and, occasionally, some articles cited herein) in my spare time only.
I hope that that it describes the level of my understanding sufficiently, and explains why I ask my questions the way how I do it.
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your reply to my questions.
Honestly, I still do not understand why you in your calculation divided the area of the land with anthropogenically changed hydrology by overall Earth surface (instead of the land surface only). I am afraid that this way, you may underestimate the effect considered by Lague et al significantly.
In my understanding, Lague derived the 6-8 K global mean surface temperature change for the switch of the hydrological regime on the land only. I would therefore expect that the area of the “anthropogenically changed” land has to be divided by the entire land area that they considered in their model experiment – instead of the entire Earth surface area.
Or, in other words, if I return to my thought experiment with desert irrigation, switching 4 % of Earth land surface from desert mode to swamp mode should cause a 4% change in a model system, wherein 100% change does represent (6-8)K. The respective global mean surface temperature change caused by irrigation of 5-6 million square km desert thus should be somewhere between (6-8)K*0.04 = (0.24-0.3)K.
That is why I still believe that the conclusion of Lague et al should not be construed your way (that anthropogenic interferences with land hydrology cannot have any measurable influence on global Earth climate). I am still of the opinion that message of Lague et al was in fact exactly opposite.
I think that this is a quite simple thought and still do not see a logical fallacy therein. If you, however, think that Lague et al indeed strived to disprove the possibility that human interferences with land hydrology may influence Earth climate, please be so kind and explain in more detail why you believe that this interpretation of their conclusions is the right one.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 8: “Thank you for your reply to my questions
So how do you explain your use of the deniers language like “the so called anthropogenic warming“ I challenged you on in the post you are thanking me for?
Life unexamined is not worth living. And if you can’t own up to your motives and prejudices in such a clear case – what’s the point of discussing with you less obvious technical issues?
in Re to Piotr, 9 Mar 2024 at 9:29 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819907
Dear Piotr,
in my post of 8 Mar 2024 at 5:19 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819865,
I asked an additional question to your reply for that I thanked you:
“Honestly, I still do not understand why you in your calculation divided the area of the land with anthropogenically changed hydrology by overall Earth surface (instead of the land surface only). I am afraid that this way, you may underestimate the effect considered by Lague et al significantly.
In my understanding, Lague derived the 6-8 K global mean surface temperature change for the switch of the hydrological regime on the land only. I would therefore expect that the area of the “anthropogenically changed” land has to be divided by the entire land area that they considered in their model experiment – instead of the entire Earth surface area.
Or, in other words, if I return to my thought experiment with desert irrigation, switching 4 % of Earth land surface from desert mode to swamp mode should cause a 4% change in a model system, wherein 100% change does represent (6-8)K. The respective global mean surface temperature change caused by irrigation of 5-6 million square km desert thus should be somewhere between (6-8)K*0.04 = (0.24-0.3)K.
That is why I still believe that the conclusion of Lague et al should not be construed your way (that anthropogenic interferences with land hydrology cannot have any measurable influence on global Earth climate). I am still of the opinion that message of Lague et al was in fact exactly opposite.
I think that this is a quite simple thought and still do not see a logical fallacy therein. If you, however, think that Lague et al indeed strived to disprove the possibility that human interferences with land hydrology may influence Earth climate, please be so kind and explain in more detail why you believe that this interpretation of their conclusions is the right one.”
I apologize for using the wording “so called anthropogenic warming”. My object was not to trigger your anger. Actually, I see this wording as basically non-sensical and certainly quite unfortunate from my side in the present discussion. Nevertheless, please feel free to believe that it was a Freudian slip of the tongue and that it genuinely revealed my true face of a wicked “denialist”, if you wish.
I will, however, highly appreciate if you could, for a while, ignore the circumstance that you face a convicted denialist. Could you please anyway deal with the last sentence of the paragraphs quoted above?
I am repeating this plea because I still do not know why you in your posts of
5 Mar 2024 at 11:56 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819771
7 Mar 2024 at 9:05 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819831
8 Mar 2024 at 12:40 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819855
insisted in your opinion that human interferences with water cycle cannot have a measurable influence on global climate.
It appears that your belief in correctness of your calculations is the ground for your feeling of superiority over other participants in the ongoing discussion about your interpretation of Lague 2023. Personally, I would not call the difference between dividing by 510 and by 127 as “hair splitting”. Therefore, I think that at least JCM and Patrick might deserve your detailed explanation why your calculation is correct and their calculations are wrong.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš
In addition to my post of 10 MAR 2024 AT 1:31 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819926.
Dear Piotr,
In your post of 8 MAR 2024 AT 12:40 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819855
the bold case text in the penultimate paragraph reminds us that “Gavin’s 2010 modelling .. demonstrated that water cycle strongly amplified effect of changing GHG concentrations”.
In the following paragraph, however, you conclude that changes in the water cycle alone cannot have any significant influence on global Earth climate:
“To sum up – we can’t change in any significant way GMST by direct changing of the water cycle, we can do it in ONLY indirectly – by changing the conc. of GHGs in atmosphere.”
Isn’t it a contradiction?
My understanding to Lague 2023 is that the effects of water cycle amplify the warming or cooling effects of changing GHG concentration just because they may play a significant role also alone.
If so, I do not see any reason why climate science should desist from analyzing options for water cycle management as another possible tool for climate change mitigation. Is it excluded that combination of GHG management and water cycle management could exhibit a positive synergy and be more efficient and/or less expensive than GHG management alone?
Best regards
Tomáš
re Piotr
-on my opinion of handling AGW/ACC:
I’ve been pretty consistent on the big points (I thought you were the one with all the receipts) –
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819472
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819511
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812722
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/02/forced-responses-feb-2020/comment-page-2/#comment-757961 (several comments)
and see link in my name.
Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs, and this largely depends on transitioning to clean energy and efficiency improvements, maybe some lifestyle changes… sequestration (basalt dust, …) … add CaCO3 to the ocean if necessary (stop-gap)… also maybe change our cement; And for land-use/management: reducing emissions from that (or boosting sequestration).
If it can work effectively, safely, and economically (use a CO2-eq price and equivalent policies on emission sources for which it it is hard to tax/fee/cap as such, and let market work out details), include CCS from fossil fuel combustion. (Sabine Hossenfelder made a good point in one of her videos that technically it is not the use of fossil fuels that is the problem for climate – however, there are other problems w/ fossil fuels and it doesn’t make sense to invest a lot in developing technologies which won’t be used much – but I recognize the transition is/will be taking longer than we’d prefer.)
… BECCS, …
Geoengineering that doesn’t involve sequestering CO2/etc. should mainly be a stop-gap measure.
———-
I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications – obviously reducing UHI generally would be good (except maybe high latitude winters/etc.?) – because: noting that direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing (I thought – JCM mentions changes continuing after human actions) so long as we keep using the land the same way (besides use that involves continual uni-directional change ie. deforestation), unlike burning fossil fuels)***
However, there are other environmental/sustainability issues/concerns besides global-scale climate change, and so changing land-use/management practices (and ocean-use…) makes sense for other reasons (flood and drought resilience, biodiversity, UHI, …).
In particular, this could play a role in adaptation to that part of AGW/ACC we fail to prevent.
—————–
***[although the particular nature of such forcing (including spatial-temporal distribution), etc. may cause climate changes of a different ‘shape’ distinct from GHGs …
(just as solar-based geoengineering based on cutting TOA TSI the same fraction over the whole globe, year, and spectrum has a different ‘shape’ and so would produce side effects if used to mitigate CO2-et al. -driven changes (even setting aside ocean acidification).)
… so conceivably (without more knowledge) some changes caused by land management/use could be significant relative to A-GHG-CC (anthropogenic GHG-driven climate change) – however, …?]
—————–
(brainstorming follows)
I have considered using solar panels in agriculture with shade-grown crops; and/or that runoff from solar panels/plants could be concentrated into neighboring land in semiarid zones for agricultural usage. The total ET of the larger region should be unchanged in that later case. Solar panels reducing air flow to crops could help trap humidity, reducing ET and saving water – but alternatively, allowing more crop production for the same ET? In some cases, I have gotten the impression that with water supply, you can spend water to make water – ie irrigation can increase precipitation (but not always). An interesting point – temporal distribution relative to weather would make a difference – evap under a blocking high vs ahead of approaching low-pressure with precipitation. Maybe strategic scheduling could increase irrigation effectiveness. Several years ago, there was a study that a very large wind power capacity in central U.S. could be turned off or on strategically to alter weather in Europe (try a search for the commentor “EFSJunior” in RC). One could use ensemble weather forecasts with different initial soil moistures and turbine deployments (if spare capacity exists) and adjust irrigation schedules and wind curtailment to choose the outcome (probabilistically) (could involve steering rain toward hydropower reservoirs and clouds away from solar plants) … or maybe the effect of irrigation on weather would be too small to bother with…? Note cloud seeding is already done, not just experimentally.
________________________________
As for:
“that you confounded global with land-only. Your new explanations:
patrick 5 MAR: “ yes, but the ~6.8 K (ΔGMST, whole globe)is for 100% of land without ice (not whole globe)”
still have the same error. Rather than trying to explain where you went wrong, let me show how it should have been done:”
12.5 (?) K / 3 * 16 / 510 ≈ 0.131 K (?), and you seem to be forgetting the ΔSST part.
Lague et. al. 2023 find a ~7 K – no, ~8 K ΔGMST, whole globe, caused by DesertLand – SwampLand conditions for 100% of non-glaciated land area. They find substantial warming of SST.
(6.82, 8) K (ΔGMST) * 12.6%/3 = (0.286, 0.336) K
But you make two very good points (both of which are hinted at by caveats I listed https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819617 , but I hadn’t thought about the 1st of them explicitly) in that: “ pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, and currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”
To Patrick Mar 7:
My critique of the old denier’s myth that we can reverse “the so-called [global] anthropogenic warming[sic!]” (Kalisz Mar. 7) not by reduction in GHGs, but by altering water cycle, was not directed at you, but at Kalisz, JCM, and Shurly.
Neither me, nor other critics of the above deniers, did reject local uses of water, particularly to achieve non-climatic benefits (growing crops, protecting biodiversity, providing water to municipal and industrial uses).
As for the calculations of the effects of agriculture on GMST – I assumed only the terrestrial effects, you also extended it linearly onto the ocean – but the difference between my 0.1K and your 0.3K is … splitting the hair – since your assumptions (as you acknowledged) introduce a systematic bias in favour inflating the effect (your 0.3K):
1. [Piotr Mar. 5:] “ pre-agriculture land wasn’t always 100% saturated with water, and current crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”, so the annual difference in evaporation from cropland would have been only a fraction of the annual swamp-desert difference – hence the global effect would have been a fraction of your “0.3K”.
2. Further, the most productive agricultural lands (rice fields, prairies and steppes of USA. Ukraine, Russia, central Asia, etc) require massive irrigation (diverting rivers and emptying aquifers) – so likely to exceed the already reduced drop in evaporation in p.1
So the net effect of croplands, instead of warming by a fraction [see p.1] of 0.3K,
after accounting for irrigation, would result in a net increase in evaporation, and therefore a small net cooling. Hence Kalisz’s proposal of reverting to “ the pre-anthropocene water cycle” would have meant a (small) net …warming, and as result – would increase, not replace, the need to reduce GHGs.
And since we have already diverted many rivers and emptied lot of groundwater storage (see Colorado River disappearing before reaching the ocean and several-meter land subsidence in parts of the US mid-west, after the emptied aquifers collapsed), there is not much room by FURTHER increasing the land evaporation, as in the deniers wet-dream of countering the AGW with increases in natural water cycle.
Finally, the deniers proposing to counter AGW with human increased evaporation – they allow their scheme the advantage they implicitly deny the GHG reductions:
As Lague et al. 2023 argued – increased land evaporation cools the Earth primarily by the cloud feedback: evaporation -> colder land -> quicker the moving from the water vapour (warming effect) into clouds (cooling effect). So more clouds -> net cooling effect.
But the same mechanism applies to reduction of GHGs: lower GHGs -> colder land (and ocean) -> quicker the conversion of WV into clouds etc. etc. => more clouds and additional cooling effect.
In fact – in the discussed recently papers using CERES data – MORE of the AGW in the last couple of decades was attributed to the decrease in cloud cover (cloud feedback) than to direct absorption of LW by GHG gases. Thus observational data (CERES), confirmed Gavin’s 2010 modelling, where he demonstrated that water cycle strongly amplified effect of changing GHG concentrations.
To sum up – we can’t change in any significant way GMST by direct changing of the water cycle, we can do it in ONLY indirectly – by changing the conc. of GHGs in atmosphere. So the water cycle instead of making our reductions of GHGs less urgent, or even optional (deniers: let’s increase evaporation INSTEAD of reducing GHGs), makes our actions on GHGs more, not less, consequential: as any positive feedback, water cycle AMPLIFIES the consequences of our actions and inactions:
if we warm the Earth by increasing GHGs, water cycle will make the warming worse; if we cool the Earth by reducing GHGs, water cycle will make the cooling stronger.
As Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution I will add the following:
The notion that implementation of direct landscape stewardship initiatives constitutes a moral hazard because the effect would be to slow GHG mitigation efforts is extremely disturbing (to say the least).
Evidently the concerns raised by this perception must be addressed in any program that seeks to advance the stabilization of community hydrological regimes, ecologies, and their associated realclimates.
Intervention related moral-hazard arguments can’t be settled a priori and do not properly compare the possible risks of catchment restoration.
I sometimes wonder if the issue is values framing, such that arguing through the values of the stable soil carbon (the catchment “sponge”), rather than its direct relation to hydroclimates, might receive less motivated opposition. I doubt it tho – as the comments often languish on the foundational energy budget concepts, floundering on units, fixating on issues that are not particularly controversial, in addition to persistent miscommunications, active mischaracterization, and phony logics.
I thank patrick o 27 and Tomas for the ability to reason objectively even if our values may not be precisely aligned.
Over several months a noticeable bias has emerged where active participants, either unconsciously or consciously, manipulate their arguments to fit a desired strong conclusion. The hypotheses drift without acknowledgement. This phenomenon is undeniably real and has manifested in various ways, from falsely claiming that unrestricted evapotranspiration contributes to a warming (untrue), to defending a scenario of forced doubled ET with virtually no effect (inaccurate), and most recently, actively misunderstanding the straightforward findings of a published ET isolation exercise. The next emergent phase involves speculating that humanity is too inconsequential to impact hydroclimates, regardless of the underlying physical processes — a significant departure in tactics.
The conclusion is always the same, but the shenanigans* involved are wide-ranging and evolving.
JCM: “As Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution ”
Ever heard about seeing a straw in the eye of another, and a beam in your own? (see below)
JCM: The notion that implementation of direct landscape stewardship initiatives constitutes a moral hazard because the effect would be to slow GHG mitigation efforts is extremely disturbing (to say the least).
You extremely disturb yourself for nothing. I didn’t criticize your nebulous “ direct landscape stewardship initiatives“, whatever you wanted to express by that, I have challenged the deniers’ claims that we can REPLACE reductions in GHGs either by doubling the land evaporation, or that we can significantly reduce the global warming by or restoring water cycle to its “pre-anthropocene state” (Tomas), or by ramping up evaporation (Shurly, JCM).
And I have demonstrated that it won’t work, since human-caused changes in evaporation cover only a tiny fraction of the Lague “all land is a swamp to all land is a desert” range. And because human mediated evaporation from land is already close to its max – with major rivers ALREADY diverted and aquifers being overdrawn at the alarming rate – so there is not enough water to additionally evaporate to make a significant dent in the AGW.
And implying that we can mitigate the AGW, not by addressing its cause, the GHG emissions, but by ramping up evaporation, is not some esotheric “moral hazard” to sneeze on – but has quite real consequences – it is a part of the “seeding the doubt” strategy – where fossil fuel state and industrial complex does not need to disprove the role of GHGs, all it needs to “seed the doubt “. Then the politicians, “owing” fossil fuel interests for their generous contribution to their electoral campaigns, would use this “doubt” as an alibi for delaying any meaningful action on GHGs.
This goal has been achieved by petro-companies and petro-states funding various “institutes”, “think-thanks”, and PhDs for hire to come up the plausible doubt, then the message is distributed through denier websites and by hired trolls, to be then is picked up and promoted further for free by various “useful idiots” – a few of them on the margin of the climate science, the rest not – swallowing the so-manufactured doubt for its ideological, religious, or psychological reasons.
And since you try to use the credibility of Patrick against me:
– “Piotr continues to misunderstand patrick o 27’s contribution”
– “ I thank patrick o 27 and Tomas for the ability to reason objectively”
see what he said about ramping up evaporation as a significant way to counter the AGW caused by GHGs:
– patrick: “Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs,”
– patrick: “I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications”
– patrick: “direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing)”
So much for you trying to gain credence for your deniers views at the expense of patrick.
JCM: “Over several months a noticeable bias has emerged where active participants, either unconsciously or consciously, manipulate their arguments to fit a desired strong conclusion”
Ever looked in the mirror, J?
I don’t know what you’re talking about Piotr, but your passion is noted. I do not propose renewed interest in hydrological stabilization as an alternative to trace gas mitigation. I have repeatedly noted that these are complementary issues. Your repeated attacks are absurd and boring.
I have remained steadfast in the stabilizing effects of functional catchment hydrologies on many scales, and no reasonable debunking has yet been provided. This includes multiple co-benefits as it relates to weather related hazards and a range of other issues. I have also framed the issue in its appropriate context of the feedback regime to trace gas forcing.
It is you who has dramatically deviated and butchered the issue, transparently based on extreme bias. Your positions have ranged from asserting that functional watershed storage could destabilize climates, to suggesting it has no effect, and now acknowledging a substantial stabilizing effect.
Your resistance to the concept seems rooted not in a physical perspective- but in motivated reasoning and extreme bias. It is clear to me that you have no useful knowledge or experience on the issue. The subject seems to make you feel upset or something and you start throwing stuff against the wall.
I understand that both you and patrick o 27 share different values, and you believe the human effect is small in our communities based on your perception & speculation, but at least patrick is able to converse like a reasonable person and does not actively distort and mishandle the issue. For that I am thankful. Please refrain from the obsessive butchering of the issue several times daily.
Conceptually, to adhere to the preferred carbon centric perspective, the practical implementation would be identical, but instead of arguing from a hydrological perspective we could instead argue from a stance of carbon sequestration values.
For each 1 gram stable soil carbon improves bulk density (sponge that is not disappeared) and sustains 8g in liquid H20 that would otherwise be unavailable in space and duration. 1 day of unnatural dryness out of 10 is about 10% “missing” ET. Or 10 days of “missing” ET during the natural growing season. Or maybe a few hours missing ET each week on average, 10s of minutes per day, or a small fraction of a mm per day.
Then we can feel the comfy co-benefits of restoring a soil genesis regime as opposed to an erosive one, measured in tons soil carbon per hectare per year (currently measured in tons C/ha/yr averaged) oxidized; and also allows for comparison of units of mm/day missing sponge potential. There is no need for a tradeoff or moral-hazard there, because they are complementary. That is, less extreme hydrological and temperature extremes while actively participating in reduced emission and improved drawdown of excess carbon dioxide.
JCM: I don’t know what you’re talking about
and yet several pages of your commentary ensue….
JCM: but your passion is noted.
trying to discredit my falsifiable arguments, by ascribing … emotionality to me, again?
JCM: I have remained steadfast in the stabilizing effects of functional catchment hydrologies on many scales, and no reasonable debunking has yet been provided.
At all the “many scales” beneath GLOBAL effect – nobody has been discussing your steadfast claims, so no debunking needed there.
At the only scale that matters at this forum – AGW – the claims by your and your fellow deniers – have been debunked, repeatedly. Most recently – yesterday:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819855
Or since you make virtue out of your not understanding my posts – how about the conclusions of patrick, you now, the person whom, in your attempt to bring to your side, you buttered up with:
JCM Mar 8 “ I thank patrick o 27 for the ability to reason objectively?
That ability to reason objectively patrick:
– patrick: “Mitigating AGW/ACC caused by anthropogenic GHG atmospheric accumulations: – CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, (and limiting ocean acidification) … should be done by mitigating the accumulation of those GHGs”
– patrick: “ Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications”
[“small/niche” – i.e. NOT global – P.]
– patrick: “direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T. (and not continually growing)
These quotes are from the last couple of days from this thread. So much for your no reasonable debunking has yet been provided.
Tomas Kalisz MAR 13:
“Dear Nigel, Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read?”
So … you first accused me of intellectual dishonesty ( “deliberate” misrepresentation of your posts), and now you try to … outsource obtaining the proof for the said accusation to … Nigel???
Here are your words:
– Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ” [where the 2 W/m2 was chosen to ~ = radiative forcing of GHGs -Piotr]
– TK May 31: “I can imagine that the intensified water cycle could REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way.”
– TK May 30: “current hot deserts would be preferable for this”
So now provide the logical flow how to “read” the above
– as NOT a proposal to, instead of reducing GHGs warming by 2 W/m2, produce the 2W/m2 cooling by increasing evaporation by 13,000 km3, and
– as NOT your proposal to use “desert irrigation” to achieve this.
And you have to prove your “reading” of your own word – beyond reasonable doubt, because otherwise you wouldn’t accuse opponent of dishonesty, would you?
In Re to Nigel, 13 Mar 2024 at 4:02 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820065
and Piotr, 13 Mar 2024 at 5:44 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820069
Dear NIgel, dear Piotr,
Thank you both for clarification of your views.
Let me refer back to my replies to Radge Havers, 20231121 2:43 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816142
and 20231206 3:53 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816823,
wherein I tried to explain my background and my views, and clearly declared myself as a non-believer (denialist or luke warmer, if you wish).
In this respect, I see all the following efforts directed to revealing my “true nature” of a camouflaged saboteur somewhat superfluous.
As regards my choice of the word “deliberately”, which hurt Piotr, I would like to apologize.
It was not my intention to say that Piotr is dishonest (or liar, as he interpreted my objection). I just tried to express my belief that a person with another mindset, not examining posts on the RC primarily by their fit with already existing, positively or negatively classified patterns, could be free to read my example simply as a demonstration that the disputed effect of increased water evaporation may not be negligible and may therefore indeed play a role in global climate.
Specifically with respect to the possibility of the EEI sign reversal by an artificial water supply for evaporation in hot deserts, I still think that it is an option that in view of publications like Lague 2023 might deserve a thorough scientific proof.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz,
Re: “…superfluous…”
Not necessarily. If you don’t like the responses you’re getting and want to move forward, maybe try asking better questions.
JCM,
Not my area by any means, but I got to wondering to what degree your statement might be true, so I did a cursory search of the archives here. Hardly definitive, but it did leave me still wondering– that much I can say.
Here are two posts, one from 2012 and one from 2021 that touch on soil moisture. If nothing else you may find them diverting. Pay attention to the in-line comments, it seems that back then there was generally more interaction between the RC group and the commentariat than you may be used to seeing.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/extremely-hot/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/
@ Tomáš Kalisz says
14 Mar 2024 at 8:58 AM
Hi, it’s sad to see you apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.
in Re to Ned Kelly, 15 Mar 2024 at 2:26 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820122
Dear Ms. Kelly,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
Please do not be sad. I just strive to treat others the way how I would like to be treated. Hurting Piotr was not my object. If it happened anyway, I tried to explain how/why, and to apologize.
From your nick, I suppose that you live in Australia. If so, many greetings from the northern to the southern hemisphere!
Tom
Ned Kelly “Hi, it’s sad to see you (TK) apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.”
Says the same Ned Kelly who attacks, harasses and abuses climate scientists!!!
nigelj says
15 Mar 2024 at 1:21 PM
“Says the same Ned Kelly who attacks, harasses and abuses climate scientists!!!”
I reply – I clarify – they don’t publish.
The Truth Hurts.
Letting you know I don’t ignore you or your comments. Don’t blame me.
Thank you Radge Havers,
Naturally in a warming situation the equilibrium partitioning of ET should have been increasing. The opposite is so.
The production of catchment organics per acre annually has become negative, when before it was not. Only since advent of diesel machine was this made possible.
This not only affects the annual average evaporative fraction of surface flux but also correlates with increasing hydrological and temperature extremes.
It is widely accepted that heatwaves are exacerbated by dry conditions, influenced by antecedent precipitation and catchment storage characteristics.
Concerning Rahmstorf’s concept of shifting probability distributions of extremes, alongside trace gas forcing, there’s a direct impact from the annually average evaporative fraction of surface flux. This encompasses aspects of extent, magnitude, and duration, along with interactions with boundary layer processes and dynamics.
The Trenberth-style surface budget lacks closure to a precision better than 20 W/m2. This highlights significant uncertainty in flux partitioning and leaves ample room for unanticipated changes in addition to standard radiative forcing – feedback concepts. This encompasses not only radiation balances but also the associated mesoscale and synoptic dynamic effects on weather.
It’s unreasonable to overlook factors of catchment disturbance when devising a rapid attribution scheme for extreme events.
NK: it’s sad to see [TK] apologising, given you are the one being attacked, harassed, and abused relentlessly for many many months. I am sorry to see you put through all that. You did not deserve it. I think it’s disgusting. Though typical of what passes for “science” on these pages.
BPL: Physician, heal thyself.
[ To replace the unfinished draft that somehow was sent off before being ready ]
JCM: “To Piotr: I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested.”
To JCM, I caution you to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions of other people’s arguments. “Real” was a short-hand for “ more realistic than extreme T range used by patrick and complimented by JCM”
JCM “Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.”
Explain then YOUR joining my discussion with patrick to ….discuss … one of these corrections, I quote:
JCM Mar12: “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash”
Your dismissal of this correction began only AFTER I have show that you got the sign of the above correction, and therefore your conclusion, WRONG (see: Piotr (Mar. 15)
(see: Piotr (Mar. 15)
And discussion is about patrick o27 using the results of MODEL SIMULATIONS from Lague et al. 2023. A paper that … your brought to this forum, promoted it here, and described in unnecessary detail many of their numerical results.
I don’t recall you patronizingly dismissing Lague et al., patrick o27, Tomas and yourself as … “fixating on imaginary process mechanisms“. Strange …
To Piotr concerning a terrestrial ET hypothetical:
I think we are in agreement. However, I do not recall Dr Lague making any specific assertions about the magnitude of human caused disturbance.
While the ET cooling effect on Earthly climates is not controversial, the impact of human caused disturbance is not of interest to climate policymakers. I know this.
However, it is of keen interest to me owing to our tight relationship to catchment characteristics in our daily lives, and I understand these things through a lens of microclimates.
I hope this offers clarity within the stated rules of sticking to globally averaged climates:
Lague presents a model where a maximum global cooling effect is 8K, and a minimum cooling is 0K. This seems to be on the lower end of various estimations I’ve seen so it is conservative and quite robust using the CESM.
Being in the middle (4K) – we can assume a 50% lower than maximum ET condition. This might be something like prior to a pre-industrial state, prior to the ability for massive a deep catchment deterioration. There we have great deserts, prairie, natural forest, wetland, and so on.
Alternatively, assuming a maximum terrestrial LE is 80 W/m2 at 8K cooling, terrestrial LE is 40 W/m2 at 4K cooling (linear).
80 W/m2 is close to an equilibrium evaporation at Earthly temperatures (maximum)
40 W/m2 terrestrial ET is operating at 50% of an equilibrium rate averaged across continents.
40 W/m2 LE equivalent at 4K cooling = 10 W/m2 terrestrial LE per K.
A 1 watt per meter square average terrestrial LE makes for a 0.1K global cooling using such assumptions fixed to the range presented by Lague.
Patrick o introduced an assumed scenario that the annual average ET on a cropland parcel has been suppressed by about 1/3 compared to its undisturbed state. And he proposed this represents the condition on about 13% of the planet or something. He made no distinction about when that should be happening.
Assuming that where crops are sewn operated perhaps slightly better than the globally averaged 50% of equilibrium rate, maybe 60 W/m2 compared to a globally averaged 40 W/m2 when including the great deserts, a 1/3 reduction over time compared to an unperturbed condition (60 W/m2) makes for a resulting 40 W/m2 annually averaged on a cropland parcel.
That is a 20 W/m2 reduction, from 60 W/m2 to 40 W/m2, on 13% of the landscape for a resulting globally averaged reduction of ET 2.6 W/m2. From a globally averaged 50% of equilibrium ET to 47% of equilibrium ET after the disturbance.
This works out to about 0.2 or 0.3K globally averaged temperature change (0.26K ??). This is how I was interpreting the situation. The 1/3 factor applied by Patrick o 27 makes no distinction of when or how it’s happening in this hypothetical logical game. Certainly Lague made no discussion of this.
If you want to assume a supposed 1/3 factor when previously a cropland parcel was operating at 40 W/m2 then the resulting disturbance is 13 W/m2 annually averaged. Or a globally averaged reduction 1.7 W/m2 ET (0.17K). If you want to assume that previously a cropland parcel was uninhibited and operating at 80 W/m2 then the disturbance represents 3.5 W/m2 (0.35K) globally averaged.
I trust that your preferred preconceived outcome is not preventing you from communicating effectively.
cheers
PS as an additional point of clarity, and for Tomas,
The sentence ” condition on about 13% of the planet” should read 13% of the landscape.
For Piotr, if you wish to apply an irrigation factor to restore a cropland parcel to its unperturbed state I recommend a maximum 20%.
For Tomas again, even if I do not agree that such a scheme is optimal, this framework is useful to compute a desert irrigation scenario, where the hot deserts offer a great deal of potential evaporation, far exceeding the globally averaged equilibrium rate of 80 W/m2. I do not agree, in part, because it misses the multiple co-benefits of catchment stabilization in the places we actually live, in part by reducing the pronounced hydrological and temperature extremes. Additionally, while a desert irrigation scheme could conceivably offer a stabilizing effect in globally averaged temperatures, the resulting climate change would not resemble that of an unperturbed state owing to dynamical factors and otherwise.
cheers
In Re to JCM, 22 MAR 2024 AT 9:14 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820444
Dear JCM,
Many thanks for your posts regarding Lague 2023. My goal was just to understand if this publication gives a hint that human interferences with water cycle may influence global climate, and my conclusion from this discussion is yes, this publication gives such a hint.
And for me, it does represent also a positive answer to the question if various modes of such interferences and their effects on local and global climate deserve further detailed studies.
Greetings
Tomáš
JCM 22: “To Piotr concerning a terrestrial ET hypothetical. I think we are in agreement.”
Let’s see:
1. patrick calculated effects of crops based on Lague et al. 2023
2. I pointed that he needs (at least) two corrections.
3. you joined in, saying that the 2nd correction cancels out the 1st correction – “ So it’s a wash“.
4. I have shown that you got this sign wrong, and instead cancelling the 1st correction, it would add to it.
5. To which you …. dismissed the values of …any corrections
because they apply to “ imaginary process mechanisms” (here: of Lague and used by patrick), use their arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be”, and therefore offer no insight into the real world.
So, no, I … don’t think we are in agreement.
JCM: “I do not recall Dr Lague making any specific assertions about the magnitude of human caused disturbance”
We are talking about Patrick, who used Lague’s numbers, (his 0.3K warming by replacing natural landscapes with croplands). You initially complimented his work.
That’s of course before you threw out both Lague and patrick with the bathwater – when you dismissed climate models as “ imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be”.
JCM I understand these things through a lens of microclimates.
Then in Lague you chose the worst possible vehicle for that – he said NOTHING about microclimates – the greatest detail was presenting land as distinct … from ocean. Then was your implying that Lague modelling is just imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be”, and as such – provide no insight into the “real” world.
Make up your mind, would you?
“I think Using land/hydrology management to mitigate climate change in ways alternative to mitigating GHG emissions doesn’t make sense except for small/niche applications” […] “– because: noting that direct anthropogenic changes to water cycle (and surface albedo, roughness, etc.) may have some effect, but I believe small in terms of GMS(A)T.”… …“***[although the particular nature of such forcing (including spatial-temporal distribution), etc. may cause climate changes of a different ‘shape’ distinct from GHGs …”… “so conceivably (without more knowledge) some changes caused by land management/use could be significant relative to A-GHG-CC (anthropogenic GHG-driven climate change) ”…
Correction/Amendment/Clarification: Of course, making adjustments to our land+water use to mitigate climate changes caused by said use, including through forced ET/runoff + albedo + roughness effects, etc. (tree isoprene emissions, agricultural dust, … do we have an effect on DMS?), would tend to make sense. Such changes may/could be regional/seasonal/diurnal variations in T, precipitation and ET, wind, clouds, severe weather, etc. . (regional variations in T produce regional variations in p, thus wind, thus etc.)
(Also there’s the effects of industrial aerosol emissions; often those are coproducts with CO2… anyway…)
[Note I don’t know what the magnitude of these effects are – I’ve seen some numbers for irrigation regional T but I don’t remember them offhand (PS there can be some irrigation-induced regional-seasonal warming and also drying (eg. South Asian monsoon) even if global averaged effects are opposite – I remember this from a study and news article(s) I linked to in discussion with Tomáš last – May? June maybe?), anyway, the point is I can see the possibility of this type of thing, just from 1st principles.
It would be helpful to have a model comparison of regional effects of land-use (not just irrigation) and regional AGW (A-GHG) effects.]
Sometimes these changes could add to A-GHG-CC effects (eg. possibly some regional T effects of irrigation), but some may partly cancel (eg. some regional T effects of irrigation), in which case those wouldn’t be such a concern (in isolation).
For CC, I tend to think of /believe that A-GHG-CC being/is the (much?) bigger problem overall, especially in its future potential, particularly given that CO2 builds up over time with status-quo human behavior…
(whereas I have tend to think of/ believe that non-GHG land+water use-driven CC as being more static, and to some extent, something to which we (and ecosystems???) have already adapted (distinct from other land-use issues, eg. toxicity of pesticides, etc.) – except regarding ongoing tropical deforestation???)
…And it may be easier to go net-negative in CO2-eq emissions than to substantially reduce our land+water-use footprint – except through dietary changes ( duckweed Rubisco – apparently it’s quite enjoyable: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-meat-eaters-may-soon-be-digging-into-duckweed/ar-AA1d5XTa?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=830088fd959b4d20b3380e535c71934f&ei=13 ).
Obviously irrigation as a solution has sustainability issues if taken too far, or at least, tends to, setting aside large-scale solar desalination…
PS: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/new-study-reveals-unexpected-benefit-of-solar-farms-here-s-what-it-could-mean-for-farmers/ar-BB1iLd9Q?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e885db72264a472cad6a4b3923121a30&ei=3 “A recent study conducted by scientists from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado found that solar farms don’t have to only harvest clean, renewable energy from the sun — they can also be breeding grounds for pollinators and native plants.”
patrick 9 Mar: Obviously irrigation as a solution has sustainability issues if taken too far, or at least, tends to
that must be the understatement of the year – given the devastation reaped by the irrigation schemes in central Asia, rapid and often irreversible depletion of the major aquifers, diverting most of volume of major rivers like Colorado or Nile, saltification of soil in arid and semi-arid parts of the world, and massive CH4 emissions from the irrigated rice fields.
setting aside large-scale solar desalination…
if “as a solution” you mean the solution to cooling the global climate (i.e. the main subject interest of this website), why would you use the solar energy NOT to cool the Earth by reducing GHGs emissions, but to cool the Earth by increasing evaporation?
A few problem with the latter:
– irrigation does not address the cause but only one the symptoms
– the other symptoms – toxic pollution from burning of fossil fuels
and ocean acidification are not reduced, quite to the contrary – made worse by diverting the solar energy AWAY from reducing the
GHGs gasses
– using solar to reduce GHGs give the “two for the price of one” benefits – cools the Earth though reduction in GHGs, and then amplify that cooling by resulting changes in the water cycle (see the modelling by Schmidt et al. 2023, and analyses of the CERES observations). The irrigation works only on the water cycle part.
In Re to Piotr, 10 Mar 2024 at 11:15 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819922
Dear Piotr,
Please apologize my interference with your discussion with Patrick.
I would like to just remind both of you that in my first posts on Real Climate almost one year ago, I asked a question if combining an extensive solar energy exploitation with evaporative cooling of the involved solar cells with sea water (and subsequent deposition of the resulting salt in already existing deposits, if returning the concentrated brine back into sea might cause any undesired consequences) could positively influence the climate in arid regions and perhaps be even integrated in the inventory of tools for global climate mitigation.
It is unpleasant repeating it, however, the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr.
Best regards
Tomáš
great input
“land+water use-driven CC as being more static, and to some extent, something to which we (and ecosystems???) have already adapted
A few points:
1) This as a common misconception – perceived as a one-time change in boundary conditions related to LU/LC change. However, as I have previously mentioned, the catchment degradation continues. Today ongoing at a rate of around 5 tons per hectare per year soil carbon eroded. An enormous amount ongoing. Maybe it’s difficult to imagine.
While Lague’s SLIM model uses a bucket analogy, it’s better described as a sponge with decreasing capacity. By the miracle of the wilderness below our feet, the soil carbon sponge takes up water when it’s moist and releases it when it’s dry. The condition is monitored indirectly using base flows in streams and creeks. The missing sponge will look like increasing duration and depth of drought and decreasing frequency of precipitation owing to surface-atmosphere feedbacks.
In the most extreme example of an abrupt change, the concretization of the LA river catchment and riverbed resulted in zero baselow. Cool scenes from Terminator 2 were filmed in the bed of the LA river. Outside the urban areas the effective conversion of catchments to concrete via erosion of the soils to rockflour persists at a non-abrupt but ongoing and persistent rate.
2) Q: where has this static change in ET forcing been accounted for in contemporary climatology? I suppose it is somehow lumped into the uncertain feedbacks as it’s not present in summary forcing diagrams. Additionally, the systematic bias (overestimation) in both models and remote sensing retrievals of ET appear to be broadly recognized, but minimized as an issue of concern.
3) “dietary changes (duckweed Rubisco etc)”. I think this another large misconception. Reducing or eliminating the rate of catchment erosion requires no dietary change. Quite classic methods are available with almost no disruption. Simple things – avoid fallowing especially over winter; retain some intact residues and stems, minimize compaction, introduce cover crops into rotations, sample soils for nutrient loads. Allow the herd to graze and shit on that. It’s old a simple knowledge. Additionally, refrain from draining and filling the scattered residual wetland. It has its purpose; no irrigation required.
4) Restoring the soil genesis regime at large is coupled to the biodiversity targets and conservation initiatives. Nature devised everything we see above ground to feed down the below-grade flora, fauna, and to build the soil carbon sponge – it all biodegrades down. This below grade compost builds to about 10x the biomass of all the sticks above the surface. There is a concern that contemporary climatology accounts fo biosystems as the carbon sticks above grade, and seeks to introduce fast growing exotic species plantations. however, there are also campaigns against the trees so the confusion related to policy advice from climatology there is large. I think perhaps they should refrain from butchering that. Residual natural forests are sparse and practically unknown to those who live in mid latitudes. The local nature parks are almost exclusively plantation free from fungi and wildlife except in rare cases.
I am pleased the discussion has progressed to this point.
“For CC, I tend to think of /believe that A-GHG-CC being/is the (much?) bigger problem overall”
Yes, it might be the case in a relative and diffuse sense of unknown magnitude depending on your perspective and situation. From personal experience, if the well runs dry situated among the human caused unnatural desert-like rockflour base the issue is acute and the circumstances around that should be addressed as a priority in parallel to trace gas programs. Trickle-down governance directives appear to be inadequate in handling such matters and may seek a strategy to recognize that and to avoid meddling in the affairs of local community concerns.
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 10: “the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr”
Unfortunately for you, your posts are a matter of public record.
– Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”
where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that:
– TK May 31: “I can imagine that the intensified water cycle could REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way.”
– TK May 30: “current hot deserts would be preferable for this”
So much for you accusing me of being a liar for saying that you proposed to replace GHG mitigation with “desert irrigation”.
Your denier’s views may garner you appreciation of your fellow travelers
(JCM: “ I thank Tomas for the ability to reason objectively”) but for me
you are a liar and a coward, who unable to your own words – accuse me
of lies about your post.
So your lack of scientific knowledge is least of your problem. If I were you I would start with looking
Until you fix your ethics, I don’t see the point of treating you as if you were a partner in a discussion.
In Re to Piotr, 11 MAR 2024 AT 4:28 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819975
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your feedback.
I am aware that you have already presented those quotations from my posts as an evidence for my evil intentions. All right, I accept that this is the way how you perceive the world.
I think, however, that others may read my posts differently. They may create their own interpretations, or read them just as written. I do not know, because if I remember correctly, except you nobody else commented on these particular aspects.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz:
“I think, however, that others may read my posts differently. They may create their own interpretations, or read them just as written. I do not know, because if I remember correctly, except you nobody else commented on these particular aspects.”
I read your posts, and I get the exact same impression as Piotr. Sorry about that.
I particularly agree with Piotr on this issue : Tomas Kalisz Mar. 10: “the assertion that I propose desisting from renewable energy exploitation and replacing such efforts with “desert irrigation” is your deliberate construct, Piotr”…..Unfortunately for you, your posts are a matter of public record…..”
Except I would not call you a denialist as such. More of a luke warmer, probably driven by conservative political ideology given some of your views.
But I do agree with you on SOME elements of the mitigation issue. There can be some common ground.
Nigel Mr 12: “Except I would not call you a denialist as such.”
How else would call somebody who for almost a year pushes
one of the all-time denialist hits:
– water cycle dominates Earth climate, so why do we obsess about GHGs
– there are BETTER alternatives CANCEL the ENTIRE radiative forcing of GHGs – e.g. with evaporation
– let’s not use the existing technologies of reducing GHG emission,
because these are “brute-force” approach and
“would do more bad than good” and INSTEAD WAIT for the human ingenuity to come up with better alternatives, like the said increasing evaporation.
And how else do you call somebody who uses denialist phrase “ the so called anthropogenic warming” and then ignore the questions about that? And who systematically cherry-picks only those facts and arguments that support his denialist views?
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be Tomas Kalisz.
A couple months ago somebody brought here a definition from Wikipedia:
“Sealioning is a type of trolling that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”, and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings” Does it remind you someone?
See also Radge Havers to Tomas: “I’m about ready to categorize you as a debate-me-bro masquerading as a concern troll“.
In Re to Nigel, 12 Mar 2024 at 2:45 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820026
Dear Nigel,
Thank you for indicating that you perceived my Sahara example the same way as Piotr.
Let me ask still another question: Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? You do not need to reply if you think that it is an impolite question. I am just curious and would like to understand better how people perceive my inputs.
And if I have not exhausted your patience completely, still another question.
Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotr,
I understand denier to mean someone who denies that we are warming the climate by burning fossil fuels. I asked TK if he accepted the greenhouse effect and that burning fossil fuels warms the climate, and he said yes to both (in a very convoluted way)
I understand luke warmer to mean someone who accepts burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, but minimises the role of burning fossil fuels in the warming, and this minimisation fits TK perfectly. Like a hand in a glove. He minimises the role of anthropogenic CO2 and maximises the water cycle. Although his position seems ever shifting like the sand dunes.
Although you are right that TK pushes (completely crazy impractical) irrigation schemes as a major way of cooling the planet, he does seem to accept a role for renewables etc, (you may not have read these posts). But again that suggests he fits the definition of lukewarmer more than full on denialist.
Of course this could all be hair splitting. Its not as if there is a crystal clear differentiation of denier and luke warmer. They are just terms of general convenience.
I understand the duck test. Apparently it was Invented by the US military. I just think the test shows TK is a luke warmer.
And I agree TK is sea lioning. And its classic textbook sea lioning. But luke warmers also do that.
—————————–
Tomas Kalisz.
“Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? ”
Yes in respect of the issue of “Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that: .”
Of course you may have made a mistake in what you really meant – but such a thing can be tidied up if you just clarify in concise, plain unambiguous language what you really mean (something you are not great at doing). You should also be prepared to admit to what you said or admit when you are wrong, or at least not go on defending the indefensible.
The problem is you make yourself look like a denier all the time with your incessant denialist talking points, and you also sometimes look dishonest and you are frequently ambiguous. When I first read your posts I thought denier and my reaction was same as Piotr. It was only later I shifted you mentally into the luke warmer category.
“Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. ”
I try to look at what people post and be civil and objective and avoid exchanges of insults and vendettas against people. If I agree with some point they make I say so. If I disagree with some other point I say so.
But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
Clearly people may also have ideological motives for their positions as well. Piotr summed it up nicely as ideological, psychological or vested interests.
” I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?”
Please see my response to Piotr directly above.
PS: I do not agree with Piotr over everything, but I cant recall him ever making a huge blunder, and I dont have time to respond to everything and I tend to concentrate on the crazy denialists claims. Its important they get rebutted, and I enjoy the mental exercise and I enjoy reading the informative technical responses.
I do not have a science degree, but I did some physical geography at university which deals with the climate basics, and I have other qualifications relevant to aspects of the climate issue and I hope I add something to discussion.
In Re to Piotr, 12 Mar 2024 at 11:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820039
Dear Piotr,
Although I do not know if
– water cycle dominates Earth climate,
– there are BETTER alternatives CANCEL the ENTIRE radiative forcing of GHGs – e.g. with evaporation,
I confess that you have undisputedly proven that I am a denialist and sea lion.
Nevertheless,
as I from the very start of my participation in this discussion ask the question if evaporatively cooled solar cells could bring a positive synergy in climate change mitigation efforts by parallel water cycle enhancement and “clean” electricity production (an existing technology which I so far considered as a way to “decarbonization” of the world economy),
I still do not understand why
1) you obsess about GHGs in the extent that you refuse that water cycle is also an important component of Earth climate regulation,
2) you assert that I propose not using the existing technologies.
It is true that I assigned many other decarbonization policies as a “brute-force” approach that
“would do more bad than good”, however, I am not the single person that doubts about feasibility of pushing economically incompetitive technologies such as massive nuclear energy exploitation based on hopelessly inefficient PWR technology, natural gas replacement with hydrogen or economically senseless and environmentally destructive biomass exploitation. And I have not proposed to WAIT for the human ingenuity to come up with better alternatives, like the said increasing evaporation, but I proposed to start without any further unnecessary delay with exploiting all existing but yet ignored options, such as already existing but yet commercially unavailable technology for cheap electricity storage in sodium.
As regards the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming”, I hoped that you might forgive me that as I already admitted that it was quite unfortunate. I see and accept that a convicted denialist does not deserve any mercy, and have a single wish:
Could you do me the (last) favour and explain to the interested public (JCM and patrick o twentyseven), why you think that the difference between dividing by 510 and dividing by 127 is “hair splitting” (see my previous post of 10 Mar 2024 at 1:31 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-8199269 )?
To be honest, I still have a feeling that in interpreting Lague 2023, you contradict yourself, see my post of 11 Mar 2024 at 4:11 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819974
and that you, actually, interpret the article exactly opposite to the conclusion provided by its authors.
Greetings
Tomáš
negligent said But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
How hypocritically impotent do you have to be to be picking a fight with someone via ad hom attacks with zero substance who has spent virtually no time on these fora for a solid year or better? And lie about it all to boot? I’m nasty? Hmmm…. The above tells the true tale.
No better than when I pulled back my level of participation here. People like you have driven so many from these fora. Get your ego out of our problem-solving.
Tomáš Kalisz
You wrote:
“I confess that you have undisputedly proven that I am a denialist and sea lion.”
I suspect you don’t understand what it is that you are (or dismissively pretend to be) admitting to. Still, hold on to that thought.
Left to total freedom (freedom from forced suppression), the global interconnected dynamics of carbon, hydrology, climate, and vegetation tend to coalesce and progress towards a state of sustained moisture cycling.
Consequently, the average of climates experience a cooling trend alongside an increase in terrestrial moisture availability, as previously outlined specifically in the work by Dr. Pin-hsin Hu, and demonstrated using a state-of-the-art model by Lague. That is what Earth has been doing since forever.
Forced change in water recycling from the landscape (human caused suppression) is critical to the energy balance and global energy budgets. The factors of the energy budget closure remain large, due in-part to the diverse range of estimated evapotranspiration rates.
Contemporary teaching chooses to frame the controls on ET variation as arising exclusively from the climates themselves i.e. i) temperature ii) precipitation and iii) radiation. But that is plainly absurd considering the interconnected dynamics of the system. These two-way dynamics should be on the curriculum of any Earth System concept from day one.
Recognizing the earth system energy budget constraints within the current framework of forcings and feedbacks – and the massive knowledge gaps in the factors involved in closing the balance – it is simple to conclude that people who actively reject the significance of moisture or opt to discuss anything but that when characterizing climates display an extreme bias.
JCM: Contemporary teaching chooses to frame the controls on ET variation as arising exclusively from the climates themselves i.e. i) temperature ii) precipitation and iii) radiation.
BPL: Please cite a source from a climate science textbook that says ET variation can only arise from those three factors. Even I can think of another one, at least on a local scale: Wind velocity.
to BPL – about the winds.
the distinction is analytical energy balance closure vs process based approaches.
In energy balance the interannual variations in ET are controlled by potential evaporation (temperature), surface available energy (solar radiation), and water availability (limitation).
For ocean, actual evaporation follows the equilibrium evaporation which is temperature limited.
Land is more tricky owing to the diurnal variation in surface available energy (solar) and variations in moisture availability.
As previously discussed, Kleidon group shows novel methods for ET constraints using thermodynamic “maximum” power approach. https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/14/861/2023/
This simplifies the inherent complexities in land surface exchange.
Recognizing the nature of turbulent flux and the atmospheric heat transport in circulation (latent heat), wind isn’t free in energy balance. However, wind is definitely involved in explicit process based computation schemes such as GCM style models.
Of course wind is critical to practical applications relating to weather variation. Irrigationists are intimately familiar with that in required daily calculations, although a lot is being automated. Priestley–Taylor mode works best if your monitoring is sparse. Penman needs more sensor input.
JCM To Piotr, yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between.
Thank you, Captain Obvious, for restating what I already pointed out to Patrick. However, you are still missing the point I made on Mar 15 to YOU: the corrections for cropland not being like a desert nor like swamp DO NOT CANCEL each other out, as you have claimed with your [enter here my best rendition of Admiral Ackbar’s voice]: “It’s a wash”!
T sum up:
patrick calculation of the effect of crops via reducing of ET – the global warming 0.3K, is a serious OVERESTIMATE of the real effect of crops – since the actual number would be a fraction of that 0.3K. So rather than being an important “contribution”, it is:
– too small to matter (likely within the uncertainty range of climate model it uses)
– and ignoring the opposite effect of the cropland irrigation,
which cools the Earth by increasing ET.
Patrick, come to accept it (I think) – you (JCM) – have not.
For the point-by-point explanation where your went wrong – see my post to which you are “replying”.
To Piotr:
I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested. Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.
If it helps you to move on, your logics on the binary 1/3 2/3 issue appear to be accurate. Not desert when off and not swamp when on. An increasingly degraded catchment expresses its perturbed state at any time and does not follow arbitrary distinctions. A total downshift relative to its unperturbed state. I think patrick o was just providing an initial kick at the can guesstimate. I like the fractional logics but maybe applied instead spatially to soil/veg per unit area cropland parcel, E vs T partition, etc in order to capture the impact of widespread and ongoing catchment process degradation.
PS
you emphasize the “effect of the cropland irrigation which cools the Earth by increasing ET”
Yes, the stabilizing ET aspect in Earthly climates is the exact phenomenon you’ve been ideologically against.
The concept is repeated in each new summary review of knowledge in ET and climates, such as from:
A review of global terrestrial evapotranspiration: Observation, modeling, climatology, and climatic variability https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011RG000373
“The cooling effect of λE is so large that the Northern Hemisphere would be 15°–25°C warmer [Shukla and Mintz, 1982] if terrestrial λE were assumed to be zero.”
“On average, terrestrial λE uses approximately three fifths of Rn, with estimates from different models varying from 48% to 88% [Trenberth et al., 2009].”
This is old and classic knowledge and your perspective about irrigation does not align with the scale of the human footprint. The vast majority of disrupted catchment regions are not irrigated including cropland parcels and otherwise. Irrigated crop parcels are quite limited in space with limited timing of implementation throughout the year. This does not provide a compensation of 90% missing wetland, profound soil degradation, catchment drainage, pillaging, and concretization.
Tomas MAR 13
As regards the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming”, I hoped that you might forgive me that as I already admitted that it was quite unfortunate
For conditions of an effective apology see:
href=”https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/making_an_effective_apology
Hint – yours meets none of them. You don’t USE the deniers phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” by accident.
No more than calling a Black person the N-word and then claiming that you would never think of Black people in these terms. Particularly, if you have been known to repeat and defend various racist theories. In such a case, a slip of the tongue tells us more about the real you than all the denials how you didn’t mean what you posted after the fact.
And without honestly acknowledging your actions, how can you learn anything about yourself, and based on this, change ?
Life unexamined is not worth living.
In Re to Piotr, 18 Mar 2024 at 11:34 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820285
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately, the exchange splitted into several parallel threads. Thus, you might have missed my seriously meant apology for using the word “deliberately” in our exchange about my old posts regarding so called “desert irrigation”. It appeared in my post of 14 Mar 2024 at 8:58 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820285 .
Please look at this older post. I am sorry that I hurt you, it was not my intention.
I hope that my use of the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” has not hurt you personally as well, has it? If so, I would like to apologize too, hurting you was not my intention.
Remark:
I have not expected that being a denialist might be seen equivalent to being a racist. Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, maybe ridiculous, however acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.
Greetings
Tom
Tomas Kalisz Mar. 19: “I hope that my use of the denialist phrase “the so called anthropogenic warming” has not hurt you personally as well, has it?”
Don’t infantilize the discussion. It’s not about “hurt personal feelings” – but what the phrase “ the so called anthropogenic warming” used by the deniers to question the reality of the global and the human responsibility – tells us about you. By their fruits, not their assurances, you shall know them.
As for your accusations toward me of deliberately manipulating your words, which I have PROVEN (quoting your May3o and May 31 posts) was a boldface LIE, your half-ass “apology” doesn’t come even close to a real apology.
For one – you didn’t learn anything about yourself – without taking full responsibility – there is no way to ask yourself what made you go wrong, and what you should do differently in the future. So don’t waste my time with your fake-apologies.
TK: Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, maybe ridiculous, however acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.
BPL: Except that that belief is not harmless. Global warming denial bids fair to topple our civilization by preventing any social action to mitigate the damage.
JCM: “To Piotr: I caution to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions as a “real effect” or something of a “real ΔGMST”, as you previously suggested.”
To JCM, I caution you to avoid presenting your own mental constructs and perceptions of other people’s arguments. “Real” was a short-hand for “more realistic than extreme T range used by patrick and complimented by JCM”
JCM “ Your rules about how things ought to be do not apply to that. Fixating on imaginary process mechanisms and applying corrections to that is all a bit nonsense.”
Explain then YOUR joining my discussion with patrick to ….discuss … one of these corrections, I quote:
JCM Mar12: “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash
Your dismissal of these correction began only AFTER I have proven that you got the sign of the correction you were discussing, and therefore your conclusion WRONG- Piotr (Mar. 15).
And discussion is about patrick o27 using the results of model simulation from Lague et al. 2023. A paper that … your brought to this forum, promoted it here, and described in painful detail many (most?) of their numerical results, and apparently thought that their extreme simulations still offered valuable, quantitative, insight into the real word.
Now turns out
instead of ridiculing Lague et al. and all the people who referred to them as
of imaginary process mechanisms” offer . How biz
though that
Strange that you didn’t mention you contempt to that paper and his authors, particularly that it was you who brought that Lague 2023 paper to this forum and posted pages fill the numbers and symbols from that
“ imaginary process mechanisms ” paper
frequently referred to in support your opinions.
Somehow I don’t recall you dismissing Lague 2023 as a bunch of “ imaginary process mechanisms ” having nothing to tell us about reality.
I have proven that you got the sign of the correction, and therefore your conclusion
wrong:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820153
So when OTHER people make corrections to make model estimates more realistic – you lecture them patronizingly – when YOU did the same and messed up i the process (proved your ignorance by getting the sign wrong) – that’s … all OK? ;-)
Tomáš,
This has been discussed here ad nauseam. So, for instance, do you think anti-vax denialism is some sort of harmless religion?
To get you started, an oldie but goodie from the denialism blog
(now on the Wayback Machine because Seed/Science Blogs is long defunct):
“What is Denialism”
https://web.archive.org/web/20070909172802/http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php
A course from the University of Queensland
Denial 101x
Also a bit dated but still on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/denial101x
Tomas Kalisz: TK: “Personally, I see denialism of the climate science rather as a kind of personal religion, acceptable in the same extent in which we accept other personal beliefs and religions.”
Personal belief in fairies can’t harm others. Denialism can- by trying to discredit science and delay meaningful action on climate change you make the climatic catastrophe more likely and more extreme: not only through the direct death from weather extremes, but mainly – by degrading the civilization-supporting systems, most prominently food production: if you family dies of hunger – everything that makes the civilization – laws, economy, technology, ethics – collapses. And without civilization – instead of 8+ bln people – there may be space on Earth for a few 100 mln. Thus the blood of billions will be on your and other denialist hands. By their fruits you shall know them.
That’s why comparing you to a racist, if anything, was unfair to racists.
re my: …”runoff from solar panels/plants could be concentrated into neighboring land in semiarid zones for agricultural usage. The total ET of the larger region should be unchanged“… or not…
“currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”
for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash. It’s not a binary thing anyway. The soils are quicker to dry, and rooting depth does not resemble the native species. The ET, which has no choice but to operate at the limit, has a decreasing cap.
Here the former great central valley swamp / marshland of California resembles more closely that of a desert regime today, even during growing season. https://www.xerces.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/peter%20albright%20woolf%20farming_0.jpg
Find here cracked earth which is a sure sign of missing soil organic matter. Cooling and moistening flux is nowhere to be found there in Austria. Definitely not from the soils.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-corn-field-or-maize-field-with-mud-cracks-or-drying-cracks-burgenland-77084523.html
Illinois in May 2023 with >50% of field areas missing soil organic matter and showing its bare naked subsoils in the mottling. Every hectare featuring drains with fashionable buffer strips. notice the wind turbines which are promised to stabilize the wells.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@40.9575452,-88.2402589,1742m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
While the increasingly recognized practical interventions are wide ranging and highly localized, pressure to produce is increasing with diminishing margins and with increasing input and operational costs prescribed in-part for trace gas initiatives. This is somewhat counter productive from a stewardship stance. Irrespective of the interventions, the existing factors of change must first be appreciated before a reasonable environmental framework can be devised for politics or teaching.
I think somehow the scale of the ongoing change is under represented in numerical climate accounting schemes. The decreasing evaporative fraction of surface flux is well recognized, however few models can capture the absolute change in ET. To understand that and to avoid overlooking it requires more boots on the ground and less reliance on spacecraft.
After, “quoting” my: “currently crop-land for 1/3 year is not ZERO ET either”
JCM Mar12, comes with his “but”:
“for the sake of balance, on the flipside, the other 2/3rds of growing season is not resembling swamp. So it’s a wash”
“It’s NOT a wash”, My dear Watson- because the 2nd correction does not cancel but ADDS to the 1st one. Which I had already included in post you comment on.
Or if you prefer symbolic notation:
Piotr: accounting for “A” reduces the effect of crops, and accounting for “B” reduces it further
JCM: … but “ for the sake of balance, on the flipside ” there is also… “A” which cancels the effect of B, so overall “ it’s a wash“.
No it isn’t – you go the signs wrong – A adds to B, not subtract from it. If you still don’t get it, let me put it this way:
1. If all land was a desert, the GMST would be higher by 7-8K than
if all the land was a swamp.
2. Patrick estimated the effect of crops on GMST to be +0.3K, assuming a decrease in evaporation: for 1/3 of the year (fallow season) 12.6% of land ice-free area that is under crops will behave like a 100% desert (i.e. 0 ET) (for the remaing 2/3 of the year it will behave like a swamp):
ΔGMST(crops) = ΔGMST (DesertLand – SwampLand) *1/3* 12.6% = + 0.3 K (warming) (eq. 1)
c) To which I pointed that it is an overestimation – since the actual range of T is narrower than that between desert and swamp
– cropland in 2/3 of year doesn’t have the 100% of ET of a swamp
– cropland in 1/3 of year is not like a 100% desert (with 0 ET)
Let’s call these corrections x and y, respectively. So instead eq. 1 we get:
ΔGMST(crops, real) = [ (Td-x) – (Ts+y)] *1/3*12.6 %
Hence Patrick’s eq. (1) overestimates real ΔGMST (eq. 2) by
(x+y)*1/3*12.6%.
Compare this with JCM’s claimed that y CANCELS OUT x , thus
the net effect of both corrections is ~zero (JCM: “ So it’s a wash“)
To sum up – JCM reinvented the wheel (since I introduced the Ts correction before him), and got his wheel … wrong (since correction to Ts does not cancel, but ADDS TO the correction to Td).
Well, I can’t say I am surprised – I have come to expect from JCM that level of comprehension, logic. arithmetic skills, and humility. ;-)
To Piotr,
yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between. This is true with or without introducing a relentless and overwhelming suppression of natural process. The ongoing disruption is occurring 100% of time, not 1/3. As I have stressed many times before, you will not grasp these insights through a screen or indulging in mental games. The highly degraded and unnatural catchment characteristics persist regardless of your drifting arguments. Having actively removed yourself as an ally in direct climate stabilization, I recommend to abstain from the distortions and extreme bias. The driving force your present is nothing more than tenacious contempt for a perceived enemy. Your ongoing crude and widely drifting arguments are flimsy and distract from advancing your own interest in climates.
re Piotr https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820153 – Your point is correct here, assuming JCM meant what you thought he did, or otherwise taken without that context. However, it’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong:
re Piotr @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819583
…“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.”
from Fig 9 of https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1 “Reduced terrestrial evaporation increases atmospheric water vapor by generating cloud feedbacks”:
Caption of fig 9, emphasis mine: “Figure 9. Change in global (solid), land (hatched), and ocean (dotted) annual mean top of atmosphere (TOA) fluxes for DesertLand–SwampLand. The breakdown of toa flux changes due to shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation are shown. Panel (a) shows the changes in toa shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes decomposed using the radiative kernel into the contributions due to water vapor, atmospheric temperatures, surface temperatures, cloud cover, and surface albedo (i.e. snow changes). Panel (b) combines the fluxes into those driven by the cloud-free atmosphere and Plank response (air temperature, water vapor, and surface temperature), those driven by clouds, and surface albedo.”…
Global: (W/m² inferred from text) from 9a:
dSWdCloud -14.8 , dLWdCloud 2.0 ; sum -12.8
dLWdQ: -6.0 , dSWdQ -1.5 ; sum -7.5
dSWdSnowAlb -1.6
Sum dCloud+dQ+dSnowAlb: -21.9
dLWdT(T atm inferred) 15.8 , dLWdTs (T sfc inferred) 5.8 ; sum 21.6 (ie., TOA flux changes due to surface and atmospheric temperatures are both positive outgoing.)
Net TOA -0.3
“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.” last sentence before section 3.2.2.
While I have skipped and maybe skimmed some parts up to this point (end of sec 3.2.1), I feel confident in asserting that the 0.3 W/m² of fig 9 is the same 0.3 W/m² mentioned in section 2, and is not the forcing. I’m not sure that the effective instanteous/? forcing would be ≈ cloud effect (global or over land?) because feedbacks to ΔT can include cloud changes; I would consider the slopes of dT/dt (DesertLand – SwampLand) of SST, land and atmosphere, multiplied by effective heat capacities, near the beginning of the ET-forcing, to ascertain an effective TOA radiant forcing… but anyway, it may seem like a moot point, given that you accept that Lague et al state ~ 8 K ≈ ΔGMST (DesertLand – SwampLand), but it is an instance where JCM seems (unless I missed something in what JCM asserted) to have been ahead of you in understanding. (PS I was on the path toward this judgement before any ‘buttering up’ took place.)
(Equilibrium is approached as the energy imbalance decays, via response fluxes (includes Planck response, other feedbacks) increasingly ‘canceling’ the applied (change in) forcing (wherein positive feedbacks reduce the response and negative feedbacks add to it). – https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819623 – I expect you know this but I wanted to restate it here; sometimes I say things not because I assume the people I am responding to don’t know it but, just in case they, or others, don’t, or just because it’s a worthwhile point to make; I guess you do this as well…)
JCM To Piotr, yes the Earth does not resemble a swampland or desertland, but somewhere in between.
Thank you, Captain Obvious, for restating what I already pointed out to Patrick. However, you are still missing the point I made on Mar 15 to YOU: the corrections for cropland not being like a desert nor like swamp DO NOT CANCEL each other out, as you have claimed with your [enter here my best rendition of Admiral Ackbar’s voice]: “It’s a wash”!
T sum up:
patrick calculation of the effect of crops via reducing of ET – the global warming 0.3K, is a serious OVERESTIMATE of the real effect of crops – since the actual number would be a fraction of that 0.3K. So rather than being an important “contribution”, it is:
– too small to matter (likely within the uncertainty range of climate model it uses)
– and ignoring the opposite effect of the cropland irrigation,
which cools the Earth by increasing ET.
Patrick, come to accept it (I think) – you (JCM) – have not.
For the point-by-point explanation where your went wrong – see my post to which you are “replying”.
patrick o 27: 16 MAR “ Your point is correct here, assuming JCM meant what you thought he did, or otherwise taken without that context.”
The ONLY assumption I made was that JCM responded to my argument. Without this assumption – there is no discussion. And within it, I proved the fault in JCM’s reasoning. Specifically:
– the correction for the cropland during 2/3 having less ET than swamp does not cancel the correction for cropland during the remaining 1/3 of year having more ET than a desert, as JCM claimed (“It’s a wash”), but being of the same sign – the two corrections ADD to each other INSTEAD.
I haven’t seen you or JCM disproving the above argument. So …. why would you caveat your saying that JCM was wrong with leaving the possibility that I … misunderstood? misrepresented? JCM, and took his words out of context???
Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
I’ve never said that. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
Patrick: and you’ve never been wrong:
I’ve never said that either, so no need to break down the doors nobody locked.
Patrick: re Piotr @ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819583
…“And when you ADD ALL three “differences”…
Huh? What has my post from February on a entirely different subject (interpretation of different TOA energy fluxes) has to do with current discussion (your use of the GMST differences to assess the impact of crops)?
It is hard enough to keep JCM’s attention on the subject as it is; you bringing up an unrelated topic – does not help.
And if you have a case of d’esprit d’escalier and want to relitigate past discussions – reply to the original posts, NOT to the post on a different topic.
re Piotr
“I haven’t seen you or JCM disproving the above argument. So …. why would you caveat your saying that JCM was wrong with leaving the possibility that I … misunderstood? misrepresented? JCM, and took his words out of context???”
No, I meant that the important part of what you wrote can be understood without the context of JCM’s comment.
And sometimes I think it’s a good idea to try to find a true or logical interpretation of what someone says if the most obvious interpretation doesn’t make sense.
“Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
I’ve never said that. ”
So what’s with: “Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )” , and from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819771 “(The ability to regurgitate Lague’s numbers, formulas, and jargon – does not confer the credibility on the regurgitator, nor translate into knowing what Lague results mean for his own (JCM’s) claims.)”
It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours) within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.** I’ll give you that it seems a bit glitchy in the ‘ocean heat uptake’ time zone. But maybe just tone down the insults, at least in the first time zone – it looks bad.
“Huh? What has my post from February on a entirely different subject […]And if you have a case of d’esprit d’escalier and want to relitigate past discussions – reply to the original posts, NOT to the post on a different topic.”
As I see it, this is the principal March edition of the Lague et al. 2023 thread, which was initiated by your response to my comment that was in part a response to your erroneous response to JCM. I had intended to come back to this point for a while; I didn’t realize this was a timed test.
On to more substantive matters:
As I understand it, JCM suggests/asserts that direct, or near-direct, effects of land+water use, on ET, including via soil degradation in established agricultural land, significantly contributes to climate change and also changes ECS to other forcings – eg. A-non H₂O-GHGs.
As I see it, the effect (of ET effects of land+water use), on GMS(A)T is likely small; regionally it may be larger – I’ve read as much for irrigation effect on T, although that is not the main concern here(?) – as for regional effects of ET suppression on T and hydrology? Qualitatively it sounds plausible. I would like to see an attempt at quantifying it. JCM has provided some links – I haven’t gotten around to reading most of them …
(but I have skimmed the Kleidon paper, and read more closely the first two examples (horizontal heat flow and vertical convection) – I skimmed the first part because I already knew it)
…; It’s not clear any of them specifically consider soil quality. For JCM – can you specifically point to such a study (or any study quantifying land-use/cover ET effects)? (Hopefully the distinct regional-seasonal-diurnal?/etc. fingerprint is distinct from CO2+CH4+… and aerosol effects, land use/cover albedo effects, etc.)
Qualitatively, it also makes sense that a tropospheric temperature profile with a thicker near-surface layer with dry convection would increase ECS through reducing the negative lapse rate feedback, but, although without doing any math on the matter, I’d expect this is a rather insignificant effect of direct land-use/cover/soil quality/quantity changes.
Patrick 22 MAR “ No, I meant that the important part of what you wrote can be understood without the context of JCM’s comment.
If you really meant to accept my point as “correct” WITHOUT the context of JCM comment“, WHY would you then …. build up your post on …. my response to the JCM, write “ Your point is correct here, assuming JCM meant what you thought he did“, and follow with: “ It’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong ” ???
That’s … a lot of JCM references for a post NOT referring to JCM.
– Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
– Piotr: “I’ve never said that. ”
Patrick Mar.22: “ So what’s with: “Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )”
“ twice a day” or even more rarely – is NOT “never“.
Patrick Mar.22: “ It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours) ”
The proof is in the pudding. Not to look far – see how “fine” was JCM ‘s argument here:
Patrick: “As I understand it, JCM suggests/asserts that direct, or near-direct, effects of land+water use, on ET, including via soil degradation in established agricultural land, significantly contributes to climate change
to which you (Patrick) have shown that conversion of natural landscapes (mostly – forests) to croplands, EVEN if using EXTREME envelope conditions (i.e., difference between desert and a swampland ET), produced … only a small ΔGMST=0.3C warming.
Furthermore, I pointed out that even this small 0.3C warming is a MAXIMUM effect – in reality, the cropland is not as dry as a desert during 1/3 of a year, not as wet as a swamp during 2/3 of that year – hence after the corrections for both – ΔGMST(crops) would become only a FRACTION of that 0.3C calculated from the desert – swamp difference.
And on top of all that, agricultural irrigation by increasing ET instead of decreasing it, would FURTHER counter that “fraction of 0.3C warming”,
making it even smaller or actually making it into a small net cooling.
A fraction of of a fraction of a 0.3C or even slight cooling – is NOT a significant contribution to AGW.
JCM tried to defend your +0.3C – by claiming that the non-swamp correction would cancel out the non-desert correction – but since your estimate of ΔGMST was proportional to the difference between desert and swamps,
the correction to the swap term further reduces, not increases ΔGMST, hence has the effect opposite to his conclusion: ” so it’s a wash”.
Unable to defend his getting the sign of the correction wrong, JCM decided
to discredit … making corrections at all, in the process discrediting modelling in general, by describing it as “ imaginary process mechanisms” that applies arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be” and therefore
offers no insight into the real world. Unfortunately to him, by doing so he discredit the value of his own source – the modelling by Lague et al. 2023,
as well as the work JCM supported – YOUR “0.3C” on the numbers from Lague
numbers), so by extension was guilty of the same.
” It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine (maybe better than yours)“, eh? ;-)
Re “If you really meant to accept my point as “correct” WITHOUT the context of JCM comment“, WHY would you then”…
That only pertained to the 1st sentence of my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820197
“ The proof is in the pudding. Not to look far – ”…“to discredit … making corrections at all, in the process discrediting modelling in general,”…
I haven’t digested all of what JCM said in that regard, and I believe he’s made some errors, and I wonder if he’s not attributing some portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects to more direct agricultural effects (but I don’t know) – and I should add I started to consider that maybe regional ΔECS effects might be bigger(??) (my expectation of insignificance was made more with GMS(A)T in mind) … but which ‘time zone’ does this fit in?
Emphasis added:
“It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine” […] “within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.**”
In response to the above:
A reasonable overview of various local and regional studies in ET and landuse disturbance is available from the Huryna and Pokorny group:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311340976_The_role_of_water_and_vegetation_in_the_distribution_of_solar_energy_and_local_climate_a_review
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11273-013-9334-2 “The importance of wetlands in the energy balance of an agricultural landscape”
In our chat it could easily be overlooked that the greatest magnitude of a parcel disturbance is occurring when the sun is most intense. Previously I used an annually averaged equilibrium concept which could be misleading … More than half the time the ET is practically zero (at night; winter) – conversely, during a day in summer the potential is peaking at many 100s of Wm-2 (600-1000 W/m2??). It’s during these times the disturbance is most pronounced. This goes without saying, or so I thought.
Disappeared wetland (or evaporative fraction) means the largest relative magnitude of suppression is occurring at the worst time. The swamp still missing when it’s hot is what’s especially essential.
From the review of Huryna and Pokorny, a few remarks on local and regional process mechanisms is offered to add some flavor in our discussion:
“”””Conversion of natural to agricultural fields changes land surface characteristics, which lead to redistribution of surface energy components (Esau and Lyons 2002). ..
More than 51 % (45.9 x 10^6 ha) of the total area of wetland has been replaced by cropland in the USA since Presettlement (Mitsch and Hernandez 2013). … about 400 W·m−2 has thus been shifted from latent to sensible heat flux for days with the highest solar irradiance (Huryna et al. 2014). Thereby, we can assume that more than 175,000 GW of energy has been converted into sensible heat in the territory of the USA …
Hurtt et al. (2006) suggested that 42–68 % of global land surfaces have been modified by land-use practices since 1700.””””
Recognizing the daunting complexity of land surface process models, it’s useful to have an analytical framework to explore such issues. Below is a diurnal thermodynamic discussion, with an example provided using the different climate sensitivities of land v ocean (here):
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/8/849/2017/esd-8-849-2017.pdf
The key difference being that the oceanic diurnal variation in solar radiation is buffered in sub surface mixed layer storage change, whereas for landscapes the diurnal variation of solar is buffered in the lowest atmosphere. During the day the formation of the turbulent boundary layer completes the storage change. This instability drives turbulent flux with dry convection promoting a deepening of the boundary layer. This results in a greater lapse rate that is closer to the dry adiabatic one; so lands in general are deemed to be more sensitive than ocean surface, with drying ones increasingly so.
Kleidon groupie Ghausi applied the framework to discuss thermodynamic limits, such as landscape moisture availability (water limitation factor), to turbulent flux, radiative controls, temperature, and cloud in a global perspective of landscapes.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2220400120
“Using satellite observations for cloudy and clear-sky conditions, we show that clouds cool the land surface over humid regions by up to 7 K, while in arid regions, this effect is absent due to the lack of clouds. We conclude that radiation and thermodynamic limits are the primary controls on LSTs and turbulent flux exchange which leads to an emergent simplicity in the observed climatological patterns within the complex climate system.”
Bear in mind additionally the ongoing issue in surface energy budget closure, with a generic blind spot still in the range of 20 W/m2. This represents a current inability to quantitatively discern change in such factors to a resolution better than ~2K. Nevertheless, an analytical framework presents the opportunity to infer effects based on observable energy budget constraints, provided we avoid artificially confining perspective.
Patrick: “ I wonder if [JCM] is not attributing some portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects to more direct agricultural effects”
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand:
1. you used the model of Lague 2023 to calculate
the ΔGMST due to replacement of forests wit cropland
2. I responded that you needed two major corrections,
3. JCM joined in to claim that the 2nd correction will cancel the 1st one. No mention of “portion CO2+etc. and/or aerosol effects“.
4. I have shown that JCM got the sign of that correction, and therefore his conclusion, wrong.
5. JCM, unable to disprove 4 … lectured that we shouldn’t do corrections at all, because the climate modelling (like Lague’s and your use of it) – are just “ imaginary process mechanisms that apply arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be” according to the model authors, and therefore offer no insight into the real world.
To evaluate logical and intellectual value of JCM contribution does not require knowing whether
he “ attributed [or not] some portion CO2+etc. and /or aerosol effects” to the climate modelling that he subsequently dismissed as “imaginary process mechanisms“.
Patrick: “ It seems to me that JCM’s clock works fine” […] “within the limits of the Lague et al. 2023 ‘time zone’, setting aside the adjacent ‘application to the real world’ time zone.”
First, don’t mix other man’s metaphors (broken clock being right twice a day, is NOT about … getting the time zone right).
Second, how your saying that JCM may be right “in Lague time zone” proves your accusation that I claimed that … JCM has ALWAYS been wrong and I have ALWAYS been right?
Third, why would you say that JCM “works well” in Lague modelling context – when I have just shown that he does not know what the model works (he got the correction – completely WRONG), and when, unable to admit it, he threw the climate modelling under the bus – dismissed it as just “ imaginary process mechanisms that apply arbitrary “ rules about how things ought to be” according to the model authors and as such, offering no insight into the real world?
And after all that you still stand by your:
“ It seems to me that JCM’s [understanding of climate models] works fine (maybe better than yours) ” ?
Re Piotr – (https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820626 )
Clarification – I used the phrase “it’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong” as a sort of admonishment (the numerical values of times wrong or correct are beside the point) – I believe JCM was correct about Lague et al 2023’s fig. 9 (although it’s possible I missed some of what he’s said – it’s easier for me to keep track of my own understanding of fig. 9) and your rebuttal was erroneous and included the phrase “Aga-baga?”, and you never acknowledged your error while continuing to insult JCM’s intellect (which IMO is significantly better than a broken clock), and that just bothered me.
When I first posted my 0.3 calc, I was trying to show
1. It was likely a small fraction… (to T.K.),
2. …of a large potential (to you)
– I failed at 1. because I lacked information; on 2., I was hoping you would reevaluate your interpretation of fig. 9 upon seeing the 6.8 K (but actually, ~ 8 K) value.
You also incorrectly corrected my ~ 0.3 K calculation (given guessed input parameter) twice and then wrote it off as hair splitting when I pointed out your error. – of course, there were two errors (guessed input parameter, and the 6.8 K should have been ~ 8 K) – but –
-I intended for anyone with knowledge on the matter to offer corrections there, which may have been what JCM was referring to when he (or she or they – it occurs to me that I don’t know) said you misunderstood my contribution, or something to that effect.
– do you agree with my interpretation of fig 9?
Patrick: “ Clarification – I used the phrase “it’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong” as a sort of admonishment”
No need for the clarification – I got your intention the first time – my only question was, why admonish me by …. attributing to me arrogant, and easy to show wrong, claims that I have never made?
Patrick: “ I believe JCM was correct about Lague et al 2023’s fig. 9″
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand – your admonishment wasn’t after the discussion of Fig.9, but after my post showing that JCM got the sign of the correction, and therefore his conclusion about your estimates of the effect of the crops, wrong.
In symbolic notation, (“A” and “X” are disjoint sets)
– Piotr: JCM got “A” completely wrong
– patrick; It’s not like JCM has never been correct and you’ve never been wrong, I believe he was correct about “X”
And the final irony – your reference to JCM being right about Fig. 9 from Lague may have come … too late:
– JCM, unable to show that he got the correction right – threw the baby (Lague et al. 2023) with the bathwater (the correction) – by calling the correction, and by extension, Lague model, “ imaginary process mechanisms” that apply their authors’ arbitrary “rules about how things ought to be” and “cautioned” us that they offer no insight into the real world.
So your compliments for JCM on getting correct …. what he now dismisses as “ imaginary process mechanisms” no longer carries the same weight. ;-)
Housekeeping Question/Request:
Is there any way to increase the number of Recent Comments shown?
Last month Gavin asked for input on plug-ins; can anyone familiar with the blog technology address this particular mechanism?
Someone played by the rules and posted a new comment on the “Not just…. part II” thread, which was interesting to me, but could easily have been buried by the usual addicted suspects who are not following Gavin’s request to limit their comments.
It’s the simplest fix I can think of to allow both regulars and visitors to follow topics of interest and avoid what they consider repetitive and time-wasting. Thanks in advance.
OK, I have a climate question as well, but I’m going to…. wait… until… tomorrow… or maybe even longer!!. (Gosh, I hope I can stand the pain of withdrawal.)
[Response: I can increase this I think… – gavin]
To Tomas:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-feb-2024/#comment-819643
The foundational feedback concepts are usually assigned as essential reading in any introductory course. No mediation should be required.
In the desert minus swamp simulation diagram, the LW radiative response is caused by the climate change (positive upward).
The increased solar absorption in desertland is compensated by a temperature increase in equilibrium. The radiative response is linearly proportional to the temperature change. This is the same foundational principle used in any energy balance scheme.
17.9 W/m2 higher solar absorbed in desertland is balanced by a 15.6 W/m2 temperature radiative response (Planck – wv) and 2 W/m2 LW high cloud feedback to ET forcing. (to within 0.3 W/m2)
For interest we can decompose some of the temperature dependent feedbacks.
Figure 9 gives a surface + atmosphere Planck difference of + 5.8 + 15.8 = 21.6 W/m2; Desertland is much hotter.
The water vapor feedback difference is -6 W/m2 (I assume that’s water vapor + lapse rate effect). More water vapor in desertland.
These temperature dependent feedbacks are net 21.6 – 6 = +15.6 W/m2 LW (out) in desertland compared to swampland. That is the stabilizing Planck response to higher temperature and the water vapor feedback in equilibrium.
Reducing LW cloud effect (high cloud ET forcing feedback) gives another +2 LW out, for a total + 17.6 W/m2 LW out in desertland compared to swampland.
This balances the total increased solar absorbed = -17.9 W/m2 (to within 0.3 W/m2).
17.9 W/m2 less SW out in desertland is balanced by a 15.6 W/m2 temperature radiative response (Planck – wv) and 2 W/m2 LW out cloud feedback. (to within 0.3 W/m2)
Patrick o 27’s ΔT = 6.8K puts Planck feedback around 21.6/6.8 = λp 3.2 W/m2 per K
aside: That is ~0.6 W/m2 per K less than λsb (blackbody radiative response 3.8 W/m2 per K) for an ET forcing. Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5nfe4B5BsE&t=1943s
Additionally:
The water vapor effect difference dQLW is listed at -6 W/m2, which puts λwv+lr at combined -0.9 W/m-2 per K. Total column water vapor was listed as 1.10kg / K (higher where it’s warmer in deserland). Bounding by low end values for water vapor + lapse rate factors, taken from Soden and Held (2006), gives an estimate -1.5 W/m2/K λwv + 0.6 W/m2/K λlapse rate. Lague seems to bundle these terms and could have been more explicit about that instead of simply labelling it dQ.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/19/14/jcli3799.1.xml
In summary, the all sky TOA LW equilibrium radiative response caused by the ET forced climate change (positive upward; Desertland – Swampland; hotter) is composed of:
Planck response: 21.6 W/m2
wv effect:-10.2 W/m2
Lapse rate effect: 4.2 W/m2
High cloud LW effect: 2 W/m2
Sum: 17.6 W/m2
These concepts are foundational to practically all aspects of contemporary climate change discourse. Anyone actively butchering that should deemed unreliable on any other aspect of the climate system, regardless of their passion for the subject.
“Patrick o 27’s ΔT = 6.8K puts Planck feedback“…correction (see above https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819767 and followup); actually more like ~ 8 K
oops the aside about Planck thing was supposed to go to Timothy Cronin’s presentation here https://youtu.be/l5nfe4B5BsE?si=wJvaVnTPcxZq3RtB&t=2691
from
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819700
Revisiting the El Nino-ASI connection I posited in 2015, accurately, and which was upheld by the 2020 low following the weak 2019 EN (though I think that was about system change more so than that small EN), we now face not only an El Nino, but a general global massive jump in temperatures, sometimes hitting 6 sigma anomalies. We’ve crossed 1.5C on a trailing average and, so far as I know, remain there.
Predicting low ASI extent at this point seems pretty obvious, but given I predicted it once the 2nd straight La Nina showed up, if we get a new low or near new low in ’24~25, it will be the 2nd time I’ve predicted such conditions a year or more before it happened.
Is anyone on board with this now-clear pattern yet?
Background and new info:
From 2015, my prediction of the 2016 low/near-new low based on El Nino: https://realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/08/unforced-variations-aug-2015/comment-page-5/#comment-635199
From 2021, Scripps’ “Heat Bombs” validating my theory: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/heat-bombs-destroying-arctic-sea-ice
From 2024, Antarctic Melt kicked off by large EN: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/heat-bombs-destroying-arctic-sea-ice
So now we have an ENSO effect being noted at both poles.
Still need convincing?
I’m not on board with the particular connection between an El Nino and low Arctic sea ice extent. This winter is actually a counter-example. We have the strongest El Nino since 2015, while the last three winters were La Nina. However, the maximum ice extent last winter, as reported by NSIDC, was significantly lower than this winter. The other two winters look slightly lower than this year. That’s assuming we’ve reached maximum sea ice extent for the winter.
Same for the Antarctic; last austral summer was lower than this year.
I’m only saying that this doesn’t look like a useful predictive tool separate from the overall decline in sea ice as the world warms.
A different kind of ice metric that’s been discussed on RC is ice-out dates : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/02/more-ice-out-and-skating-day-data-sets/
This metric is really a measure of accumulated heat during the winter season, so the greater the heat the less ice builds up and the quicker it disappears in spring. It’s also an objectively discrete observation — the ice can stretch across the lake one day and be completely gone the next. The interesting stat for many of the lakes in Minnesota is the role that the El Nino of 1878 plays in the record books. The earliest ice-out on Lake Minnetonka occurred on March 10, 1878. Same year for Lake Osakis, which is almost 100 miles north. These are both indicated on the RC post linked above.
I’m not certain whether the Lake Minnetonka ice-out date will beat the record this year. It may be close. Yet, it is worth pondering that it took almost 150 years of AGW plus an El Nino leading to a strong warming spike to even rival the impact of the 1878 El Nino. (BTW, I didn’t even set foot on lake ice this winter).
“I’m not certain whether the Lake Minnetonka ice-out date will beat the record this year.”
This actually rated national news this year — from USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/12/lake-minnetonka-ice-out/72941498007/
As Real Climate posts have discussed, ice-out dates are a sensitive indicator of the integrated warmth of a meteorological winter. Every day that the temperature stays above freezing detracts from a lake’s ability to integrate ice volume; this then leads to a shortened period for the entire volume of the ice to melt. It’s also very precise in dating, it shows no UHI effect, and eliminates instrument and siting errors.
Have a GPT chat about ice-out here:
https://chat.openai.com/share/dec3ca14-ef9d-45bb-bb14-e30ccd07ed6d
To quote Prince, the only way it can be wrong is if someone finds “That ain’t Lake Minnetonka”.
So the takeaway is how strong that El Nino of 1878 was, as over 140 years of climate change with an El Nino assist could not beat the record date.
Killian says
3 Mar 2024 at 9:53 PM
HI Killian, there;’s nothing new here mate. The same old clown show with the usual clowns. :-)
My prediction also stands a Blue arctic ocean event 2024 +/- 2 years (under 1 mil sq klms),.. is still right on target. The ramped up ENSO implications and global warming on steroids and mega rate increases in GHG in the atmosphere is patently obvious. All projected over a decade ago now.
“The same old clown show with the usual clowns. :-) ” says the guy with the longest shoes and the biggest red, bulbous nose.
John Pollack: “However, the maximum ice extent last winter, as reported by NSIDC, was significantly lower than this winter. ”
You have completely misunderstood the concept. I have made no effort to correlate ASI maxima, only ASI summer minima.
You’ll need to revisit the issue. Maybe actually read the stuff this time.
Cheers
Ned, I expect no less from this site. It’s been ego-driven, antagonistic toward anything NbS, regenerative or non-mainstream, and rabidly against anything not IPCC-conservative, since 2015. Every poster who even edged toward regenerative views and solutions has been driven from this site except me, AFAICT.
Okay, I’ll read it more carefully, and be looking at the coming summer minimum. Have you run any correlations between ENSO index and ice minima?
“Have you run any correlations between ENSO index and ice minima?”
At least in certain regions, fresh-water lake ice minima are correlated with strong El Ninos. These are the dates when the ice-out dates on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota occurred before March 21.
2024-03-13 El Nino
2016-03-17 El Nino
2012-03-21 La Nina
2000-03-18 La Nina
1987-03-21 El Nino
1878-03-11 El Nino
Yet, two of these were near the end of consecutive La Nina years, so those are anti-correlations.
Paul, the correlation between ENSO and winter temperatures in the north central U.S is fairly well known to meteorologists. Killian is talking about using ENSO rather as a predictive tool for arctic sea ice minima, also with a reference to Antarctica. I’m waiting to see, and I am wondering what the explained variance is between an ENSO index and a de-trended arctic sea ice minimum. There is, of course, no doubt about a general strong downward trend in sea ice minima. The question to me is how strongly it is modulated by ENSO.
NK is even expecting a threshold event with sea ice dropping sharply to a minimum below 1M
sq. km within the next few summers. I don’t think he’s tying that directly to ENSO, but maybe I’m reading it wrong.
Yes. That is where this all came from. I wondered, on this forum, in 2015, because a large El Nino was brewing, whether that would impact ASI. It seemed logical that very warm Pacific surface waters *had* to propagate into the Arctic to some extent or other. I then found charts of past ENSO and ASI and eyeballed the correlation. el Nino seemed to be correlated at over 60% (the posts on this are in the August 2015 UV) while La Nina seemed neutral, or 50%-ish. Of course not all ENs are large so you’d expect the correlation to not be 100% or even close to it. Given truly large ENs are a relatively small subset, the over 60% seemed a strong number.
I also reasoned that ocean waters move relatively slowly, so there could be a lag such that you might see the effect a summer later as heat propagated from the equatorial region. So, my thesis then and still is the summer of an EN (i.e. starts in ’15, ends in ’16, so summer of ’16) or the summer after, a moderate or strong EN you should see somewhere between a new low and a 3rd lowest, so either a new 1st, 2nd or 3rd lowest.
I predicted in August 2015 this would happen in 2016, and it did. Then we had a small EN in ’19-’20 and got another 1-3 low. Now, we face a near-certain 1-3 low this summer or next. Or both given all the excess energy from the oceans. The ice is really thin.
I have not done this analysis for ASIA or ASIV, both of which would probably give us a more robust tool to really judge the ENSO effect.
Something to bear in mind is La Ninas now are warmer than ENs were not all that long ago, so how will that affect the correlation? Also, a recent paper I read reinforced something I wondered about due to the 2020 low ASIE. The paper raises the possibility we started a tipping point in 2016 that continues to today WRT temps. (I don’t recall if SSTs or 2 meter or what…) The EN of ’19-’20 was pretty weak, so I didn’t expect a particularly low extent until we got into July. (In fact, ASI is historically so strongly affected by weather that it is really hard to predict accurately, so I usually don’t even look at it till the first week of July and make my predictions then. Predicting it 13 months ahead was damned foolish given this context, and is why the prediction was and remains rather extraordinary.) But it ended up being the 2nd lowest. WHY? It made no sense. It made me think maybe the acceleration of climate was kicking in as evidenced by a low ASIE that had no obvious reason to occur.
I voiced that on these pages.
The recent paper found exactly the same thing: A significant acceleration in temps starting 2016.
Patterns. It’s all about noticing patterns.
A note on why 2012 was so low: It wasn’t due to an EN, it was weather. Two periods of high insolation, one in early spring and one in June (June insolation is the single best predictor of low ASIE according to comments on the ASI forums), a dipole that acted like a football or baseball throwing machine they use at practices spitting ice directly towards the Fram Strait and a huge cyclone from around Aug 2 – 10 that broke up the ice across the basin. This is why no year has really come close to challenging 2012. Almost every year since then has actually been favorable for ASI, yet we keep seeing the trend toward less ice. 2016 was the big exception in terms of the conditions for low ice being easily predicted.
And the coming two summers. So much heat… there’s no way we don’t see sub-4 million sq kms. for one or both of those summers. Caveat: I have no tracked the ASI yet this season, so…
Killian claims el ninos lead to enhanced arctic sea ice decline in summer after a time lag and that he has predicted enhanced decline in summer sea ice. I see no obvious reason to doubt the connection or predictions. I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
“The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a substantial influence on regional patterns of Arctic sea ice thickness and concentration in simulations, especially in late summer and autumn following a large El Niño/La Niña. ”
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018AGUFMGC53A..04B/abstract#:~:text=The%20El%20Ni%C3%B1o%2DSouthern%20Oscillation,large%20El%20Ni%C3%B1o%2FLa%20Ni%C3%B1a.
So Killian sounds approximately right on this, although I firmly disagree with him on many other things.
Although other studies give a more nuanced complicated picture:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl8278
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/34/24/JCLI-D-20-0958.1.xml
Re nigel:
I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of. Perhaps the obvious became undeniable to you during the last two years when I have rarely posted here and you finally admitted the accuracy of the theory and I missed it? You have never admitted this in any post responding to me. Ever. Until now.
Killian claims el ninos lead to enhanced arctic sea ice decline in summer after a time lag
Not accurate. The theory is you will see an effect the summer an EN ends and/or the summer after. Extending to the second summer makes the connection clearer, but the first summer, IIRC from 2015, is more typical. One must also consider double and triple EN’s.
When I made that original prediction exactly zero people on this forum or the Arctic Sea Ice forums accepted the analysis. Kevin McKinney stated outright there was no support for it in the literature at that time. You have made similar comments since you joined these forums in late 2016. Like pretty much everyone else.
In fact, the research clearly supporting this theory is all post-2016 – and probably because of 2016 and 2020. The paper you posted is from 2018. The Scripps work? 2021. There were a few papers looking at very small regional effects at the time I posited the theory. Mark Serreze said at the time the theory was interesting, but it wasn’t something in his areas of study.
So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.
And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
I must, however, thank you for the 2018 paper. Despite searching any number of times for corroborating science, only the heat bombs paper gave robust support for the theory.
Now I can stop arguing this with people who can’t be bothered to believe a layman can deliver such important findings.
Cheers
Killian
NigelJ: I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
Killian: No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016, because its obvious there could be something! You seem to assume that because somebody hasn’t voiced an opinion on this website or responded to someones comments that they dont think something. Why do you do that? Because Im genuinely puzzled. FWIW I dont always say what I think about everything climate related, and I dont respond to all your comments. I recall you specifically asked me to stop responding to your comments at one stage.
I’ve been following the climate issue since the 1980s. I did some physical geography at university and we studied the planets circulatory system. When discussion on the climate warming issue emerged in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. I didnt give it more thought than that or theorise about it, and I was aware I could be wrong.
I dont recall arguing the ENSO connection didnt happen or couldnt happen. I may have posted papers in the past around 2016 suggesting it didnt happen or that its uncertain if it happens. I post stuff a bit at random just because I think its worth a read. Doesnt mean I necessarily agree. I also posted a couple in my comment directly above that cast doubt on the connection.
Killian: “So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say Im far from alone in believing that.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice. Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
Killian: – “I expect no less from this site. It’s been ego-driven, antagonistic toward anything NbS, regenerative or non-mainstream, and rabidly against anything not IPCC-conservative, since 2015.”
ICYMI/FYI:
Climate Code Red posted on 9 Mar 2024 a piece by David Spratt headlined Is scientific reticence the new climate denialism? This piece refers extensively to Jonathon Porritt’s recent musings titled Mainstream climate science: The new denialism? which at the moment seems to have become unavailable since yesterday morning with a “509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”.
http://www.climatecodered.org/2024/03/is-scientific-reticence-new-climate.html
On Mar 14, the Climate Council of Australia posted a Media Release headlined UNWANTED ANNIVERSARY: 365 DAYS OF RECORD-BREAKING OCEAN TEMPERATURES, REEF FADING TO ‘SHADOW STATE’. It begins with:
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/unwanted-anniversary-365th-consecutive-day-of-record-breaking-ocean-temperatures/
Yes, I have posted about this a lot on this forum, Gavin being the King of Reticence, but I was actually talking about the other posters. Other than Nigelj, people seem to be behaving better – but, then, I post fairly rarely now which might be why since they have no one to treat like crap – so I haven’t had to deal with the crappiness for a while.
But, yes, the posters on this forum tend strongly to the conservative side, with some shifting seeming to be happening as the speed of change is so very clearly ramping up. And gods help you if you tout simplicity and degrowth. They get downright shitty, collectively, no matter how well the evidence backs you up.
But, like I said, I think the rate of change is becoming undeniable now. They can’t, e.g., treat me like shit for saying ESS has to be 4C, if not higher, now that Hansen, et al., have stated it’s 4.8! They’d have to use the same nasty commentary toward Hansen.
Cheers
Yeah… it’s mind-blowing. As not a small few have said over the years, if humans actually understood the implications of The perfect Storm (Climate Change, Ecosystem Destruction, Pollution and Resource depletion), they’d be willing to do almost anything to avoid it.
Maybe even go regenerative (degrowth, localization, NbS, etc.) and actually solve these problems.
But we need climate scientists to do their jobs: Speak on the science in no uncertain terms and within a long-tail risk framework. Unfortunately, too many of them think this is *not* their job – to frame in terms of risk, i.e. – and/or confuse being asked to speak out for being asked to advocate for solutions. Climate scientists, as a collective whole, are *terrible* WRT to mitigation and adaptation. But we REALLY need them to speak forcefully on the worst case scenarios and accelerating rates of change so those of us that *do* know about designing regenerative systems will be taken seriously. So long as people think we can high-tech pipe dream our way out of this, we’re screwed. The math is really, stunningly, frighteningly clear this is not possible.
Cheers
Killian
NigelJ: I have always assumed el nino would transmit heat to the arctic through ocean currents and atmospheric circulation. Seems obvious. Science has found a connection:
Killian: No you haven’t. This is literally the first time you have ever stated agreement with my analysis that I am aware of.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016, because its obvious there could be something! You seem to assume that because somebody hasnt voiced an opinion on this website or responded to someones comments that they dont think something. Why do you do that? Because I’m genuinely puzzled. FWIW I dont always say what I think about everything climate related, and I dont respond to all your comments. I recall you specifically asked me to stop responding to your comments at one stage.
I’ve been following the climate issue since the 1980s. I did some physical geography at university and we studied the planets circulatory system. When discussion on the climate warming issue emerged in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. I didnt give it more thought than that or theorise about it, and I was aware I could be wrong.
I don’t recall arguing the ENSO connection didn’t happen or couldn’t happen. I may have posted papers in the past around 2016 suggesting it didn’t happen or that its uncertain if it happens. I post stuff a bit at random just because I think its worth a read. Doesn’t mean I necessarily agree. I also posted a couple in my comment directly above that cast doubt on the connection.
Killian: “So, no, nigel, this is not a theory you concocted. That’s an extremely dishonest claim. Feel free to provide a link to your theorizing prior to joining this forum and being made aware of my theory.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said I assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say I’m far from alone in that.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did. In fact, I attempted to get various scientists to investigate this theory. (Perhaps it was a catalyst. That would be fun.) Science confirmed what I theorized and we all subsequently observed.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice. Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
Killian, I actually enjoy your comments and feel you may have important information to provide. However, in the past when I’ve seen you interact with other commenters, your comments have been rather cryptic. Primarily what is “regenerative economics” that you often reference? I seem to recall you have been reluctant to say too much about this or even to provide a list of references. It would be very valuable to hear you describe exactly what this means, how it is superior to other economic models and how it could be achieved.
David,
It’s good to know someone is noticing. However,…
1. I am not cryptic, you have not educated yourself in the areas of knowledge necessary. What I say is actually quite simple. You have to want to know. As I have said many times, I cannot do a 2-hour seminar here nor a 10-day permaculture course. To say I have not explained things or been vague, what have you, is simply not accurate but has been used to hand wave away my insights. The true issue is the requests being made are not practicable.
2. I don’t use the term “regenerative economics” because such a thing does not exist, at least not in the sense anyone here would mean it. I.e., banks, markets, wealth, ownership, finance… No system based on such a suite of concepts can ever be regenerative. So… not sure what you are asking about. You may be asking about Regenerative Governance, which is not an economic model, but a whole-system model for bio-regional decision-making, organization, resource management, etc. It does include economics in the very broadest sense of calling exchanges between humans an economy, but a Commons needs no Economics to function, just agreement between those within the Commons.
You are welcome to join my Regenerative Governance house on Clubhouse, there are a number of detailed recordings there, or seek me out on various social media more appropriate for a detailed conversation on all things regenerative, climate, etc.
nigelj,
I will try to respond, but I already have and it was not posted.
Nigelj. I have indeed always assumed there would be a connection between ENSO and arctic sea ice, for a long time, and prior to 2016… in the 1990s it seemed obvious to me heat from el ninos would have some influence on the arctic sea ice. So I simply assumed there would be a connection. …I don’t recall arguing the ENSO connection didn’t happen or couldn’t happen.
Assertion is neither evidence and certainly not proof. As they say, “No picture, didn’t happen.”
NigelJ: Good grief. I never claimed I concocted a theory. I just said I assumed it happened because its obvious! I would say I’m far from alone in that.
You said it in your response I am now responding to. That’s twice now.
Killian: And, no, science didn’t find the connection, I did.
Nigelj: LOL. In your dreams. Anyone with more than half a brain could see el ninos would most likely have an effect on arctic sea ice.
Except, exactly, yes. Again, when I posted that here, on Arctic Sea Ice forums, and elsewhere, the universal response was there was zero scientific support for it, there was nothing in the literature. By your own evidence, the earliest we currently know of from published science is 2018, a full three years after I stated the hypothesis and a full 2 years after the hypothesis was supported by low ice in 2016. (And again in 2020.)
Scientists have investigated it and have likely never heard of you.
A bit childish to repeat what I have already said myself as if you’re getting a “burn” in, don’t you think? Rhetorical…
This kind of circular nonsense with you is why I gave up on you in 2017. Your soft denial, or what is now called solutions denial, was galling then and more so now: All the things I have suggested are no longer “fringe.” The degrowth movement is growing rapidly. Regenerative Ag, same. Bio-char accounts for over 80% of actual mechanical CO2 sequestration. Bio-regionalism is seeing huge growth, also. Etc,
But you can’t summon the decency to do other than call it all crazy as opposed to parts of the suite of options we have. Solutions denialist/go slow advocate – a dangerous, maladaptive response to existential threats – then, same now.
There won’t be more with you. Your first comment about me after I posted after a long pause and after spending very little time on these fora for a very long time was completely insulting and inappropriate. As ever, nobody called you out on intentionally attempting to reignite flame wars. Flame on. You’ll be doing it alone.
Any thoughts about the Texas panhandle wildfires and California snow storms? It appears to me that things are ramping up for an interesting Summer.
And Geo Engineering is also accelerating
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scientists-idea-hack-planet-drying.html
California has had a number of high precipitation events, fairly typical for an El Nino winter. There was a lot of wind with the latest storm, but late winter/early spring subtropical jet is also enhanced in most El Nino winters.
Texas wildfires seem to be due at least in part to excess vegetation from a wet early winter, which subsequently dried out. Although the fires were large, the meteorological factors don’t appear to have been outstanding. Again, that strong subtropical jet helped pump up the surface winds.
What impressed me more were a large number of February monthly heat records exceeded in a swath across the upper Midwest U.S. The largest record increments were in places that normally have lingering snow cover in late February, but had dry ground, such as Waterloo, Iowa. Their station records go back to 1895. The old February record was 71F, but they got to 78F on Feb. 26. On March 3, they reached 80F, which was 13 days ahead of the previous earliest 80F. (Before 2012, their earliest 80F was on March 21.)
For good information on weather events, with a climate focus, here (Jeff Masters and Bob Henson):
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
The main articles are fine (current one unusual, short monthly chatty video). In the comments are a lot of meteorologists who provide almost too many updates in the cluttered and sometimes OT comments (including mine); in many cases have gone on to become respected authorities.
They also provide regular summaries of costly events and other kinds of problems. There has been a lot about both the events you mention).
Although Xtter has become a swamp, the weather/climate part of it is still fine and provides good summary information (including people like Gavin Schmidt and Stephan Rahmstorf).
The USA is the world’s largest oil & gas producer and growing. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the annual propduction of both has doubled, as reported in this Guardian link. And according to the charts, the growth is projected to miraculously stabilise from now on – until 2050 by when the USA is committed to Net Zero.
This recent rapid growth rate shows that the Biden admiinistration (led by John Kerry on climate) does not really believe in its commitments or the terror of catastrophic climate change. As always, actions speak louder than words.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/27/us-oil-gas-record-fossil-fuels-cop28-united-nations
PeterE: – “The USA is the world’s largest oil & gas producer and growing.”
…for now, but for how much longer?
US ‘conventional’ + offshore oil productions are declining. US tight oil production (excluding the Permian basin) has already peaked. The US Permian basin is the only play that’s likely to show any further growth, but the key questions are:
a) For how much longer?
b) How steep will be the decline after the final peak?
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1741469704458318102
2023 and 2022 Permian production rates are already lower than 2021 rates.
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1741508709585494079
It seems US shale oil producers have effectively used a larger straw and are much closer to that ‘slurping sound at the end of a milkshake’.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/not-just-another-dot-on-the-graph-part-ii/#comment-819724
In the YouTube video titled Arthur Berman on the Big Effect of Small Changes in Oil Availability, published 5 Mar 2024, duration 0:03:02, Art Berman said from time interval 0:00:28:
“We use so much oil to keep the world running, to keep our factories and machines and houses and… I mean everything we do relies on oil, and so if we’re down one percent, we’re screwed.”
Nate Hagens responded (at time interval 0:00:45):
“I don’t think a lot of people understand that, and I think when we talk about oil peaking, and real simply, ‘peak oil’ means that we’re dependent on a finite resource that has incredible energy density and work potential, that replaces what humans used to do manually. And it will one day hit a maximum and decline. That is a given. But when we talk about that, we’re not running… There’s two implications, I think, and I’ll ask you to, um, chime in. One is, we’re going to have to figure out in coming decades, and century, what we’re going to do when we have 80% as much oil; 60% as much oil; 40% as much oil; 10% as much oil, down into the future. That is an important question that society really, if we had wisdom, ah, and foresight, would be addressing. But the second, which is more of the focus of my work with this podcast and my organization, is once we stop growing and start declining, that calls into motion all sorts of deltas, differentials between society and finance and government expectations of what extrapolating the past forward to a reality. There’s a: ‘What do we do about our financial claims once energy, especially oil, start to decline?’ That’s a separate question and one with hugely important consequences.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQaOrudvX10
PeterE: – “And according to the charts, the growth is projected to miraculously stabilise from now on – until 2050 by when the USA is committed to Net Zero.”
Art Berman, and Adam Rozencwajg suggest US and global ‘peak oil’ is closer than most people think.
https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/peak-oil-podcast
Meanwhile, per a tweet by Prof Eliot Jacobson on Mar 5, the global SAT average gain of 0.30 °C/decade with current “15-year trendline” temperature means the Earth System is now at apparently +1.39 °C, and we’re likely hitting +1.5 °C before 2028.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1764663501182967840
Agree completely with Geoff Miell on oil prognosis. Flabbergasted by those who think the USA is such a powerhouse when it comes to oil production. The USA consumes around 20 million barrels of oil per day, yet oil companies only extract about 13 million barrels of crude oil per day from USA territory. Easy to check that from either a search or EIA
google: USA consumption oil per day graph
google: USA “extraction” “crude oil” per day graph
That huge a deficit means that the USA isn’t close to being self-sufficient. Foreign sources of oil, biofuels (biodiesel & ethanol), and liquid forms of natural gas and coal are what makes up the deficit. Plus, imported unrefined oil is refined in the USA and relabeled “domestic” production to keep up the ruse that the USA is a net exporter (like saying Walmart is a domestic supplier of consumer products).
As with climate science, the mathematical analysis of oil depletion needs a jolt in the arm. I published a model of typical depletion profiles for fracked shale oil (tight oil) wells in 2018, and years later the decline is pretty much on track. Most don’t realize how fast individual fracked oil decline. The fracking process is a barely controlled implosion with oil dispersing in every direction, begging for something akin to a diffusion analysis. Well, if that is calculated with maximum entropy constraints, the resultant depletion curve matches the same steep decline as what is observed — much oil extracted early and diminishing returns as the oil diffuses every which way other than where the collection taps are located.
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “Easy to check that from either a search or EIA”
EIA Monthly US Field Production of Crude Oil Graph, Jan 1920-Dec 2023 (to date)
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=m
EIA Weekly US Product Supplied of Petroleum Products Graph, week of 9 Dec 1990-1 Mar 2024 (to date)
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WRPUPUS2&f=W
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “That huge a deficit means that the USA isn’t close to being self-sufficient.”
US petroleum geologist Art Berman posted in his blog on 18 Jan 2023 a piece headlined They’re Not Making Oil Like They Used To: Stealth Peak Oil?, including:
https://www.artberman.com/2023/01/18/theyre-not-making-oil-like-they-used-to-stealth-peak-oil/
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “As with climate science, the mathematical analysis of oil depletion needs a jolt in the arm.”
Earth scientist J David Hughes has assessed the viability of the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) shale forecasts in its Annual Energy Outlook 2021, which are widely used by policymakers, industry, and investors to make long-term plans. His detailed analysis finds that the EIA’s forecasts of tight oil and shale gas production through 2050 “highly to extremely optimistic.”
https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/shale-reality-check-2021/
Paul Pukite (@whut): – “I published a model of typical depletion profiles for fracked shale oil (tight oil) wells in 2018, and years later the decline is pretty much on track. Most don’t realize how fast individual fracked oil decline.”
US petroleum geologist Art Berman periodically informs those interested on the rate of US oil production decline – his latest assessment (tweeted Mar 8) suggests a decline rate of 39% per year (if no new oil production developments proceed).
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1765774839619453197
I’d suggest most people are either ignorant or in denial and simply don’t want to know. It’s inconvenient for their plans.
PeterE says
4 Mar 2024 at 11:01 AM
It has always been lies Peter. Long before 2015. The politicians have never been serious about serious mitigation, and the celebrity climate scientists are clueless as well. Nothing is being done, nothing will be done. Stop believing liars, and get used to what is unstoppable.
Whybotherism is never helpful. It is clueless to compare those who are trying with the likes of Trump, whose plans (project 2025) include eliminating NOAA and replacing all experts with loyalists.
Susan Anderson says
6 Mar 2024 at 1:08 PM
Well there is no helping some people. It’s as if they are living on another planet in another solar system.
Peter: The jargon or rhetoric of “Climate Change” is a euphemism for “geologic scale life extinction event.” Of course, governments and media refer only to pieces of this unprecedented white-man-made phenomena, such as temperature, as it only begins to rise from the past contamination (now measured in trillions of tons). It is both unfolding, accelerating and fueled (pardon) from a pathological, globalized, nation-state political economy, especially warfare. What are the fuels of war based on? Uranium and fossilized carbon.. These are not “forms of energy,” They are underground forms of matter.
If you are looking for sanity, you will not find it on this planet. Your Guardian article is a case in point. The sentences are dystopic (sp?). Do you think any regular reader knows what “a barrel of Liquified Natural Gas” is?
SJ: Uranium and fossilized carbon.. These are not “forms of energy,” They are underground forms of matter.
BPL: You keep repeating this. It’s a distinction without a difference. When someone says “nuclear energy” or “fossil fuel energy,” everybody knows what it means, even if those things aren’t technically forms of energy. It’s a simple shorthand for “energy produced using this substance” or “using this method which requires this substance as fuel.” People use verbal shorthand. You’re acting like someone saying “Gotcha!” to an atheist when the said atheist uses an expression like “Oh, God,” or “Jesus!”
BPL,
Thanks for your comment. I will repeat what I said ’till the day I die.
Your assertion that “everybody knows” is exactly the opposite. If you believe underground matter is actually “energy” then you live in a mentally dissonant, physiologically diseased, economically bankrupting and temporary civilization. Welcome to the Anthropocene.
You are displaying the rhetoric and short-circuited mindset of a conformist warfare state citizen. Our fraudulent “economy” is based on those fuels of war. For example, the majority of US “discretionary spending,” ie. the national budget, is for indebtedness and militarism, especially in petroleum rich regions of Earth. This is exemplified in the expression “War for oil, oil for war.” And the DOD is a gigantic user.
But this is OK, I respect your comments through the years. But now a termination event is becoming clear. And it is due to our western folly – the glorious power of man.. “even if those things aren’t technically forms of energy”
SJ: Thanks for your comment. I will repeat what I said ’till the day I die.
BPL: Of course you will. You meet Winston Churchill’s definition of a fanatic: “A man who will not change his mind, and will not change the subject.”
SJ: If you believe underground matter is actually “energy” then you live in a mentally dissonant, physiologically diseased, economically bankrupting and temporary civilization.
BPL: Matter is energy if you think of it in terms of relativity (E = M c^2 for an object stationary in a given inertial frame of reference). But even without relativity, people do not literally mean that uranium or coal is simply and solely a form of energy. They can be used to generate energy. You are arguing semantics and nothing but semantics.
Your attempt to diagnose civilization based on linguistic shorthand is a massive fail. Civilization is not in danger of reverting to geocentrism because people say “the sun set” rather than “the horizon rotated up, blocking the sun.” They don’t have to say it. Everybody knows what it means.
SJ: You are displaying the rhetoric and short-circuited mindset of a conformist warfare state citizen.
BPL: And you are behaving like an ass.
Nuclear and fossil fuels are stores of potential energy, which can be released through splitting atoms or exothermic chemical reactions, which are used to convert that stored potential energy into heat. A reservoir full of water isn’t energy in the strictest definition, but it represents stored (gravitational) potential energy which is released when the water is allowed to flow downhill, and some of that potential energy is converted to kinetic energy when the water passes through a turbine.
Actions do speak louder than words, but that doesn’t always eliminate all ambiguity. In this case, I think the real message is that even when there is real belief in “commitments or the terror of catastrophic climate change”, short term necessities get in the way. Among them we might list the need to avoid handing the reins over to Trump and the emergency need to partially replace Russian natural gas in Europe.
The ERA5 reanalysis report for Feb puts the global anomaly at +0.81ºC, a rise on the +0.70ºC Jan anomaly but a small drop on the ‘bananas’ anomalies of the last few months of 2023. (The ‘bananas’ run of ‘warmest on record’ monthly anomalies June to Dec 2023 runs +0.53ºC, +0.72ºC, +0.71ºC, +0.93ºC, +0.85ºC, +0.85ºC, +0.85ºC.) While the Feb anomaly is not such a big drop from Oct-Dec, a comparison with the 2015/16 El-Niño-year anomalies or the increase on previous monthly record anomalies suggests the ‘bananas’ may perhaps have run their course.
(And for those breathless enough to require a more succinct message, given the eight years of AGW over the period, Feb 2024 is not that much warmer than 2016, to the point of still suggesting that together “Feb & Mar could prove a tad underwhelming.” )
The ‘bananas’months
ERA5 monthly global SAT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … +0.05ºC … (-0.33ºC – 2020)
Feb … +0.09ºC … (-0.40ºC – 2016)
Mar … +0.28ºC … (-0.11ºC – 2016)
Apr … +0.26ºC … (-0.21ºC – 2016)
May … +0.22ºC … (-0.07ºC – 2020)
Jun … +0.34ºC … (+0.16ºC – 2019)
Jul … +0.57ºC … (+0.33ºC – 2019)
Aug … +0.47ºC … (+0.31ºC – 2016)
Sep … +0.66ºC … (+0.50ºC – 2020)
Oct … +0.41ºC … (+0.40ºC – 2019)
Nov … +0.47ºC … (+0.32ºC – 2020)
Dec … +0.31ºC … (+0.31ºC – 2019)
Jan … +0.15ºC … (+0.12ºC – 2020)
Feb … +0.12ºC … (+0.12ºC – 2016)
The UAH TLT Feb global anomaly is +0.93ºC which stands as =1st highest for all months, equal to the October 2023 anomaly. It should be noted that TLT numbers are more sensitive to El Niño. The previous anomalies through the ‘bananas’months June 2023-Jan 2024 run +0.38ºC, +0.64ºC, +0.69ºC, +0.90ºC, +0.93ºC, +0.91ºC, +0.83ºC, +0.86ºC. But while there is no sign of an end to the exceptional anomalies in these Jun-Feb numbers the the ‘bananas’ analysis suggests otherwise.
The ‘bananas’months
UAH monthly global TLT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … -0.47ºC … (-0.47 ºC – 2016)
Feb … -0.63ºC … (-0.63 ºC – 2016)
Mar … -0.45ºC … (-0.45 ºC – 2016)
Apr … -0.43ºC … (-0.44 ºC – 1998)
May … -0.05ºC … (-0.15 ºC – 1998)
Jun … +0.17ºC … (-0.06 ºC – 1998)
Jul … +0.38ºC … (+0.26 ºC – 1998)
Aug … +0.37ºC … (+0.30 ºC – 1998)
Sep … +0.60ºC … (+0.45 ºC – 2019)
Oct … +0.65ºC … (+0.45 ºC – 2016)
Nov … +0.56ºC … (+0.49 ºC – 2019)
Dec … +0.67ºC … (+0.39 ºC – 2019)
Jan … +0.43ºC … (+0.43 ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.22ºC … (+0.22 ºC – 2016)
The most telling thing about where we’re heading is how out of touch with reality are the wealthy and politically obsessed elites who are represented by both the climate scientists here and their majority committed followers.
I’ll off up one little example and will be surprised if anyone would bother to read any of it. But tells a good story. A true story.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/americas-super-elite-disconnect
and
https://www.rmgresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Elite-One-Percent.pdf
The point is captured in one anecdotal comment:
Now it’s easy to say this person is a climate science illiterate. Yes, they are. They do not what they’re talking about. Yet they actually make up the majority of the population on this earth. and especially in the US. Where every single one of them will likely vote for Trump.
The point is this though — none of you here, and I mean no one, would know the first things to say to them which would encourage them to no longer be a climate illiterate and subsequently change their mind.
Because when it comes to climate change it is actually you who are the real ignorant incompetent climate change illiterates with nothing to offer anyone. That’s the truth. Every page and almost every comment on this website proves it.
Please feel free to continue denying it, because there is no point changing now. It’s far too late anyway.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-reacts-to-greenhouse-gases-more-strongly-than-we-thought/
James Hansens latest paper. On climate sensitivity – are they on solid ground here or is an outlier ?
The actual paper is the four-months-old Hansen et al (2023) ‘Global warming in the pipeline’
Harbinger. It is completely in line with what we see with our own two eyes and explains why we are decades and centuries ahead of projected effects even as temps are within the ranges modeled for a long time… albeit at the high end and soon to exceed them, if they haven’t already this past 12 months.
I predicted in 2009 ESS *had* to be at least 4C. 4.8C is no surprise.
Others here will say, but we don’t have 30 years of +1.5C temps! and such, but when you have an upward-sloping curve of change and doublings and triplings happening here and there in the system, you damned sure had better be paying attention to the short-term slopes as they get ever steeper.
Emmanuel Todd’s new book, theory. “La Chute de l’Occident” (“The Fall of the West”)
Todd believes that we are so far gone now, that there’s no hope of saving Western civilization and turning back the clock. Highly recommended.
Goes well with https://metacrisis.org/META-CRISIS/00.+%F0%9F%91%8B+About/Start+Here
No thanks:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Todd
In la langue de Shakespeare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Todd [annoying fellow, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” imho]
and
https://unherd.com/newsroom/emmanuel-todd-vaporisation-of-protestantism-is-bringing-down-the-west/
He appears to opine that without “god” overlooking us, we won’t behave, but “god’s” reputation is a very mixed bag, since there appears not to be any governing body preventing man’s design of god(s) in his own image. I’m all for spirituality, but that means listening and trying to understand, not trying to enforce one’s limited insights on other people.
This listening and trying to understand is present in the endeavors of science more than in most other disciplines, because it works hard and studies to be objective and honest. Telling the truth, doing one’s best, fostering one’s talents, is not an elitist pursuit.
Bertrand Russell
Susan Anderson says
10 Mar 2024 at 1:56 PM
“He appears to opine that without “god” overlooking us, we won’t behave”
That’s a first rate straw-man Susan. I see that “good” research inquiry to you means something very different to me. No where does that article even mention “god”. Todd won’t be losing any sleep over your faux understanding of his literature and his ideas thankfully. He may be right and he may be wrong, but not for the reasons you assert Susan, nor Willard. Horse, water and all that.
> No where does that article even mention “god”.
Which part of “is falling into nihilism and the deification of nothing” you do not get, Ned?
NK: Horse … pucky … and all that.
My specifics are what they are, and if you choose to channel Alexander Todd, that’s no skin off my nose. “vaporisation of protestantism” does not refer to ‘god’: OK, if you say so.
Trying to do better is and will always be an improvement on whybotherism, especially when not accompanied with a heavy dose of attacking people actually doing the trying, like your hosts and their colleagues. If the whybotherism comes with credentialled status puffing, that makes it worse.
Quote paragraph : NO mention of referecne to “god” at all.
Nor in the entire article does it reference Protestantism in relationship to God or Belief in God. Your Faulty Misguided interpretations do not make it so.
> Your Faulty Misguided interpretations
How lovely. Protestantism as a religulous movement involving a deity is a Misguided Interpretation now. You must be fun at parties, Ned.
Let’s roll the tape:
Op. Cit.
I bet you haven’t read Weber, which Dodd simply cranked to 11. In fact I bet you only discovered that insufferable twat who, instead of owning the fact that his L’Invention de la France et L’Invention de l’Europe were overfitting exercices, decided to double down in Le mystère français, declaring that if his model didn’t work, it was reality’s fault!
But why stop there? Western Civilization is now failing his High Father Expectation standards!
Fait chier.
Last month Feb. was 1,77C over pre industrial. Extrapolate forward and we will hit 2C in the 2040s or maybe even quicker if some other parameters are more important then modeled. This value will put millions / billions in danger. How’s that superior level IPCC scientific communication skills and elite US politicians working out for you guys today?
It’s ENSO positive phase mostly and will drop back once the negative phase starts half way through the year. Then we can see if CC has accelerated at all from 0.2C to 0.3C per decade as from Taminos blog
Pet best says
9 Mar 2024 at 4:01 AM — “will drop back once the negative phase starts”
Right, and then the next positive phase it will higher temps, then slip back a little but still above the last negative phase, and then the next positive phase will push it again higher than before, and it’ll skip back slightly, and then again it will push higher yet again ….. and what you get is what?
Cumulatively higher accelerating temperature levels year after year – despite all the “negative phases” the temperatures will keep on rising … they do not drop back permanently, so stop saying what you’re saying and tell the whole truth …
Because it is NOT the “ENSO positive phase mostly” that makes up the +1.5C of last year, or the +1.77C in February over pre industrial …. it is MOSTLY ALL progressive global warming ……
Stop saying it is the El Nino phase of ENSO – it is not!
If you wish to use the current temps as the base for “extrapolation”–which you propose–then it would be pretty silly to ignore the fact that we’re in an El Nino.
If, that is, you are interested in achieving the best possible accuracy for your extrapolation.
fwiw, we are actually making a transition from El Nino to La Nina. This weather-climate thing gets complicated when we focus in; there are several confusing elements involved, providing a number of counterintuitive results if one relies on ‘conventional’ wisdom about known weather patterns. They’re, in layperson language, all mixed up. What we do know is that we are going through an extraordinary and shocking time. We can hope that climate conditions will rebalance to the bad rather than the horrifying for a few more years. It’s too easy to shorten the focus and confuse weather with climate, since it is the thing we all know about and see every day. If you like weather expertise (repeating myself) see Masters and Henson at YCC EoTS: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
Sadly, the waste of a half century since we learned the trouble we’re in does not seem to be getting any better. Action is needed; we know enough.
It is sad that certain people are so beset with issues of self-worth (too much or too little, who knows) that they can’t stick to sharing information and evaluating it from the point of view of community rather than of ego. There is much of value, including material from Ned Kelly when he occasionally gets off his high horse and stops telling everybody what’s wrong with them. Of course the out and out deniers are just time wasters, but being in a panic about where we are is understandable. Blaming the wrong people, however, is not OK.
In Re to Susan Anderson, 12 MAR 2024 9:12 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820013
Dear Ms Anderson,
Although it is not substantial for this discussion, I think that Ned Kelly is actually a woman. She at least presented herself this way in one of her posts. I do not know why she choose the name of a famous bushman as her nick.
I believe that her style may not be primarily driven by an inflated ego; I can imagine a mixture of concern and despair she experiences as an alternative explanation. From my perspective of a person doubting about value of various bold claims with respect to future climate developments and believing in the strength of human technical creativity, I see the present situation rather as an incentive for increased efforts than as a ground for panic and/or giving up.
Greetings
Tomáš
The jury is out on that one and I have stated from Taminos blog that temps might have risen from 0.2C per decade to 0.3C (50% increase). So once the El Niño had finished we can best say where this additional heat has come from.
Pete best says
10 Mar 2024 at 4:05 AM
“So once the El Niño had finished we can best say where this additional heat has come from.”
No necessarily. Unless you’re assuming that all others things are equal and remain constantly so. They aren’t. Temps and CO2 ppm are not the only things rapidly changing. ENSO is not the only natural variation that comes and goes. Temps are showing global averages +0.12C above the 2016 Mega El Nino already. The current El Nino is a not a Mega outlier event. Whereas Europe is at +3.30C above it’s 1990-2020 climate average. 2016 was no where near that for Europe!
This reliance on ENSO — oh we have to wait and see – to constantly dismiss all other observations (such as aerosol levels, and the related recent cumulative ocean warming over and above ENSO cycles, albedo changes, ice melt, extra forest/land CO2 emissions due to excessive heat,forest fires and CO2 increased rates, ocean temps and new mass coral bleaching events, etc) and question everything said on the current situation is a cop out excuse.
It kills dialogue, shuts down discussions, mislabels people as doomers and radicals for no good reason, chills people’s ability to contribute anything, and dissolves intelligent thinking across the board. …. all the while climate scientists like Gavin are saying often and publicly they don’t have a clue why the massive 2023/24 temperatures spiked ….. the MODELS tell them nothing.
When ENSO ends that is just as likely to tell us nothing then as it does now!
Well, then we can wait for summer, and see what happens?
Oh better yet, let;’s wait till Autumn and see what happens then, hey?
No, let’s be real certain, let’s wait until next March instead?
Or maybe March in 2026 will be better?
I recommend we all wait until the CMIP7 is released. How about that instead? :-)
ENSO only explains Pacific temps. It is not the cause of the hot Atlantic waters, hot anywhere else waters.
We have:
* Climate change
* EL Nino
* Reduced shipping termination shock
* Solar Maximum
* Natural variability (other than EN)
The first and second are the greater part of the unexpectedly high jump in warming, as I understand things at present.
This will, I think, thread out of order, so I’m responding here to Ned’s comment to Pete–not Pete’s comment.
IMO, Pete is not suggesting that we pause climate action til El Nino is over. Presumably, we’re organizing, educating and communicating on an ongoing basis all the time, anyway. (I am, in my confused but earnest fashion.) He’s just saying that when ENSO shifts, there will be more data/context to understand the spike–interesting, but not something that should be conditioning our climate actions or responses.
So, no–it’s not a case of “just wait” on all fronts.
Sorry, I should have said 1-3, with 2 being the primary cause globally and 3 being the primary cause in the N Atlantic.
“Minimisation Is The New Denial
– climate scientists and the false hope of net-zero”?
https://jacksondamian.substack.com/p/minimisation-is-the-new-denial?r=1z58eo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwAR2cvaIs0ZzbBsT3kCF8YDgqUqANpeN5Xndi1zKa_T9B8XZu6lIa6S2BFbU&triedRedirect=true
James Charles says ref to “Minimisation Is The New Denial”
10 Mar 2024 at 5:32 AM
He’s got that right. Someone who knows what is really going on. No one here seems to.
One way is by writing up articles about recent science papers by Willie Soon …. keep distracting and avoid the elephant in the room.
CO2 —
NOAA weekly average, March 3-9: 425.45 ppm, up by 4.01 ppm from last year (421.44 ppm)
NOAA’s increase is the 4th largest this year, and 23rd among the 2,599 weeks on record.
The ten largest weekly increases on record: and the first time occurring in FEB
#1: 5.75 ppm, 2024-02-04
#2: 5.53 ppm, 2024-02-18
#3: 5.07 ppm, 2016-07-31
#4: 4.80 ppm, 2016-06-12
#5: 4.64 ppm, 2024-02-11
#6: 4.56 ppm, 2016-04-10
#7: 4.54 ppm, 2016-05-22
#8: 4.45 ppm, 2019-04-28
#9: 4.40 ppm, 2012-05-06
#10: 4.34 ppm, 2014-04-13
You will NOT see the Real Climate scientists producing an article here on these important topics of high public interest. Unfortunately.
Happy International Women’s Day!
To the few women who participate in this website’s conversations, always with substantive, helpful and interesting comments.
To all women climate scientists who continue to do great scientific work and are fully engaged in solving the climate emergency.
To all women who work hard every day for a good life for themselves, their families, their communities, the world, the biosphere.
To all women activists who will fix all our crises. We work at it, we know what needs to be done, we persist, we are determined, we care.
https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/women-leading-the-fight-against-climate-change/
Here are only two of the many many fine women who are doing amazing work.
Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw
Mia Mottley, Barbados – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqWYQnfw2sM
Doughnut is nothing more than flatter Capitalism. It is not a solution. If we had more time it could be part of the solution as a transition phase, but given how quickly things are changing I do not see the time to transition twice. It’s straight to regenerative or bust.
Regenerative Governance is the only system proposed that aligns with all regenerative principles and characteristics.
Killian: tl/dr: No.
Attacking good ideas and the people working to uphold a regenerative economy (including but not limited to Kate Raworth) leaves you with nothing but worse people. I am worried almost sick, but I’m holding firm to doing what I can to discredit whybotherism where I find it. There are all kinds of people in the world, and not all of them are addicted to blindness.
https://www.ted.com/talks/dame_ellen_macarthur_the_surprising_thing_i_learned_sailing_solo_around_the_world/transcript?language=en
“Attacking good ideas and the people working to uphold a regenerative economy (including but not limited to Kate Raworth) leaves you with nothing but worse people. ”
Why are you lying? Please explain. I state a fact, the Doughnut model is flatter capitalism, not a regenerative system, and you lie and call it an attack? It’s a simple statement.
This has been going on for nearly ten years. Mature your rhetoric, please.
To that end:
1. Please explain to us why Doughnut is not merely flatter Capitalism.
2. Explain what regenerative, generatlly.
3. Explain regenerative as it pertains to an economy.
4. Explain how Doughnut is regenerative.
I realize this is unfair because you cannot do so, but it’s important you not lie about what others say, so I am putting you in the position of defending your lie or having to apologize for having done so.
IEA: Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C
Tell me what was the doable plan recommended by the IPCC and celebrity climate scientists again?
NK.
“Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C”
Yes its an astonishing number, and part of me is cynical about the chances of doing this. But I like to look at it a bit positively. Total global gdp per year (economic output) is about 100 trillion per year so clean energy investment of $4.5 trillion per year is approximately 4.5% of total global gdp (being the worst case near 2030).
So this number of 4.5% of gdp could clearly be done without wrecking the economy or hugely degrading lifestyles, given its size, and if moderate to high income people were prepared to make some sacrifices. Very low income people would need to be exempted or assisted.
And remember clean energy investment on that huge scale would be displacing building new fossil fuels power so the true cost to society is considerably less than $4.5 trillion. Of course there will be other mitigation costs so we are probably still up around 4.5% of gdp overall.
That said I doubt its practical to limit warming to 1.5 degrees – given time left, the practicalities, and Hansens warnings about the issue, but 2 degrees may be possible. That spreads the costs a bit as well.
NK: EA: Clean energy investment must reach $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C.
The profit of the oil and gas industry’s were 4 trillion globally in 2022. And these are PROFITS, which are usually a fraction of the gross sales. Add to this > 0.5 trillion a year in corporate welfare programs (direct government subsidies and tax exemptions), not mentioning the value of being able pollute for free – privatizing the profits, socializing the costs.
And not like the investment in the clean energy is just throwing 4.5 trillion into a pit with nothing in return – this investment brings revenue from the sales of energy, and this Return on Investment is much quicker than the finding and development of the oil and gas fields.
Ned Kelly: “Tell me what was the doable plan recommended by the IPCC and celebrity climate scientists again?”
The role of IPCC is in informing the society on the consequences of various actions or inactions – so the society and the politicians does not walk into the global civilizational collapse unaware. They can say what different strategies can or cannot achieve, not to design and implement these strategies – this is the role of the society and politicians.
Seeing dysfunctional political systems, in which the big money controls the politicians via funding their campaigns in democracies, or directly exploiting the state in the non-democratic countries^* – you target your derision … NOT at the super-rich, NOR at the corrupt politicians – but at … the climate scientists?
======
^* “ Around 500 super rich Russians control more wealth than the poorest 99.8% of Russians, according to a new report into Russia’s inequality problem“
What’s in the news?
For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.
The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming, Copernicus reported Wednesday.
The last month that didn’t set a record for hottest month was in May 2023 and that was a close third to 2020 and 2016. Copernicus records have fallen regularly from June on.
February 2024 averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius, breaking the old record from 2016 by about an eighth of a degree. February was 1.77C warmer than the late 19th century, Copernicus calculated. Only last December was more above pre-industrial levels for the month than February was.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of trying to keep warming at or below 1.5C. Copernicus’ figures are monthly and not quite the same measurement system for the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades. But Copernicus data shows the last eight months, from July 2023 on, have exceeded 1.5 degrees of warming.
For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.
The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming, Copernicus reported Wednesday.
The last month that didn’t set a record for hottest month was in May 2023 and that was a close third to 2020 and 2016. Copernicus records have fallen regularly from June on.
February 2024 averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius, breaking the old record from 2016 by about an eighth of a degree. February was 1.77C warmer than the late 19th century, Copernicus calculated. Only last December was more above pre-industrial levels for the month than February was.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of trying to keep warming at or below 1.5C. Copernicus’ figures are monthly and not quite the same measurement system for the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades. But Copernicus data shows the last eight months, from July 2023 on, have exceeded 1.5 degrees of warming.
Climate scientists say MOST of the record heat is from human-caused climate change of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Additional heat comes from a natural El Nino, a warming of the central Pacific that changes global weather patterns.
“Given the strong El Nino since mid-2023, it’s not surprising to see above-normal global temperatures, as El Ninos pump heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, driving up air temperatures. But the amount by which records have been smashed is alarming,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center climate scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the calculations.
“And we also see the ongoing ‘hot spot’ over the Arctic, where rates of warming are much faster than the globe as a whole, triggering a cascade of impacts on fisheries, ecosystems, ice melt, and altered ocean current pattern s that have long-lasting and far-reaching effects,” Francis added.
Record high ocean temperatures outside the Pacific, (where El Nino is focused,) show this is more than the natural effect, said Francesca Guglielmo, a Copernicus senior climate scientist.
The North Atlantic sea surface temperature has been at record level — compared to the specific date — every day for a solid year since March 5, 2023, “often by seemingly-impossible margins,” according to University of Miami tropical scientist Brian McNoldy.
Those other ocean areas “are a symptom of greenhouse-gas trapped heat accumulating over decades,” Francis said in an email.
“That heat is now emerging and pushing air temperatures into uncharted territory.”
“These anomalously high temperatures are very worrisome,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald.
“To avoid even higher temperatures, we need to act quickly to reduce CO2 emissions.”
This was the warmest winter — December, January and February — by nearly a quarter of a degree [ 0.25C] , beating 2016, which was also an El Nino year. The three-month period was the most any season has been above pre-industrial levels in Copernicus record keeping, which goes back to 1940.
Francis said on a 1-to-10 scale of how bad the situation is, she gives what’s happening now “a 10, but soon we’ll need a new scale because what’s a 10 today will be a five in the future unless society can stop the buildup of heat-trapping gases.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/climate-change/350205857/last-month-was-hottest-february-ever-recorded-its-ninth-straight-broken
I suppose Jennifer Francis is another one of those unhinged non-scientific radical doomer climate scientists like James Hansen is labelled as? I look forward to seeing the content corrected by our resident “science” crew of avid commenters.
And here, for your convenience, is the source document most of the article was based upon.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-february-2024-was-globally-warmest-record-global-sea-surface-temperatures-record-high
Anti-doomers step up to the plate, the world needs you now, lest it totally loses it’s head over an ‘el nino’ or whatever it is that you’re use as excuses that there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
It’s just another dot on a graph, right? (smile)
NK: If you’d just pare out the personal attacks and snark, this is a good summary. Not something most people here don’t already know, but by making it about what’s wrong with everybody else, the subject becomes your ego rather than the excellent material you cite.
The people you choose to attack probably know Jennifer Francis and James Hansen better than you do.
Susan,
Without the personal attacks and snark, Ned would have to spell out the extent of his doom and gloom. So that won’t happen. Think of him as Mike’s evil twin.
To each their own.
Yet, you lied and said I was “attacking” ideas and people when I did nothing more than make an accurate statement.
You have always been hypocritical in this way. Please stop.
You jumping in to attack the style of others only adds to the disruption, again hypocritically. Please stop.
These are serious times for serious people. Personal bullshit is immoral and unethical, distracting from solutions.
Those other ocean areas “are a symptom of greenhouse-gas trapped heat accumulating over decades,” Francis said in an email.
“That heat is now emerging and pushing air temperatures into uncharted territory.”
As far back as 2009 I had argued ESS had to be higher, at least 4C given what we were already seeing even then with Greenland losing mass, thermokarst lakes tripling in number in a decade, and on and on. I argued this with four PhD holders on TheOilDrum, in fact. The archives are still there.
Skipping forward, we saw another example of this in three straight La Ninas. With all the energy entering the system, it had to be doing somewhere, and in this case what goes down into the Pacific must come up. When we hit the second La Nina I predicted a large El Nino. When we hit the third, it became a certainty.
If one realizes in 2009 what is not demonstrated scientifically until 2023, then one’s analysis is going to be very different from others’. 150 years of 4.8C, not 3C? How very, very different.
This is all about patterns. If one’s primary understanding of the climate crisis is centered almost solely on the climate crisis rather than the cause, consumption and the broadscale implications of that, including ecosystem destruction, and further is based primarily on reports that only come out every five-ish years an are already two years out of date when published in some respects, one cannot possibly understand the up-to-the-moment realities of what we have done as a species and must face up to.
There are many ways of knowing. Numbers are merely one.
Etc.
This is just cut’n’paste of what I figured in 2016 and modified for wording the next few years and posted around the GooglesTubes for a few years (until it was clear nobody cared because global warming had stopped and there was an Ice Age now).. I didn’t know about the aerosols reduction, as I stated, so it needs boosting for that. I’d been led to understand by climate scientists in videos that SWR/LWR analysis wasn’t accurate for prime time,EEI so I used ORAS4 OHC scaled up for odds’n’ends which is lower EEI than CERES for some reason(s) so it needs boosting for that.
———– cut’n’paste
:
Based on the actual surface/air warming the last 45 years, and the global heaters over that period, and using CO2 & CH4 in the atmosphere just continuing to increase at the same rate as 2017-2019 the next 40 years of surface-air warming will be:
2020-2030 +0.25 degrees
2030-2040 +0.31 degrees
2040-2050 +0.37 degrees
2050-2060 +0.43 degrees
Total = +1.36 degrees
So at 2060 AD will be 1.28 + 1.36 = 2.64 degrees above 1750 AD. No computer models are needed to get that basic information, certainly accurate +/- 15%, only projecting for the next 40 years what has happened for the last 45 years. The basic GLOBAL thermodynamics is simple enough. The global heater is now 445,000 gigawatts (2015-2020 average) and +CO2 +CH4 have been adding 19,000 gigawatts / year to that. Before 1995 global heater was 200,000 gigawatts. 1995-2015 it averaged 396,000 gigawatts. Surface-air temperature increased +0.18 degrees / decade. Using those global heater and surface-air warming data leads to the inescapable definite conclusion of warming 2020-2060 AD that I tabled above. That’s based on the 2010-2020 carbon burn sustained to 2060 and assuming humans don’t clean up any of their air pollution.
Barry E Finch says
10 Mar 2024 at 8:01 PM
Well done. I hear you. No models required!
When the scientist were working on their new CMIP6 models how many (all of them?) did not include the fact that Sulphur emissions from global shipping was going to be cut to close to zero circa 2023?
Because this major aerosols change was telegraphed years in advance by the maritime groups and govts. Long before those CMIP6 models were being calculated iirc.
Does anyone know what the facts are about this? Gavin should.
Thank you Barry Finch.
Since the planet’s surface is 5.1 x 10 to 14th power, for each 2 W/m2 of actual energy flux (rising due to Radiative Forcing, presently about 4 W/m2) the total Heat Input to the Earth System is about one quadrillion watts. Although we have not reached this arbitrary quantity yet, global heating is accelerating and may be enough already, with biogeophysical feedbacks, to turn this planet into a burned-out, flooded, near lifeless cinder (with or without us from here on).
There seems to be only one “solution” now. Removal of contamination from our man-made global gas chamber.
Sulphur Emission Control
Quote:… in 2020, satellite observations showed fewer of those pollution fingerprints.
Drawing on nearly two decades of satellite imagery, researchers found that the number of ship tracks fell significantly after a new fuel regulation went into effect. A global standard implemented in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – requiring an 86% reduction in fuel sulfur content – likely reduced ship track formation.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/aqua/nasa-study-finds-evidence-that-fuel-regulation-reduced-air-pollution-from-shipping/
But in 2023 celebrity climate scientists “claim” they and their models had no clue why temperatures might spike? That’s odd. And yet, 1st August 2023 – some do some don’t?
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
No idea why temps are spiking in 2023? Must be the El Nino then. :-/
2020
Shipping fuel regulation to cut sulphur levels comes into force
New rules introduced by International Maritime Organisation expected to reduce certain forms of air pollution
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/01/shipping-fuel-regulation-to-cut-sulphur-levels-comes-into-force
Surely the modelling scientists must have known long before Guardian readers did.
Yes – Quote: 2017 science paper –
Economic factors will no doubt determine whether further investments in scrubbers will occur in connection with the global limit of 0.5% sulphur, which will come into effect in 2020 (Figure 1).
https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.1525/elementa.167/112407/Shipping-and-the-environment-Smokestack-emissions
The CMIP6 modellers must have known! Or should have known?
https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=IMO+maritime+organisation+to+limit+sulphur+shipping+pollution+&btnG=
Did they include the major coming effects of on regional ocean albedo changes and subsequent impacts global temperatures accumlating from 2020 onward?
>2020
>Shipping fuel regulation to cut sulphur levels comes into force
This is actually more of a CMIP / IPCC problem than a model problem. CMIP is a long process with complex protocols. The CMIP6 data was already defined in 2016-2017 so likely even followed the older timeline for ship emissions with 2025 as mentioned in the article you refer to. In addition the emissions are not defined for every year. For the relevant period the emissions are defined for the year 2015, 2020 and 2030 so jumps are averaged out. There exists more recent datasets that include the 2020 definition but even so the change is too smooth
When that is said, even with a more step-wise change in shipping emissions you can not expect that climate models will be able to forecast a given year, not even in decadal prediction mode. You will need to get the El Nino event at the correct time at the very least. As far as I know the current view is that El Nino is unpredictable more than 3 years or so ahead of the event.
PS Ref for Øyvind
By Gavin Schmidt: one year ago
What influence does ENSO really have?
It’s well known (among readers here, I assume), that ENSO influences the interannual variability of the climate system and the annual mean temperatures. El Niño events enhance global warming (as in 1998, 2010, 2016 etc.) and La Niña events (2011, 2018, 2021, 2022 etc.) impart a slight cooling.
Far more predictive are the long term trends which are consistently (now) above 0.2ºC/dec (and with much smaller uncertainties ±0.02ºC/dec for the last 40 years).
It’s worth exploring quantitatively what the impact is, and this is something I’ve been looking at for a while. It’s easy enough correlate the detrended annual anomalies with the ENSO index (maximum correlation is for the early spring values), and then use that regression to estimate the specific impact for any year, and to estimate an ENSO-corrected time series.
The surface temperature records are becoming more coherent
When will we reach 1.5ºC above the pre-industrial?
Linear trends since 1996 are robustly just over 0.2ºC/decade in all series, so that suggests between one and two decades are required to have the mean climate exceed 1.5ºC, that is around 2032 to 2042. The first specific year that breaches this threshold will come earlier and will likely be associated with a big El Niño. Assuming something like 2016 (a +0.11ºC effect), that implies you might see the excedence some 5 years earlier – say 2027 to 2037
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/01/2022-updates-to-the-temperature-records/
Inconvenient truths are conveniently memory-holed.
Øyvind says
15 Mar 2024 at 3:03 AM
“you can not expect that climate models will be able to forecast a given year, ”
I am not expecting that. You are misinterpreting what I said and it’s meaning. There’s no need to “predict” enso either, for that is a known entity in any particular year and can then be considered as an influence or not in whatever the actual annual temperatures and other measurelments end up being by years end.
The issue is not that they could not predict 2023 results – the serious problem is these “supremely authoritative” climate scientists (who ridicule everyone else for being ignorant or stupid) cannot even explain it after the event. Same as they were utterly clueless for years over the supposed “haitus”!
Same as this ridiculous illogically flawed notion of remaining under +1.5C at 2050 and at 2100 as recommended as being possible by the IPCC and they also promote achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050 is possible and yet here we are barely years away from permanently breaking thru that +1.5C barrier rapidly heading towards +2c in the early 2040s.
It is not even 10 years since this +1.5C goal was agreed to and already it is hot to pieces. What good are they? what good is the IPCC? Constant failures. These ideas were flawed and unachievable the day they were recommended by the IPCC scientists. The term incompetent does not begin to accurately describe the reliability and professional performance of climate scientists to date.
If what you say about CMIP6 is correct when those were ‘established’ then none of them are useful imo. All are outdated by the time they were published. You cannot say aerosol changes have no effect because they do. The same as clouds and ice albedo has an effect. Everything has an effect — you cannot simply choose to ignore one or all of them. ( well actually you can, because this is what the science actually does. )
It is precisely why Gavin admits on video he has no idea why 2023 was a surprising spectacular year warming wise. That is because the “climate science” cannot advise him. So he has no idea at all. None.
Meanwhile, paper after paper is ignored and minimized by the Traditionalists and Celebrities who claim Authority to them and none to everyone else despite how clueless they actually are to answer any basic question.
So let’s whine and moan about Willy Soon and Roy Spencer instead – it’ll make us look better than we actually are ourselves?
Less aerosols and less clouds with slightly more atmos water content and more insolation and several years of adding cumulative OHC, higher EEI, with less Ice in a warming world plus an El Nina in place logically delivers what exactly in 2023 and early 2024?
Certainly not a 1970s global climate. But James Hansen is an extremist unscientific outlier who has lost his marbles and should be ignored – and he is!
Observational evidence that cloud feedback amplifies global warming
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2026290118
Logic, reason and recognizing fallacies isn’t rocket science. People who say they do not know – and prove they do not know – do not know!
Carl Sagan, renowned astrophysicist and science communicator, emphasized the importance of logic, reason, and critical thinking in science. While he may not have spoken specifically about fallacies in climate science, his general views on skepticism and scientific inquiry are relevant to this topic.
Sagan often stressed the need for skepticism as a cornerstone of scientific thinking. He encouraged people to question ideas and hypotheses, to seek evidence and logical explanations, and to be open to changing their views based on new evidence.
In his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,” Sagan discussed the dangers of pseudoscience and the importance of critical thinking in evaluating claims about the natural world.
Regarding fallacies, Sagan likely would have advocated for scientists and the public to be aware of common logical fallacies, such as appeals to emotion, ad hominem attacks, and false dichotomies, and to avoid them in scientific discourse. He would have likely emphasized the need for clear, logical reasoning based on evidence and data in all scientific investigations, including those related to climate science.
NK wrote: “Sagan often stressed the need for skepticism as a cornerstone of scientific thinking.”
Sagan’s often quoted dictum “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” presupposes that we know a priori which claims are “extraordinary” (which is a completely subjective judgement) and should be held to an “extraordinary” evidentiary standard, which makes it the opposite of skepticism, which applies the same objective, impartial evidentiary standard to all claims.
To accept, for example, that a pharmaceutical drug is effective based on statistical results that are deemed significant, while rejecting the results of parapsychology studies that attain a higher level of significance, is not skeptical. It is indeed pseudoskepticism, not unlike that of the global warming deniers.
It’s interesting that Sagan did not choose to call his book “The Angel-Blessed World”.
SA: To accept, for example, that a pharmaceutical drug is effective based on statistical results that are deemed significant, while rejecting the results of parapsychology studies that attain a higher level of significance, is not skeptical. It is indeed pseudoskepticism, not unlike that of the global warming deniers.
BPL: When controls are tightened on psychic experiments, the statistical significance of the effect inevitably disappears. Parapsychologists are also known to “p hunt,” e.g. when a subject fails to predict the next card, they look for a correlation with the past card. The more datasets checked, the more likely you are to find at least one with p < 0.05.
Understand, I'm speaking as someone who believes psychic phenomena exist. I have experienced a few instances myself. But they're not reproducible or unexplainable by other processes, so they don't really fall under the aegis of science per se.
BPL wrote: “When controls are tightened on psychic experiments, the statistical significance of the effect inevitably disappears.”
It was not my intention to hijack this forum for a discussion of parapsychology, but with all due respect, that assertion is simply false. In fact, with regard to Ganzfeld experiments, the opposite has proved true — with improvements in controls and methods (e.g. see the Hyman/Honorton “Joint Communiqué” of 1986) , the effect has if anything grown more robust.
Your reference to card reading experiments — i.e. the Zener card experiments that were conducted in the 1930s by J.B. Rhine and associates — suggests that you may not be keeping up with research in the field.
I’m not really interested in persuading anyone towards any point of view regarding parapsychology. My point was merely that classifying ANY claim as a priori “extraordinary” and therefore requiring a higher standard of evidence than claims that are classified a priori as “ordinary” is NOT skepticism.
I too once saw a ghost…Was sleeping but woke up to get some water. Saw ghost in kitchen just standing there. Being a good young science student I went back into the bedroom to get the cat and brought him out to the kitchen. I still saw ghost but cat didn’t react, so I assumed there was no consensual validation and I must be having a waking dream. Or maybe I got some of the drugs from the psychopharmacology lab I was working in at that time of my education into my system somehow, I don’t know. (We had a number of interesting drugs and also a–quite legal–meth operation! Decades before Breaking Bad, no less!). Anyway, then the dreamish ghost came right at me and disappeared right in my face. Haven’t seen him since.
I had a goodly tumbler of brandy instead of water and went back to bed.
———————
Anyway, parapsych research has much in common with those who espouse the Great Global Warming “Hiatus”: Do enough tests along a series with a sliding window and you’ll get some false positives.
I used to have my stats classes do 100 coin flips as an exercise. In a class of 50 it was quite common to see runs of 10 heads in a row even though the naive probability for that event is 1 in 1024.
Not surprising really. If you do a full calculation or simulation. Each student had about a 1 in 20 chance (standard statistical alpha significance) of seeing this so 50 students made it near certain to be observed in most classes. Again…do enough tests and you’ll get some false positives (unless you control for alpha.)
On the paranormal front, recall that the late climate change skeptic Nils-Axel Mörner believed water could be found via a divining rod. He’s listed as a notable dowsing practitioner here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing
Mörner was a geophysicist and head of the dept at Stockholm U. He wasn’t interested in the topic as a quack pseudoscience (which would be my take), but he really believed in it to the point of teaching courses on dowsing, which his university eventually banned.
Have to say that my side-interest in geophysics is also somewhat out there but does not enter the realm of the paranormal. It’s simple in terms of a model of the Earth’s Chandler wobble synced to the Moon’s monthly draconic orbit. That’s not a paranormal force but a simple normal gravitational tug that controls the Earth’s tiny axial response. The validation of this is in a precise mapping of a few frequency spectral peaks (a primary and 2 secondary) to that calculated from the lunar period using modular arithmetic. Since it’s not just one peak mapped, the validation is as uniquely significant as a fingerprint match. I published the model without the strong validation several years ago, and then an update on this blog post: https://geoenergymath.com/2021/01/07/chandler-wobble-forcing/
The larger issue is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for valid ideas to emerge from the swamp of crackpots out there. The immediate reaction is to treat any new idea as pseudoscience. Will it get worse or better with AI?
FWIW, my perspective is that the dictum that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” isn’t really a scientific dictum per se, but rather an accurate statement about human nature. The scientific process attempts to correct for human failures and biases, but at the end of the day science is a human endeavor, and scientists are humans. And while that may be a “bug” sometimes, it is also a “feature.”
More specifically, the choice of which topic to research and how is always going to rest one the value given to that topic by the researcher–and while I expect that reason and logic will generally be involved in that choice, they are seldom if ever going to be the sole determinants. Nor should they be; if they were, how could we have the spectrum of disciplines that we do? A friend of mine did a dissertation on “negative geotaxis” in beetles (if memory serves–and having earlier invoked “bugs”). Was he wrong to be interested in such a seemingly obscure subject? Or, more directly to the point, was he guided strictly by logic and reason? Or did he just find beetles pretty cool creatures? Values, by definition, are prior to the rational processes to which they serve as input. (Though they may be informed by other, prior rational or perceptual processes. Causality here isn’t simple.)
All of which is to say that while the judgment as to whether a particular claim is “extraordinary” may be subjective, but scientists are going to make it regardless. Indeed, they may need to make it as a practical matter, because they may face the decision as to whether it merits the expenditure of their personal and/or institutional time and resources.
How I’m seeing it…
Claim: The earth is flat.
Evidence Required: Probably extraordinary by anyones definition.
IOW, if you’re going to take down a well established hypothesis, you’d better have superior chops, and amazeballs evidence.
Skepticism includes being skeptical of the skeptics (and you know where I got that one).
GISTEMP has reported for February with a global anomaly of +1.44ºC, a big increase on January’s +1.22ºC and the second highest monthly anomaly on record (after Sept 2023’s +1.48ºC). So Feb 2024 becomes the ninth ‘scorchyisiom!!!’ month in a row.
The rest of the top-12 hottest Februarys now run +1.37ºC (2016), +1.24ºC (2020), +1.14ºC (2017), +1.03ºC (2006), +0.97ºC (2023), +0.95ºC (2019), +0.90ºC (2015), +0.89ºC (2022), +0.88ºC (1998), +0.85ºC (2018) & +0.83ºC (2010). The years with El Nino boost are in bold
And replicating the ‘bananas’ analysis used above on ERA5 SAT & UAH TLT, the level of ‘absolute gobsmacking’ appears again now greatly diminished relative to the back half of 2023.
The ‘bananas’ months
GISTEMP monthly global SAT anomalies
Increase 2015/16 to 2023/24
(& increase above previous record with year)
Jan … +0.00ºC … (-0.31ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.07ºC … (-0.40ºC – 2016)
Mar … +0.24ºC … (-0.15ºC – 2016)
Apr … +0.24ºC … (-0.13ºC – 2020)
May … +0.13ºC … (-0.08ºC – 2020)
Jun … +0.27ºC … (+0.16ºC – 2022)
Jul … +0.46ºC … (+0.25ºC – 2022)
Aug … +0.40ºC … (+0.17ºC – 2016)
Sep … +0.63ºC … (+0.50ºC – 2020)
Oct … +0.25ºC … (+0.25ºC – 2015)
Nov … +0.36ºC … (+0.36ºC – 2020)
Dec … +0.18ºC … (+0.18ºC – 2015)
Jan … +0.04ºC … (+0.04ºC – 2016)
Feb … +0.07ºC … (+0.07ºC – 2016)
MA Rodger says a lot and proves nothing except his own incompetence and unreliability.
11 Mar 2024 at 1:54 PM
A logical El Nino to compare 2023 Temperatures with would be the 2020 El Nino period, and not 2016 for what should be obvious scientific reasons.
The disinformation being presented on this forum is nothing more than anti-scientific rhetoric. It is astounding to me that false representations like the above from MA is posted without any correction by the Moderators and left stand. And of course none of the resident “biased groupies” with PhDs will correct it, so I will.
El Niño events are typically compared based on their strength, which is often measured by the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI). The ONI compares the sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific Ocean to the long-term average. Here’s a comparison between the 2016 El Niño and the 2023 El Niño based on their ONI values:
2016 El Niño: The 2015-2016 El Niño event was one of the strongest on record. The peak ONI value reached approximately +2.3°C in late 2015 and early 2016.
2023 El Niño: The 2022-2023 El Niño event was not as strong as the 2015-2016 event. The peak ONI value for the 2023 El Niño was around +1.0°C, making it a moderate El Niño event.
In summary, the 2016 El Niño was significantly stronger than the 2023 El Niño, as indicated by the ONI values.
Comparing the strength of El Niño events can be done using various metrics, such as sea surface temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Here’s a comparison of the 2010 El Niño with the 2023 El Niño:
2010 El Niño: The 2009-2010 El Niño event was considered moderate to strong. The peak sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region reached around +1.5°C.
2023 El Niño: The 2022-2023 El Niño event was also classified as moderate. The peak sea surface temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region was approximately +1.0°C.
In summary, the 2010 El Niño was slightly stronger than the 2023 El Niño, based on the peak sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region.
NK, what is your source for ONI values? I ask, because the source I have been using,
https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_v5.php
rates the late 2023 ONI as a fairly strong +2.0C, well above the approximately +1.0 C you are quoting for the same region (3.4). For comparison, it gives peak 2009-10 as +1.6C and 2015-16 as +2.6C.
Except the minor error that 2023 is slightly stronger than 2010. Using your chart numbers the ONI comparisons remain valid, and arrive at the same conclusions. Rodgers data is distortion and disinformation … a misrepresentation if you prefer of what is actually happening in 2023 to now.
And these conclusions are further supported by the information in https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-819916 that goes beyond enso issues – which Rodger also ignores in his “summary” cherry-picked list of Temp variations to the 2016 El Nino as if it is a pertinent / useful yardstick for comparison when it is not.
Ned Kelly,
You will have to forgive me for ignoring your 1,000-word essay. Perhaps you could cut out all the wordy stuff and present a more reasonably-lengthed account.
We are, of course, spoiled for choice in ways of comparing wobbles in the ENSO cycle. If I were to seek the one showing the weakest 2023 El Niño, I’d plump for MEI (which I note has recently had a lost data source). But MEI also shows 2016 to be relatively weak and given the big 2016 temperature response, that itself is a bit of a problem for you “doomers.”
Of course, the peak ONI or peak NINO3.4 is not the best measure either. Perhaps the average NINO3.4 over the full El Niño would be more telling, and with 2023/24 still incomplete perhaps the period since last June can be compared with past El Niños. That would give 2.125 for 1997, 1.0075 for 2009, 2.205 for 2015 and 1.5325 for 2023. Or perhaps use a similar-type average using SOI which shows 2023 & 2009 equally powerful, and likewise 2015 & 1997.
So what is the take-away?
I would suggest it is that 2015/16 and 1997/98 are roughly similar,which raises the question of the relatively massive 2015/16 global temperature response relative to 1997/98 if both wobbles are driven by similar-sized El Niños. (See graphic of NOAA data posted 14/2/24 on this webpage.) Maybe that would be worthy of a 1,000-word explanation!!
MAR. This leaves the question of why 2023 and 2015 / 2016 were both so unusually hot. The climate scientists say part of the warming is el nino and underlying AGW and in 2023 possibly sulphate aerosols but this doesn’t fully explain why they were so unusually hot.
The remaining heat cant be due to a step change in CO2 or methane levels because there wasn’t any that I’m aware of. The tongan volcano seemed to affect the S hemisphere and doesn’t fully account for the excess warming.
By a process of elimination this leaves natural variation but nobody is sure exactly what natural variation. A change in winds in the northern oceans in 2023 has been posited but is not 100% certain. However it all suggests next year will be a cooler year.
Makes me sound like a minimiser but its simple logic really. I do agree with Hansen that aerosols and tipping points will cause and might have already caused an acceleration in AGW so we are still in big trouble. Deep in the cow manure.
MA Rodger says
12 Mar 2024 at 9:01 AM
What 1,000-word essay are you talking about Rodger? I wrote no essay, let alone 1000 words.
I’m concerned about your wild imaginations / exaggerations or whatever they are – RU OK?
But thanks for acknowledging the fact you also have no idea about Enso or global warming rates recently. None at all.
Looks to me like you are living in the past….
nigelj,
I have struggled in vain to find any evidence for any cause for the ‘bananas’ except for this perceived bizarre trend in the earlier arrival of the global temperature response to El Niño and the speculation that this is due to the growing size of the early NH Ocean responses (thus stronger ocean currents?) followed by this being massively amplified by the NH Land response. I await the development of these anomalies to see how it pans out.
(The NOAA monthly data I’ve been plotting out here 13/2/24 has yet to be posted for Feb. The March-to-date global anomaly in ERA5 today sits down alongside the January +0.7ºC but that is the measuring the bottom of a wobble. The rolling 31-day average-to-date sits is only a little higher. If the previous ERA5 wobble is grafted on to the rest of March, the March anomaly rise back above the Feb anomaly of +0.8ºC to the same level as the 2023 ‘bananas’ +0.85ºC.)
Lavrov’s Dog,
Well done!!
You have managed here to confirm you are but a sock-puppet.
The 1,000 word essay you deny writing sits up-thread here.
Lavrov’s Dog says
13 Mar 2024 at 8:04 PM
sorry, a drop down box accident. my bad, woof
Correction, sorry — ” to compare 2023 Temperatures with would be the 2010 El Nino period”
2020 fwiw
Advances in understanding large-scale responses of the water cycle to climate change
Richard P. Allan
Rapid adjustments to forcings, cooling effects from scattering aerosol, and observational uncertainty can explain why observed global precipitation responses are currently difficult to detect but are expected to emerge and accelerate as warming increases and aerosol forcing diminishes. Precipitation increases with warming are expected to be smaller over land than ocean due to limitations on moisture convergence, exacerbated by feedbacks and affected by rapid adjustments. Thermodynamic increases in atmospheric moisture fluxes amplify wet and dry events, driving an intensification of precipitation extremes. The rate of intensification can deviate from a simple thermodynamic response due to in-storm and larger-scale feedback processes, while changes in large-scale dynamics and catchment characteristics further modulate the frequency of flooding in response to precipitation increases. Changes in atmospheric circulation in response to radiative forcing and evolving surface temperature patterns are capable of dominating water cycle changes in some regions. Moreover, the direct impact of human activities on the water cycle through water abstraction, irrigation, and land use change is already a significant component of regional water cycle change and is expected to further increase in importance as water demand grows with global population.
open
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.14337
Thanks, good paper. Bullet points at the end are a useful list, though as we know there has been an exacerbation of all effects since this was published.
All sudden & large such as 12 months & up or down >0.20 degrees must be entirely or mostly due to a change in the vertical mixing rate of the relatively-cold ocean below up to the surface waters (I mean could be an eclectic regional mix (hey a mix of mixes)) because there’s no other source of such sudden & large power change (I mean setting aside a huge volcano, but only in the cooling direction, or an asteroid the size of the Isle of Wight hits Earth).
I had the same thought. The most obvious explanation is a release of thermal energy that is already present. We know the ocean absorbs energy. Once this happens there is no simple way for this energy to be released except by diffusion through stratified ocean layers to the surface and then dissipation from convective flow. Potentially this can become an unstable system if too much energy is accumulated in the deeper ocean or the loss from surface interactions becomes too small. This is typical Rayleigh Benard convection. Once this instability occurs overly warmed lower ocean layers will create a convective cell where lower warmer ocean layers replace cooler upper layers. I’m not a climate scientist so this is just speculation, of course.
A thermocline is a metastable system. In temperate climates, freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears (either twice or once a year). An ocean basin is essentially a knife-edge sea-saw that has a similar instability, but in this case the thermocline is sensitive to massive inertial changes caused by well-characterized cyclic changes in the Earth’s rotation rate. This leads to sloshing of the thermocline back and forth, either raising or lowering the thermocline, and that’s what causes all the non-annual variation in climate indices such as ENSO, IOD, AMO, etc. And it’s not shifts in prevailing wind that’s causing the sloshing, since it’s been shown by Lin & Qian that the wind lags thermocline motion. Wind only exists due to pressure differentials and so changes in the wind result from spatially-resolved changes in atmospheric pressure due to differential heating of the thermocline sea-saw. That’s why the wind slightly lags all the sub-surface movements of the thermocline depth.
This narrative would of course all be conjecture if we were unable to correlate the changes to some other known inertial forcing. The only one that makes sense is to take the Earth’s rotation rate variation, aka the LOD, and feed that directly into a fluid dynamics forced response formulation. I’ve published that approach several years ago, and have been updating the cross-validation studies ever since — not yet by pricey paper publishing but by updates to github and a blog. Latest cross-validation is here: https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/08/dynamic-time-warping/
Paul Pukite Mar. 15. A thermocline is a metastable system. Freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears (either twice or once a year). An ocean basin is essentially a knife-edge sea-saw that has a similar instability.
Why would you bring up lakes? There is very little similarity between them and the ocean. MOST of the ocean, unlike your lakes – does NOT overturn: thanks to its larger depth and the Thermohaline Circulation – MOST of the ocean deep water is permanently denser than the surface waters above them – hence no overturning there.
Ironically, in the few places and times in the ocean, where the overturning DOES happen – there is no thermocline to speak of.
So you’re not aware that subsurface waves (aka internal waves) in the middle of the ocean are often 100’s of meters in height?
“Ironically, in the few places and times in the ocean, where the overturning DOES happen – there is no thermocline to speak of.”
The region that has the most delineated thermocline is along the equator. Not surprisingly. the equatorial subsurface waves are the most closely monitored as they are the most directly causal indicator of interannual global temperature changes.
Paul Pukite: “ Freshwater lakes will completely overturn when the thermocline density differential disappears
Piotr: “Why would you bring up lakes? MOST of the ocean, unlike your lakes – does NOT overturn”
PP: “So you’re not aware that subsurface waves (aka internal waves) in the middle of the ocean”
I know about internal waves. It is you who “is not aware” of the difference between “internal waves in the middle of the ocean ” and “overturning “.
PP: The region that has the most delineated thermocline is along the equator.
And 2+2=4. Still doesn’t make the undulation of that “well-defined thermocline in the middle of the ocean” into an “overturning“. Don’t use the words you don’t understand.
So you’re really not aware how large subsurface internal waves along the thermocline can get?
These GIFs may help you understand how much larger in scale they are than conventional surface tides.
https://johncarlosbaez.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sst-wind-cur-eqt-20c1.gif
https://www.enso.info/bild/sst-wind-cur-eqt-20c.gif
These are actually kind of hard to find as they were originally hosted on a NOAA web site that has since disappeared. I don’t know why they aren’t shown more, as they are an eye-opener — note that as the thermocline approaches the surface the temperatures then plummet.
Paul Pukite (@whut) 22 MAR: “ So you’re really not aware how large subsurface internal waves along the thermocline can get?”
I know how tall the internal waves could be, Genius, so what I questioned is not their height but your claim that they cause ocean “overturning” -which in oceanography means swapping vertically deep waters with surface waters.
Thermal/thermohaline overturning happens in fall/winter in lakes and high latitude oceans without pronounced thermocline. And we care about it because it is important in the vertical transport of heat, is a source of nutrients to the surface layer and of oxygen to deep waters, moving some of the atm CO2 into the ocean. In case of N. Atlantic – “overturning” is the driver of the AMOC and thus the global Thermohaline Circulation.
Your internal waves “in the middle of the ocean with a well defined thermocline”
have none of the scale nor importance of these thermohaline overturnings. We can conclude that from two independent lines of reasoning:
1. no scale to cause any significant overturning
– the internal waves would have to reach into the deep waters (below the thermocline) and they are too small to do so, given that your “well-defined” thermocline is typically several 100 metres thick
– and reaching there would still not be enough – the wave would have ALSO to BREAK. And the 100+ m internal waves typically don’t break “in the middle of the ocean”.
Hence, you latest effort to make your area of interest important seems to be destined to the fate of your previous attempts to do so (see your claims that a better prediction of the exact timing of the next El Nino could “ save countless lives“… ;-) )
Nice Piotr, you understand the diff between a lake and an ocean.
As far as origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions, the failed consensus still seems to be that shifts in prevailing winds are the causative agents. Yet, no cause for why the wind shifts. In exasperation, when something is not well understood, the explanation is often the dog chasing its tail, or turtles all the way down. .
There’s hope tho — the fellas at THE Ohio State University seem to understand the real mechanism behind ENSO :
“Switch Between El Nino and La Nina is Caused by Subsurface Ocean Waves Likely Driven by Lunar Tidal Forcing” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w
They only lack the fluid dynamics math behind it, which is necessary to synchronize the tidal periods. I got that part covered.
“ Nice Piotr, you understand the diff between a lake and an ocean”
derisively says Paul Pukite (MAR 29), in response to my pointing om Mar 21 that …. HE didn’t get that difference:
“Piotr Mar 21: “Why would you bring up lakes? There is very little similarity between them and the ocean”
Derision toward an opponent works ONLY if you have shown them being wrong.
The same derision when they were right and you were wrong, discredits only you.
As far as origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions
Again – nobody discussed here “ origins of the thermocline movement during ENSO transitions“, but your post from Mar.15 in which :
– you compared effects of the oscillations of the thermocline to “complete overturning” in a lake – which I have shown to be false
– you confidently claimed that these oscillations around the mean somehow “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change“. When I asked you to prove this claims – you “replied” with:
“ there is no such thing as a proof in the physical sciences” , Paul Pukite
Classic Paul Pukite.
Piotr said:
Correction. My classic work is in applied math and applied physics, starting from way back in the day.
I ponder why Piotr has such a personal vendetta against me, as I am in the progress of dismantling all of Richard Lindzen’s early work in interannual variability. This is stuff that’s 50 years old and all I can wonder is why no one thought to work it through?
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/25/proof-for-allowed-modes-of-an-ideal-qbo/
Piotr, do you have a theory as to the sudden rise in oceanic temperatures? I’m not a climate researcher, my background is in engineering and later applied mathematics so I claim no authoritative opinion. However, obviously exceedingly large amounts of thermal energy cannot appear by magic. Also it seems counterintuitive to me that these phenomena are a result of changes in atmospheric phenomena such as aerosols or other gaseous causes due to thermal inertia of the oceans. This makes me conjecture that this energy is already present somewhere in the physical system. Interested to get your thoughts on this sudden temperature rise.
Jonathan David. I’m not a climate expert. My background is in infrastructure design ( I dont want to be too specific because people should be judged on what they say, not qualifications). However fyi this source below makes some interesting comments on the last 9 months of unusually high ocean temperatures, the potential impacts of aerosols and other possible causes for the very high temperatures.
“Aerosols: are SO2 emissions reductions contributing to global warming?”
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
Paul Pukite Mar 22: “ I am arguing over with Piotr in the thread above concerns the metastability of the ocean’s thermocline. Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change.
To have your “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change” – you would have to raise or lower the thermocline “permanently ” .
Internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline.
So the only way they could have ANY (much less “HUGE”) effect on changes in SST would be if they reached deep into the thermocline enough AND be able to break and in doing so – erode the significant thickness of thermocline. Which they can’t today, and couldn’t in the past – PARTICULARLY in the places you that identified as the BEST locations for it (“equatorial waters with most delineated thermocline “).
And the final point from our previous discussion – for the global climate CHANGE – only the effects that CHANGE matter
So not only you would have to prove that the oscillation around the mean affect the depth of the thermocline, but also that this effect increases or decreases over climatological time-scale, despite that your driving force – tidal – doesn’t.
Good luck with both.
Piotr said:
Physics is not about proofs — only math can prove something starting from a proposition. Alas, you’re fortunate to make the above assertion at this time, since I had recently finished a blog post showing the difference between a mathematical proof and a physics-based hypothesis intended to explain an observed behavior.
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/25/proof-for-allowed-modes-of-an-ideal-qbo/
As I state in the blog post, the first half is my try of a proof of a mathematical construction, which appears very similar to an abstracted ideal QBO, matching it in topology. That part is laid out in a gray background.
In the second half of the post, I map the abstracted construction to that of the real QBO — not to prove anything but to provide a model that matches the empirical observations, and thus to offer it as a candidate that is superior to other models that have been presented to explain the QBO.
The specific explanation laid out in the post is an important finding as it strongly suggests to re-evaluate the research that Richard Lindzen published 50+ years ago to explain QBO. Ask ChatGPT and it will tell you that Lindzen is the “Godfather of QBO”. But of course, Lindzen never proved anything and my finding indicates that he completely overlooked the constrained topology and external forces that could lead to a much more plausible and parsimonious model for QBO. See, that’s the point of physics models — they don’t need to prove anything, they just need to perform better than any of the preceding models at explaining the empirical observations.
I’m not sure if Lindzen himself claimed that his model was proof, but being an educator, I hope he taught his students the difference between a proof and a scientific model.
Paul Pukite: MAR 25: “Physics is not about proofs”
I have already answered the last time you were making that claim:
====
Paul Pukite MAR4: “First of all, there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
Piotr MAR4 : As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics – after claiming that better predicting of timing of the next El Nino could “save countless lives” – he failed to show how – so he claimed that by “ countless” he didn’t mean “very many”, but .. .unknowable number (i.e. maybe a lot, maybe none at all, who knows). Now: there is no such thing as a proof in the physical science“.
So how about: “demonstrate”, “justify”, “show the likelihood of being significant”?
===
Which part of that post from Mar 4, you didn’t understand, Paul?
Paul Pukite, Mar25 :” Alas, you’re fortunate to make the above assertion at this time ”
Alas, not fortunate enough to see Paul Pukite answering the direct challenge to his claims on RC from Mar22:
Paul Pukite Mar 22: ” Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change.
Piotr Mar 24: “To have your “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change” – you would have to raise or lower the thermocline “permanently ” Internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline. […]
And for the global climate CHANGE – only the effects that CHANGE matter
So not only you would have to [demonstrate] that the oscillation around the mean affect the depth of the thermocline, but also that this effect increases or decreases over climatological time-scale, despite that your driving force – tidal – doesn’t.”
Nobody has asked you about your thoughts on your blog about “ abstracted ideal QBO, matching in topology.”
So grow a pair, and justify your Mar.22 “huge implications” claim.
Piotr said:
Well, you hide behind rhetoric.
I know it might be difficult to accept, but semantics are important in devising a math proof — as it provides the meaning behind the symbols and expressions used during a proof’s construction. It’s not a mechanism to hide behind but a means to convey unambiguously and consistently what one is trying to prove. More generally, semantic reasoning is defined as the capability of inferring new facts from existing data based on inference rules & ontologies. Which is in a sense what classical semantic AI is all about.
So for the post I linked to https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/25/proof-for-allowed-modes-of-an-ideal-qbo/, I provided essentially a math proof, applying semantic reasoning as appropriate, to try to prove how a wavenumber mode of an idealized QBO can be realized via a topological connection. This is not a proof as to whether the real QBO follows from this principle but an example of how to use math to create a hypothesis that can eventually be tested against the empirical observations.
For this particular case of trying to pin down the physical mechanism driving the QBO, I have been evaluating the basic model since publishing it in 2018 (and presenting at conferences a couple of years before that). The model fits the QBO observations well and readily cross-validates as shown in this blog post https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/16/are-the-qbo-disruptions-anomalous/
Yet, despite the excellent agreement, no peer-reviewed work in atmospheric physics or climate science has attempted to cite the publication or directly refute the findings. It’s been over 5 years now, and still nothing — perhaps its a case of Hiding in Plain Sight. Of course it’s easy for someone like Piotr to launch rhetorical attacks against some meaningless subjective remark that I’ve made on a blog comments page, but that’s the way that deflection works — get people preoccupied with some inanity rather than the salient findings.
It’s also easier to counter some strawman sunspot theory than try to debunk a solid geophysics model, but in the case of QBO the problem my lay with the gatekeepers that are guarding the consensus view — the main scientists being Richard Lindzen, Tim Dunkerton, and Paul Roundy. What a bloviating trio you got there! Dunkerton has told me that he will cite my work in an article he is working on, but based on his WaPo reported ethical problems, not sure how that will pan out.
Re Paul Pukite – Is this vector ( https://geoenergymath.com/2024/03/25/proof-for-allowed-modes-of-an-ideal-qbo/ ):
[ sin(ω_T t) cos(ω_D t) ,
cos(ω_T t) cos(ω_D t) ,
sin(ω_D t) ]
supposed to be approx. a unit vectorpointing from Earth to the Moon? (PS I would have switched the x and y formulas but perhaps you’re using a left-handed system or intending to have z pointing generally Southward)
Then your x-y plane is the Earth’s orbital plane; the Earth’s equatorial plane is of course inclined about 23.44° from that. That’s what I was getting at here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817719
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-818389 (“tropical month dominates over draconic month in lunar declination.”)
Otherwise (if not approx. pointing to the Moon), I can’t make heads or tails of it.
I’m not surprised you’re having trouble getting your QBO work cited. I don’t believe it’s all due to closed minds.
(And don’t forget, Holton worked with Lindzen on the QBO.)
Piotr said:” As usually, when cornered, Paul … hides behind semantics “
Paul Pukite”Well, you hide behind rhetoric”
Prove your claim the way I was able to prove mine:
1. Arguing for more research into his area of interest, Paul Pukite claimed that a better predicting of timing of next El Nino “could save countless lives” Asked how – couldn’t offer a plausible scenario so he hid behind semantics – argued that by “ countless lives he didn’t mean: a very large number of lives, but … an unknowable number of lives (i.e. maybe many, maybe none we are not able to predict).
2. PP claimed that waves along the thermocline “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change”.
– I pointed out that the internal WAVES can’t do that, because …. they are WAVES: they OSCILLATE UP and DOWN without changing the average depth of the thermocline.
– Unable to prove his claim that internal waves “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change” he replied: “Physics is not about proofs” and instead of explaining HOW the internal waves “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change his attention drifted away onto “ abstracted ideal QBO, matching in topology” from his blog.
I pointed that instead justifying his claims about “huge implications” Paul is hiding behind semantics … “Physics is not about proofs” and then changes the subject.
Paul Pukite replies with ” Well, you hide behind rhetoric” and …continues his monologue on … “ a math proof, applying semantic reasoning as appropriate, to try to prove how a wavenumber mode of an idealized QBO can be realized via a topological connection
Paul Pukite, at his truest – everybody. ;-)
re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820653
Oops! The factor cos(ω_D t) must be removed from the x,y components in order for that vector to point toward the Moon at all (I should have caught that!); but it would as you presented it in https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817693 . Better yet, the z term should be scaled by ≈ tan(5.145° ± 0.155°ish) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon# , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-818014 (near end)) (although not a concern from a purely topological POV):
[ sin(ω_T t),
cos(ω_T t),
(≈0.090±0.003)∙sin(ω_D t)]
(And then divide by √sum of squares, of course, to get the unit vector. Still an approx., of course.)
… unless, of course, you were finding something other than a vector pointing toward the Moon (from Earth).
Anyway, the xy plane is still in Earth’s orbital plane (for above formula); my point about the importance of the tropical month to the declination of the Moon still stands.
(Remember that in addition to zonally-symmetric tides (½ ~tropical month (modulated by 18.6 year cycle), anomalistic month, ½ tropical year, anomalistic year), anything which modulates the amplitudes of the diurnal and semidiurnal tides (all cycles just listed) also potentially has a wavenumber-0 effect.)
Patrick,
The issue is one of understanding that the tropical lunar month is more related to a specific longitude of the earth — local tides and LOD torqueing is associated with the influence on specific locations. However, there are geophysical behaviors that are not dependent on the local latitude — the QBO is one of these. It’s situated high up in the stratosphere and so completely decoupled from the earth’s surface, thus the longitude can have no effect on the initiation of a “wavenumber=zero” behavior. So the main factors to consider are the draconic/nodal tide (the 18.6 y cycle plays a role in the strength of the excursions of the 27.212 day period) and also the 2nd-order factor anomalistic cycle of perigee. Have no idea if Lindzen is even aware of the issue — Holton died 20 years ago. Tim Dunkerton, who’s on the younger side of that era, having first studied it in the 1970’s knows exactly what I’m getting at, but he has his own skeletons he’s dealing with. (Dunkerton is a Piotr-level impediment, but on the flip side of the argument. )
The QBO anomalies of 2016 and 2020 may help resolve the mess that Lindzen created. Recall how the existence of Neptune was predicted based on an anomaly of the Uranus orbit? Well, that anomaly is no longer an anomaly because it gets absorbed into the gravitational pull of Neptune. Same thing will happen with the QBO — those anomalies of 2016 and 2020 are only anomalies because the fundamental mechanism behind QBO is not currently understood. However, once the detailed lunar forcing is included in the QBO model, those anomalies will disappear and just be accepted as part of the complex tidal dynamics.
And, as I stated above, the QBO is not the only geophysical behavior that has this curious longitudinal invariance. The Chandler wobble of the Earth’s axis is a wobble on the Z-axis, which is a related topology. To get a wobble the North and South poles have a difference of mass, but of course the poles have no longitude as the lines of longitude converge to a singularity or degenerate case. Well, lo and behold, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Chandler wobble has a period EXACTLY commensurate with the draconic lunar cycle. I also published this several years ago — with the same reaction of silence. Many researchers have occasionally revisited the tropical lunar cycle as a Chandler wobble forcing, not realizing that topologically it can’t have an effect. OTOH, it does on the LOD because that’s in the X-Y rotational plane.
There seems to be a blind-spot in the geophysics and climate community when it comes to elementary topological considerations. I would have given up on it long ago if it wasn’t for the fact that the empirical observations match the predictions to within the measurement error. I come from a background where we do controlled experiments — there are laboratory analogs for both QBO and Chandler wobble that substitute E-M forces for gravity and you can validate the numbers, FWIW.
Re Paul Pukite:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/02/06/dunkerton-offensive-tweet-nwra-ams/ – wow, that is bad! (Hopefully there are not 2 Tim Dunkertons in this field out there; I’d hate to smear one by mistake.) (Doesn’t mean his work on QBO was wrong, through.)
But I think you’re still not getting it. The draconic month is a complete cycle back-and-forth through the plane of the Earth’s orbit (the nodes are intersections with that plane). As I understand it, the tropical month is a complete orbit relative to the direction Earth’s axis points (projected onto Earth’s orbit), and on average is the cycle length for declination, of the Moon going North and South through/relative to the Earth’s equatorial plane (it would be an exact match if the Moon’s orbit were coplanar with Earth’s). Earth’s obliquity (axial tilt) is a few times larger than the inclination of the Moon’s orbit, so the tropical month dominates in the lunar declination cycle.
If you want Earth’s equatorial plane = xy plane, try this:
[ ≈sin(ω_T t),
≈cos(ω_T t),
≈ 0.434∙sin(ω_T t) + (≈0.090±0.003)∙sin(ω_D t)]
(tan(23.44°) ≈ 0.434)
Also note that the x,y components are not exact; even for a perfectly circular, unperturbed orbit, the angular velocity around Earth’s axis (for constant revolution around an axis with different tilt) will peak when the orbit is farthest from the equatorial plane and reach a minimum at crossings of that plane (related to the figure-8 traced by the Sun at noon everyday over a year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma ). The draconic month will add a wobble to the x,y values with an 18.6 year cycle (I think; I’m a bit tired right now; see last part of https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817384 , 1st part of following comment, and correction of terminology at start of https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817865 ) – and the z part could probably use some fine-tuning as well – see also last part of https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-818014 … “approximation works well when tilt, inclination, and eccentricity are small and when frequencies are nearly constant. ”
“However, once the detailed lunar forcing is included in the QBO model, those anomalies will disappear and just be accepted as part of the complex tidal dynamics.” – bear in mind, as with ENSO, QBO is immersed in a complex system and other bits of weather might be capable of interrupting it on occasion (I believe this is the accepting hypothesis of what happened). I’m not saying it’s not worth further inquiry, but the assumption of a tidal explanation is premature at best, IMO.
Chandler Wobble – in case anyone was wondering what that is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_wobble
What I learned is that the period is related to the difference between the I values (principle moments of inertia) for the principle axes: L_i = ω_i I_i; I_z is just slightly larger for Earth’s symmetry axis z (≈ rotation axis) due to equatorial bulge, so when the instantaneous rotation axis, and therefore ω (angular velocity, a.k.a Ω, are not exactly parallel with that axis, then L (angular momentum) is just slightly closer to the symmetry axis. The result can be visualized using a Space cone (centered on L) and Body cone (centered on the symmetry axis), which contact along ω; the Body cone contains the Space cone and rolls around on it (it’s inner surface rolls on the outer surface of the Space cone); in the Earth’s frame of reference, the Space cone rolls on the inside of the Body cone. Because the Body cone is much bigger than the Space cone, the period of revolution around the symmetry axis is much longer than a day, while the the period of revolution around L (in an inertial frame) is similar to a siderial day (=2π/ω) (I worked this out ~ a decade ago) because of the Body cone’s much larger size. PS the vertices of both cones are at Earth’s center. See also Tennis Racket Theorem (what happens when all three I_i are different values).
I haven’t studied the effects of non-rigidity of the Earth in detail, but I’d expect that elastic+plastic deformation would shift the instantaneous symmetry axis (ISA) toward alignment with ω, thereby shrinking the Space cone relative to the Body cone (centered on the permanent (average) symmetry axis (PSA)), making the period of the wobble even longer, while the viscosity will cause the ISA to lag behind, causing the revolution around PSA to become an inward spiral (a flubber planet could have an outward spiral).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_wobble : “An investigation was done in 2001 by Richard Gross at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology. He used angular momentum models of the atmosphere and the oceans in computer simulations to show that from 1985 to 1996, the Chandler wobble was excited by a combination of atmospheric and oceanic processes, with the dominant excitation mechanism being ocean‐bottom pressure fluctuations. Gross found that two-thirds of the “wobble” was caused by fluctuating pressure on the seabed, which, in turn, is caused by changes in the circulation of the oceans caused by variations in temperature, salinity, and wind. The remaining third is due to atmospheric pressure fluctuations.[6]”
To make a long story short, don’t forget:
** Correct geometry and topology **
***** F = m∙a *****
“and the z part could probably use some fine-tuning as well”
Yeah, for one thing the angles should be added before applying tan:
≈ tan[ 23.44° sin(ω_T t) + (5.145° ± 0.155°ish**)∙sin(ω_D t) ]
Still a bit clunky for my taste, and still … etc. (see above); I’d prefer just using angles in spherical coords, but I don’t feel like doing the math right now. The qualitative points made in the text still stand.
** sig.figs: one source gave 5.145°, another gave 5.14 or 5.15 with a range of 4.99 to 5.30 deg., so …
“As I understand it, the tropical month”… – if my understanding is wrong, the error must be subtle and not have any appreciable effect on my point, or otherwise it must be the declination cycle itself; either way, placing the primacy in the draconic month for lunar declination is erroneous.
Jonathan, I wrote a book on analyzing various forms of Earth’s energy, titled Mathematical Geoenergy (Wiley/AGU, 2018). I have a chapter on thermal inertia (Chapter 14) and do agree with your conjecture on uptake of energy leading to only gradual warming based on diffusion and radiative forcing means. However, there are other convective means that can lead to much more rapid changes in temperature. One of those I am arguing over with Piotr in the thread above concerns the metastability of the ocean’s thermocline. Raising or lowering that thermocline relative to the surface has huge implications for how fast the SST will change. This is a reduced gravity effect and I have another chapter in the book where I work out the applied math, solving a fluid dynamics formulation (Chapter 12), in which I can apply tidal forces and show how the erratic cycles of ENSO emerge.
Recall that any force will produce responses inversely proportional to the effective gravity (think Neal Armstrong) and so therefore the thermocline interface is highly sensitive to inertial changes caused by the tidal forces. I early on discovered that the key to cross-validating a model that best represents the data is if a seasonal metastability point is assumed and the tidal forces are applied then, and sustained until the next metastability point is reached.
There really is only one way that a model like this will be accepted, and that will be through extensive cross-validation evaluations — training on one time interval and extrapolating on another time interval — just as is done with conventional tidal analysis. Unfortunately this is not as easy — a day’s worth of conventional tidal measurements is comparable to a year’s worth of inferred thermocline data. Why this occurs is that as the effective gravity is reduced, the resonant inertial periods grow longer and spatial extent grows larger, so that only the so-called long-period tides have an effect. Forget about analyzing this at diurnal tidal periods. That’s the fatal flaw of most researchers that look at this — they all think that if diurnal or semi-diurnal cycles are not seen, then it’s not tidal. Wrong.
In the final analysis it may emerge that the very long period tides such as the 18.6 year nodal cycle may play a role in producing the extremes as shown by this last year’s temperature spike. As each ocean basin has a different thermocline inertial response sensitivity set by the standing-wave boundary conditions, a constructive interference of peaks may be a cause.
re Paul Pukite
Δx x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ;
– h’/H = ∂x’/∂x = – k· Δx ·sin(k x – ω t) ;
c = ω/k ; k = ω/c
Amplitude Δh’ = H k ·Δx = Δx ·H ·ω/c
Let Δx = 1.9 m ,
ω = 2π/(13.66 · 86400 s) ≈ 2π/(1.180 Ms) ≈ 5.324e-6 /s
(see end of https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/01/unforced-variations-jan-2024/#comment-818389 ),
c ≈ 200 m/s, H ≈ 4 km: Δh’ (sfc wave, open ocean) ≈ 2.023e-4 m ≈ 0.2 mm
~ 20 m/s, 40 m (shallower water) Δh’ ≈ 0.02 mm
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC014838#:~:text=The%20waves%20maintain%20an%20average%20phase%20speed%20of,150%C2%B0W%20and%20minimum%20of%202.35%20m%2Fs%20near%20175%C2%B0W :
~ 2.55 m/s (Kelvin wave), ? 4 km (thermocline) Δh’ ≈ 1.59 cm
(? but should I use the depth of the layer above or below the thermocline instead?; Rossby-gravity mode?)
Boost from resonance?
—
Streamlines may form an overturning pattern but not necessarily result in overturning due to trajectories being short (before a reversal or shift of the streamlines) – eg. geostrophic adjustments to small perturbations in a stably stratified layer, waves in such a layer.
Alterations of the potential density profile caused by heating, cooling, evaporation, mixing (by wind or internal wave breaking – which involves overturning but may be over a limited depth) – aside from horizontal heterogeneity in that, which can result in geostrophic adjustments and waves, this is otherwise like a nothing on a damper – ie grab a block on a table, slide it around, release it – it stays put. In a sense this is stable, though not in the energy-well sort of way.
Stable stratification – this is like a mass on a spring (with a damper, in this context) – it is stable. Oscillations in an energy well. Even with reduced gravity, this just means that it is much less stable than the ocean’s surface. But that’s not metastable or unstable.
The instability/bistability/metastability? of ENSO is AFAIK a result of feedback between wind and SST (which is connected to thermocline displacements), not AFAIK intrinsic to the thermocline(?).
“seasonal metastability point” – are you suggesting that the equatorial Pacific thermocline almost disappears at some times?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistability
(sfc)Tides in the ocean are discernable and predictable because they are AFAIK approx. linearly superimposed on whatever else is going on (storm surges, sea level rise, etc.) – I’m guessing that nonlinearities tend to come in more near the point where the energy is dissipated or converted to other motions (tidal bores, internal waves and wave breaking, …). In contrast, I believe, from what I’ve read, that ENSO is more completely immersed in the chaos of weather, even it there are tidal influences.
re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820528 Oops! Those calculations were based on a range (2×amplitude): 10 μm/s ; however, that was rounded from 10.8 μm/s (for 2 ms ΔLOD). I also used a rounded c values (although close: given 4 km depth, I get c ≈ 198 m/s (197.8 m/s @ equator) for the 1st two Δh’ values, so …
(sfc wave, open ocean 4 km) ≈ 2.023e-4 m ≈ 0.110 mm
(sfc, shallower water 40 m) Δh’ ≈ 0.0110 mm
~ 2.55 m/s (internal Kelvin wave), ? 4 km (thermocline) Δh’ ≈ 8.57 mm
Patrick said:
” But that’s not metastable or unstable.”
It’s fairly obvious that they are. Consider that as part of the equatorial waveguide, there is a recurring behavior called Tropical Instability Waves (TIW). They occur in both the Pacific and Atlantic. These are massive wave-trains that always result in the same wavenumber (wavelength~1200 km) and feature very sharp delineated interfaces.
Noticed that you were trying to estimate the magnitude of the waves from some standard formula for wave height. Well, that’s all out the window once you realize that you really need to estimate the effective gravity at the thermocline interface with the basic knowledge that it has a proportionality to the difference in the density (divided by the mean). So it doesn’t make sense to justify the height observed since it is what it is . Tides or angular momentum (AM) variations are the only way that a subsurface nternal wave can grow massive — recall that AM impulses are responsible for tidal waves. Consider how massive a surface tidal wave aka tsunami can get based on a seismic occurrence — now consider how much more massive a subsurface internal wave will get. Seriously now, has no one really considered what impact the impulse of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic event of 2022 had on the subsurface equatorial thermocline and if it has modified the standing wave response of the 2023 El Nino? Recall how many climate scientists and meteorologists have noted that the El Nino occurred earlier in the season than is typical? Could an extra impulse have modified the usual seasonal instability thus causing an El Nino slosh to arrive early?
It’s timely that we’ve been having a discussion on the possibility of adapting a new fluid dynamics software package called SpeedyWeather for use in the open ocean instead of atmospheric dynamics). Much of the discussion is centered on making adjustments to the effective gravity, read the thread https://github.com/SpeedyWeather/SpeedyWeather.jl/issues/412#issuecomment-1860778800 which the main sw developer has just closed.
Re Paul Pukite
“Tropical Instability Waves (TIW)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_instability_waves
After very quick read, I found “Mathematical modeling studies indicate that TIW are generated by velocity shear between the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current and the eastward flowing Equatorial Undercurrent and Equatorial Countercurrent.[1]” vertical shear in geostrophic or gradient wind (current) balance requires an isobaric horizontal density gradient (horizontal potential density gradient), which could involve a sloped thermocline or some other horizontal variation in the thermocline… okay, it seems I was wrong, and thank you for pointing this interesting phenomenon out. Sounds like it may be a combination of barotropic and baroclinic wave instabilities.
—– —–
PS Pardon my poor editing:
“Δx x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ; ” should be x’ = Δx· cos(k x – ω t) ;
“(sfc wave, open ocean 4 km) ≈ 2.023e-4 m ≈ 0.110 mm”: skip the “2.023e-4 m”
The idea I was using is a horizontal shove against the ocean’s inertia will produce a horizontal divergence or convergence which, in the approx. of incompressibility, must be balanced with vertical contraction or dilation. The horizontal divergence is increased by smaller phase speed c. Reduced gravity is taken into account via its effect on c. I looked up relevant terms and found a reference to (presumably) internal Kelvin waves with c between 2 and 3 m/s (PS interesting stuff about ocean dynamics that link https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC014838#:~:text=The%20waves%20maintain%20an%20average%20phase%20speed%20of,150%C2%B0W%20and%20minimum%20of%202.35%20m%2Fs%20near%20175%C2%B0W ). I didn’t want to try to calculate a value for c, given that the thermocline is not in reality a discontinuity in potential density but a layer with enhanced gradient, as I understand it. (Is it actually thicker than the surface layer?).
Of course, ~2 ms is the range (2×amplitude if cycle) of LOD over a year; a fortnightly cycle (if it is a such a cycle) may be different?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length_fluctuations . And the inertia of the ocean, via the Coriolis effect, tends to involve a speeding up or slowing down of rotation in response to the fortnightly and other zonally-symmetric tides, and this may be of similar magnitude as solid Earth ΔLOD (?), perhaps tending to cancel out some ΔLOD (or it may be solid Earth ΔLOD cancels out some of the Ocean’s inertia) if the later (solid Earth ΔLOD) is caused by the same mechanism, as I mentioned earlier.
in Re to Paul Pukite, 22 Mar 2024 at 8:07 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820463
25 Mar 2024 at 7:02 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820564
and to patrick o twentyseven, 24 Mar 2024 at 6:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820528
and 24 Mar 2024 at 9:21 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820532
Sirs,
If the waves you are discussing are real, I believe that there should exist also means how they can be observed. Are there indeed no such observations yet that could help decide if the waves have the calculated kilometer or rather the calculated centimeter size?
Thank you in advance for your comments on this question, and happy Easter.
Greetings
Tomáš
Me: “okay, it seems I was wrong,” – but wait, did I say that there was no instability caused by the existence of the thermocline absent the atmosphere or tides…, or just that ENSO required more? Maybe I wasn’t wrong? – although I had forgotten about baroclinic instability in the ocean so… ? … the important thing here is I learned something.
re Paul Pukite: “Tides or angular momentum (AM) variations are the only way that a subsurface nternal wave can grow massive”… I’m very doubtful that AM or AV (angular velocity) variations do anything so big (AFAIK significant tsunamis are caused more directly by local displacement near the quake/slide; the AV route is indirect); anyway:
From https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC014838#:~:text=The%20waves%20maintain%20an%20average%20phase%20speed%20of,150%C2%B0W%20and%20minimum%20of%202.35%20m%2Fs%20near%20175%C2%B0W
“Characterization of Intraseasonal Kelvin Waves in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean”
Rydbeck, Jensen, Flatau, 2019 (emphasis mine)
2nd paragraph in “1 Background”
“Kelvin waves are typically forced in the west Pacific Ocean by anomalously westerly surface winds that can arise from a variety of atmospheric phenomena (Luther et al., 1983) such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), monsoon, extratropical intrusions, and twin cyclones (Seiki & Takayabu, 2007, and references therein). Anomalous westerlies oppose the prevailing easterly trade winds in the equatorial Pacific that are responsible for maintaining the zonal thermocline slope and the deep reservoir of warm water in the west Pacific Ocean. The weakening of the trades relaxes the thermocline slope and redistributes thermal energy from the west Pacific to the east Pacific. Equatorial Kelvin waves are a critical component of this process because, by oceanic equatorial wave standards, they swiftly (2–3 months) transport energy across the basin. The anomalous wind stress modulates mass along the equator such that westerly (easterly) wind stress drives a downwelling (upwelling) Kelvin wave that propagates eastward with anomalous eastward (westward) surface currents. The downwelling Kelvin wave depresses the thermocline by tens of meters which, in turn, increases the ocean heat content (OHC) above the thermocline and raises the sea level elevation by several centimeters (e.g., Kutsuwada & McPhaden, 2002).”
…sounds like the wind can accomplish some significant wave amplitude at/in the thermocline.
Tomas Kalisz: “Dear Sirs! […] Are there indeed no such observations yet that could help decide if the waves have the calculated kilometer or rather the calculated centimeter size?
Buy the damn oceanography textbook Tomas, and do your homework first before
making conjectures (“Are there indeed no such observations”)
And no – there are no “ kilometer size” waves on top of the thermocline, and in the context of mixing across the main thermocline in equatorial ocean (many 100 metres thick) – nobody cares about the “cm size” waves
If you didn’t know, the discussion started with Paul Pukite claiming that the CHANGE in these internal waves may cause “overturning” and would “have huge implications for how fast the SST will change“.
To which I pointed ocean overturning does NOT happen where he claimed it might
(“ in the middle of the equatorial ocean“) – and for that all you need to do is
a) check any oceanography textbook
b) look for evidence of such overturning across the main thermocline there (heads up: there isn’t one)
So much for Paul’s “ huge implications for how fast the SST will change“.
AV, a.k.a ω , a.k.a Ω, a.k.a angular velocity, and
AM, a.k.a L, a.k.a (angular momentum)
“ I’m very doubtful that AM or AV (angular velocity) variations do anything so big” – referring to ΔLOD effects; of course local changes in PV (potential vorticity), or the curl of the velocity ((relative) vorticity), of fluid parcels is of great importance in fluid dynamics.
Also, while I expect zonally-symmetric tides to result in ΔLOD, there are other causes (including weather, AFAIK). Seismic waves may cause tsunamis at some distance from the epicenter AFAIK(?).
Jonathan David: “Also it seems counterintuitive to me that these phenomena are a result of changes in atmospheric phenomena such as aerosols or other gaseous causes due to thermal inertia of the oceans. This makes me conjecture that this energy is already present somewhere in the physical system.”
I am not sure I follow your conjecture. First, a minor clarification – most aerosols cool, not warm (directly by increasing albedo, indirect serving as cloud condensation nuclei that in the presence of humid air – seed the clouds, most of which cause net cooling). What warm the Earth are GHGs , and amplified by the temp. related changes in the water cycle.
Second, more important – I am not sure what why would you question the above known source the net heat entering the ocean, and look instead for … an unknown source of extra heat present somewhere “in the physical system” of the ocean that is …much larger than the AGW.
I don’t know of any INTERNAL source of heat LARGE enough to match the rate of observed warming of the ocean:
– it is not a massive increase in the heat from the crust – background values are about 0.1 W/m2, so their % CHANGE in the recent year would need to have been MASSIVE to explain the increased heat stored on the ocean
– it is not the dispersion of the energy from tides – I have no idea about its magnitude – but I don’t have to – the tides have NOT increased massively in the last few decades – so something that does not change cannot be a cause of a massive change
– the same goes for radioactivity – regarless of its size – it hasn’t massive increased in recent decades – if anything it is slowly reduced, the efforts of the Japanese releasing the radioactive waters from Fukushima into the Pacific notwithstanding ;-)
To sum up – in the atmosphere-controlled processes
– we have the plausible mechanism for the source of observed heating of the ocean,
– and its size is SUFFICIENT to explain ALL of it it: ocean heating ~= 90% of the Earth’s extra heat from AGW. Given that, I would start look for the ALTERNATIVE UNIDENTIFIED sources only, if the observed ocean heat uptake was substantially larger than 100% of the AGW heat. Until then I’ll stick with the simpler and sufficient explanation. Occam’s razor, you know.
As for the mechanism of the heating of the ocean you have asked about – I will try to answer in my next post.
Piotr, thanks for the response as well as those form Nigelj and Paul Pukite. I did read the link supplied by Nigelj and I am not rejecting other explanations for the anomalous heating including aerosols. What actually motivates my post is the statement of Dr Schmidt that “we don’t really know what is going on” (since last March) this is a somewhat unsettling statement. I assumed that this meant that there was (for him) no obvious explanation for the anomalous heating. This prompted me to speculate on other non-atmospheric causes. I would certainly assume that Dr Schmidt is familiar with the properties of aerosols as well as other phenomena of atmospheric physics. If that was the explanation then why would he not be aware of this as an explanation? Or does his statement refer to something else?
Jonathan David Mar 24: “ the statement of Dr Schmidt that “we don’t really know what is going on” prompted me to speculate on other non-atmospheric causes”
Aaa, the famous statement, prompted by the fact that 2023 was warmer than predicted.
The deniers were happy to run with that by implying that 2023 being warmer than predicted supports their beliefs that …. we have nothing to worry about global warming …. ;-)
Their opposite extreme – the Cassandras – were also happy to see it – they basked in the impending doom of humanity, since this bestowed on them the aura of a prophet I told you that for years, but you never listen…). However, as I show below this elation may be premature.
As for people like you who wondered whether this mean that we need to invoke “ other non-atmospheric causes” – in my previous post I already indicated why I think them unlikely – I know of no non-atmospheric cause that would be sufficiently large and quick to create the 2023 spike and still not being easily detected.
Among the plausible reasons for this discrepancy I see:
– underestimation of the rate of aerosols drop ?
not because Gavin didn’t know about role of aerosols, but modelling them correctly may be tricky, particularly in the forecast mode (when you don’t know yet how much they would fall in the forecasted period)
– the aftermath of the massive Tonga underwater eruption? Which sent in stratosphere both SO2 and water vapour – which countering effects on global temp. are further complicated by their height and how long they linger there
– the correction for El Nino wasn’t sufficient? During El Nino equatorial (and coastal) upwellings in Pacific may weaken or stop – which means less uptake of heat by the ocean and more of it staying in the atmosphere. Gavin applied the correction, but the timing and/or magnitude of the correction, based on past El Ninos, might have been off.
Any of the three could be responsible for the discrepancy between predicted and observed, and if so – it would render new unknown “non-atmospheric source of heat” – an unnecessary hypothesis.
Furthermore – all three mechanisms are short-term – hence do not affect the prediction of the long-term (climatological, i.e. averaged over ~3o years or more) models.
Therefore, the Cassandras should wait a while to see whether the 2023 overestimation persist over long time scale, you can relax a bit – we don’t need the non-atmospheric Deus-ex-machina to save climate change models, while the deniers, well – perhaps should take a course in logic (and ethics)?
@Jonathan David,
I think Gavin’s quote is simply a speculation along the lines of what you and I discussed previously about systems and instability and chaos.
“All of these statistics that we’re talking about, they’re taken from the prior data. But nothing in the prior data looked like 2023. Does that mean that the prior data are no longer predictive because the system has changed? I can’t rule that out, and that would obviously be very concerning.”
I’ve posed the question before: Why should we be surprised if GMST shows an anomalously high excursion, given that we are continuously increasing the energy in the system?
Of course the system is changing, and as I said, we don’t have the resolution in the physical models at this point to do more than speculate on the details. (And there I am referring to the actual specialists in all the different sub-disciplines involved, not internet pseudo-experts and YouTube fans.)
Consider my example of the double-pendulum; about as simple as it gets, but it covers all the possibilities from periodicity to instability to formal chaos.
Second part of my answer to Jonathan David Mar 22:
As for the mechanism of the heating of the ocean – in a great simplification : heat flows between air and surface ocean, and then can be exchanged with deep ocean via downwelling, upwelling, and mixing. The mixing happens effectively only in the parts of the ocean with strong storms and weak to non-existent pycnocline – because strong and thick pycnocline in most of the ocean is very difficult to mix through it heat or matter. So I will concentrate on the upwellings and downwellings.
The most important downwelling in the global ocean is in N. Atlantic high lats (near Greenland). As the warm surface waters originating in the south is brought to Greenland, it gives off its heat to air. Colder (and saltier due to formation of sea ice) water is denser, so it sinks toward the bottom (downwelling) and pushes the deep water already there forward – thus driving the AMOC, which is a part of the global Thermohaline Circulation (aka The Great Conveyor Belt).
The cold NADW (N.Atl. Deep Water) moves along this Conveyor Belt first toward Antarctic, then to the Indian and Pacific ocean, where, after ~ 1000 years it comes back toward surface. With its temperature formed in winter off Greenland, it is still very cold – so when it comes toward the surface it gets warmed by solar radiation and by hot tropical/subtropical air – thus there the ocean GAINS heat.
Before AGW – these two major heat fluxes: ocean losing heat to air near Greenland and gaining heat from air in upwellings in Ind. and Pacific – were the same size so they cancelled each other out. However under AGW – if the winters near Greenland is not as cold, the sinking water is also not as cold as they used to be. At the other end – the upwelling water is 1000 yr old, so it sunk before AGW – and brings to the surface its pre-water with pre-AGW temps, and then warms to the current higher (AGW) surface temperature
This way the sea-to-air heat transfer in Greenland is less, the air-to-sea heat transfer in upwellings in Pacific is more, so these two are no longer the same in size -> we have net accumulation of heat from air in the ocean.
Good comment, Piotr. It would be nice if one of the moderators did a post on this. My personal interest is in stability and bifurcation phenomena in fluid convective systems. Given the complicated system of convective flow you describe it can occur that “weak links” in the convective system may reach points of instability. I am quite interested in the discussion on the AMOC instability, for example. If such instabilities occur, the resulting flow can be quite unpredictable. I have no evidence that this is necessarily happening but it’s something I like to keep an eye on.
Jonathan David Mar 27: “It would be nice if one of the moderators did a post on this”
They had. Most recently: the parallel thread “ New study suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation AMOC “is on tipping course from Feb.8. Or you can do a search for “AMOC” in the archive to bring up earlier references.
Johnathan David: “ We know the ocean absorbs energy. Once this happens there is no simple way for this energy to be released except by diffusion through stratified ocean layers to the surface and then dissipation from convective flow.
There is another “simple way” – through upwellings. And it happens every few years – during El Nino – with the E->W Walker air circulation weakened – equatorial upwelling of cold nutrient rich water weakens or even reverses (downwelling). As do the coastal upwelling off Peru and Chile.
Less heat from air entering the ocean to warm the recently upwelled cold water – the more heat stays in the air.. This is why El Nino years are typically warmer than non-ElNino years – and that’s why the deniers, in looking for the elusive “hiatus” always start with El Nino – the hotter the starting year – the less likely to see warming from that in the immediately following few years. “After a heat-wave, everything would feel like cooling…”
That’s why in the most famous hiatus, the deniers started counting “how many years and months since the end of global warming”, using as their reference 1998 year, i.e. one of the strongest ElNino on records. To make it better, those counting “years and months” started counting from hottest MONTH of the 1997/1998 El Nino season … ;-)
Then they started counting the hiatus from the-then hottest year on record (2015), but since 2016 was even warmer, the poor guys had to re-start their hiatus clock at 2016.. I guess now they will have restart the end of global warming on 2023 …
“Thank you for your supportive feedback. I am trying to model to the scientists that it is possible to talk about all this in accessible language. Many people I know are put off by the jargon and complicated academic debate. That is the language of academia but given the significance some of them could try harder to translate imho.” JD
Minimisation Is The New Denial – climate scientists and the false hope of net-zero
Jackson Damian
https://jacksondamian.substack.com/p/minimisation-is-the-new-denial
If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
NK: If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
BPL: No. Ask a climate scientist.
Barton Paul Levenson says
16 Mar 2024 at 1:17 PM
That has not worked for 30 plus year, why would it suddenly be effective now Barton?
Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years.
They could all fit on the head of a pin.
Ned Kelly says “Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years. They could all fit on the head of a pin.”
Numerous climate scientists understand best whats really happening in the climate system. They developed the following: The basic physics that describes how earths climate (and weather) operates, discovered the greenhouse effect, have done the research attributing burning of fossil fuels to warming, developed climate modelling etcetera ad infinitum.
If you mean which climate scientists understands best whats happening with the climate system right now. nobody is fully sure why 2023 – early 2024 is so unusually hot, and nobody is being particularly convincing. Hansens explanations. for 2023 are not that convincing. Neither are Manns. I havent seen any laypeople coming up with a great answer either.
Climate scientists as a group did not predict that 2023 would be so unusually hot. Neither did Hansen, or Killian, or you or I.
It will take time and analysis to figure it out why it was so hot, and we really do need this and next years temperatures to help that process.
You suggested somewhere that 2023s temperatures may be influenced by methane emissions. Not a bad suggestion, They spiked unusually high in 2021 but that is a couple of years ago so why would it manifest only two years later and in northern sea surface temperatures?
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021
I couldnt find more recent data than 2021.
“If you mean which climate scientists understands best whats happening with the climate system right now. nobody is fully sure why 2023 – early 2024 is so unusually hot, and nobody is being particularly convincing.”
2023 has been a very strange year weatherwise at least from my perspective as a resident of southern England. 2023 has been notable for very warm sea surface temperatures across much of the north Atlantic ocean (marine heatwaves) which have been very persistent. I’m sure that has contributed to the excessivce rainfall across the southern half of the UK since March (March 2023-February 2024 was the fourth wettest 12 month period on record for England and Wales, records go back to 1765). My question is what caused these marine heatwaves, the North Atlantic is a bit far removed from the ENSO regions for that to be the cause. For the UK, the notable feature abouot the weather over the last year is the rainfall, over central and southern England in particular. This is down to a jet stream which has been persistently further south than normal steering low pressure weather systems across England instead of northern Scotland. My other question is why has the jet stream over the north Atlantic been displaced south on average relative to climatology over a full 12 month period? Something like that ought to have a pre-cursor but I am not aware of anything, in fact February 2023 was exceptionally dry across the UK.
Oops. I misinterpreted Ned’s comments. Asimov is a scientist with great skills explaining things to general public. But general public will always struggle to fully grasp science because it’s complex.
Adam,
the following commentary by Copernicus has some interesting suggestions on reasons for the very high ocean temperatures last year particularly in the Atlantic.:
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
New Zealand had horrendous flooding events twice last year related to low pressure weather systems coming up against blocking highs, so hanging around causing days of intense rainfall. The higher sea surface temperatures in recent decades due to warming were also part of the reason for more intense rain:
https://climateadaptationplatform.com/new-zealand-feb-2023-extreme-flooding-climate-change/#:~:text=NIWA%20climate%20scientist%20Sam%20Dean,the%20atmosphere%20and%20the%20oceans.
The blocking highs seem to have become more common in recent years, and this has been related to the influence of global warming on the southern jet stream. But I cant find the reference to that.
Climate scientists as a group did not predict that 2023 would be so unusually hot. Neither did Hansen, or Killian, or you or I.
Not completely true: I predicted a large El Nino after the series of La Ninas, specifically after the second was announced. The 3rd one made it a virtually certainty.
Yes, publicly.
NK: Show me all these people who know what’s really happening to the Climate System after listening to climate scientists and you all these years. . . . They could all fit on the head of a pin.
BPL: I’d recommend starting with an introductory climate science textbook., Robinson and Henderson-Sellers have a pretty good one. For something with more math, try Dennis Hartmann’s “Global Physical Climatology.”
A short semi-relatedf ollowup on Todd and reactions …
Ron Susskind wrote in his portrait of the first years of the Bush junior presidency: Faith, Certainty And The Presidency Of George W. Bush (archived) – Ron Susskind / New York Times, Oct 17 2004
Reality or what we perceive as such is layered. In the fiction movie “Inception” the protagonist De Caprico is always carrying a spinning top as a testing device. If it keeps spinning he is in a dream, if friction does its job and it stops after a while, he made it back to reality.
At the end of the movie, when he successfully exited multiple dream layers, we find the protagonist in his happy place with the woman he loves. Then the camera zooms in on the spinning top that is still doing its marry-go-round like forever but he is no longer watching it.
People like Karl Rove created your realities, the dichotomy of left and right, the puppet show of today’s politics that we call democracy to divide the people. And you are studying, judiciously. Your spinning top is still going but you’ll have to exit another layer of fake realities if you are genuinely looking for the real thing.
The refs from Geoff and all the others like them are gently pointing you in that direction.
NK,
Plenty of ink has been spilled concerning Rove, who has a reputation for being a kind of evil genius. He certainly did his share to hasten the descent of politics into what we see now, but there’s plenty of blame to spread around; including for that outsized enemy of reality, that vector of festering solipsism from Australia, Rupert Murdoch.
Anyway, your struggles with the simulacrum are noted.
The “you” is wrong and the resultant attacks spurious as well as nasty.
In any case, Schopenhauer (and earlier) identified the trickery which Rove simplified. These poisonous screeds are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
— here’s a cleanse: Elizabeth Kolbert on ocean temps (imho a simple lay-accessible summary)
Why Is the Sea So Hot? A startling rise in sea-surface temperatures suggests that we may not understand how fast the climate is changing. By Elizabeth Kolbert March 15, 2024 – https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot
fwiw, I cut off the quote. A bit more:
Lakoff is so right.
Schmidt observed. “All of these statistics that we’re talking about, they’re taken from the prior data. But nothing in the prior data looked like 2023. Does that mean that the prior data are no longer predictive because the system has changed? I can’t rule that out, and that would obviously be very concerning.”
Gavin does NOT say anything like that here. Gavin and Co. do NOT write an article on it here. Instead he wastes his time arguing nonsense with Soon and Spencer instead – which changes nothing, helps no one, educates explains nothing to anyone!
Show me anywhere where Gavin Schmidt et al are speaking climate science truth to Power about the urgency of this completely out of control unknown system now!
When Killian and many others say almost identical things here (about changing data patterns, the UNKNOWNS and the serious RISKS involved) they are abused and ridiculed by all comers.
“I think the real test will be what happens in the next twelve months,” Wijffels said.
No no no! The real test has been what has been happening [ more over NOT happening ] for the last decade and what has NOT been getting done about that both from a climate science perspective and policy.
All are total failures. Lakoff is spot on. As am I. The rest of you folks here are off in lalaland.
Lakoff is quite right:
https://georgelakoff.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/thinkingpoints_complete.pdf
Hence why progressives will follow more the Gavins than the Neds of this world.
NK: All are total failures. Lakoff is spot on. As am I. The rest of you folks here are off in lalaland.
BPL: You’re a legend in your own mind.
“The most important thing is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”–attributed (in various versions to Steve Allen, George Burns, Groucho Marks and many others.
@ JCM, Patrick, Tomas et al
In our new study, published in One Earth, we investigate how the effectiveness of well-established adaptation options in relation to water changes as the world warms.
Our findings show that the effectiveness of water-related adaptation declines markedly once warming passes 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – from a central estimate (median) of 90% to 69%, 62% and 46% at 2C, 3C and 4C, respectively.
With the implementation of adaptation already lagging behind what is needed, our findings show that warming beyond 1.5C needs to be avoided for effective adaptation to be possible.
Measuring the effectiveness of adaptation
The latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that current adaptation efforts are insufficient to cope with the increasing severity of warming-related impacts across the world.
This “adaptation gap” – the difference between what is needed to reduce impacts and what has been implemented – is growing, despite increasing adaptation efforts across all world regions.
Where adaptation has been documented, many benefits – such as economic gains, better educational outcomes or infrastructure improvements – have been observed. However, we still have very limited evidence and knowledge about how effective adaptation is in reducing climate risks – arguably the key purpose of adaptation.
More encompassing definitions of effectiveness include the multiple benefits adaptation can have on a broader set of outcomes, such as human well-being and equality.
A better understanding of the risk reduction potential of adaptation is crucial, as climate impacts will become more severe over the next decades. With limited resources to invest, it is essential that informed decisions can be made.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-climate-adaptation-becomes-less-effective-as-the-world-warms/
Highlights
Adaptation with relation to water becomes less effective at warming above 1.5°C [- ie NOW ]
Adaptation needs to go together with ambitious emission reduction and decarbonization
Co-benefits can be achieved, but careful planning is required to avoid maladaptation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590332224000873
in Re to Ned Kelly, 15 Mar 2024 at 11:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820160
Dear Ms. Kelly,
Many thanks for references provided!
I will definitely need some time for studying it in detail.
Greetings
Tomáš
“Todd describes the profound effects of undermining religion as a societal binding factor (along with seminal insights about family structures).”
Exactly. But the same applies to any other binding factor, including Marxism as practiced by a party that commands the assent of a large proportion of society. Where Todd goes further than other proponents of a multi-polar world is that he sees that Western attempts to dominate their adversaries are bound to fail, not just because of their hypocrisy and moral degeneracy, but because they are based on a blindness to the deep unconscious structures that underlay our different societies.
Just as Freud realized that we could only understand neurotic symptoms (and what we are no longer supposed to call “perversions”) if we cast aside subjective moral judgement, so Todd provides objective empirical, anthropological reasons for doing the same when analyzing other societies.
I saw him in a TV studio discussion at the height of the Afghan war, where various experts were predicting imminent NATO victory. He interjected something like: “Anyone who has spent five minutes reading studies of the structure of Pashtun society knows the West isn’t going to win.”
He was ignored of course. There is no place for original, empirically based thinking in current Western intellectual life. As there is no place for original, empirically based thinking in Western controlled Climate Science, Economics or Politics either.
Therefore the urgent demands of facing up to the catastrophic climate changes and ecosystems destruction are being constantly missed.
Some more on what could be adding to the present record high temps
Key Points
The rapid growth in the atmospheric methane burden that began in late 2006 is very different from methane’s past observational record
Recent studies point to strongly increased emissions from wetlands, especially in the tropics
This increase is comparable in scale and speed to glacial/interglacial terminations when the global climate system suddenly reorganized
Plain Language Summary
Atmospheric methane’s unprecedented current growth, which in part may be driven by surging wetland emissions, has strong similarities to ice core methane records during glacial-interglacial “termination” events marking global reorganizations of the planetary climate system. Here we compare current and termination-event methane records to test the hypothesis that a termination-scale change may currently be in progress.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GB007875
The latest monthly global CH4 is at Record high levels.
November 2023: 1934.16 ppb
November 2022: 1923.63 ppb
November 2013: 1820.6 ppb
Last updated: Feb 05, 2024
This is the highest methane concentration ever recorded by NOAA.
November 2022 gives an increase of 10.5 ppb/a which is below the 10 y average of 11.4 ppb/a,
and below the average increase rate of the years 2020-2022.
But wait, there’s more…
NOAA has published the last monthly average on global SF6.
November 2023: 11.55 ppt
November 2022: 11.15 ppt
November 2013: 8.04 ppt
Last updated: March 05, 2024
The annual increase is at 0.40 ppt – the highest ever recorded rate increase but tied with some months in the past. No question, it is the highest SF6 concentration in human’s, probably in earth’s history, and its value rises continuously.
An index was set of 100 for the year 1980 [0.848 ppt]. November 2023 is at 1,362 – iow a 13 fold increase since 1980.
THis were the traditionalists will pipe up and say … yes but, it doesn’t make any difference by itself. And that would true. It’s true about everything. A CO2 rate increase on 4-5 ppm doesn’t make any “difference” either.
Until someone starts adding it all up. Unfortunately everyone is so busy whining about “deniers” like Soon and Spencer (or a Tomas or a JCM or whoever else is deemed annoying enough) there’s no time left for such mundane boring activities like calculations of what is actually happening in the world of Science.
It’s left to the “amateurs” all over the Internet blogosphere and forums instead.
“Amateurs” like NASA? You, my dear Ned, didn’t come up with them.
The important GHGs do get added up in the AMS annual State of the Climate report. The latest report currently available is 2022. These reports aren’t put together by amateurs, although amateurs may be unaware of their existence – despite internet access with no paywall. See
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/104/9/2023BAMSStateoftheClimate.1.xml?rskey=oM5rJ8&result=12
The discussion on pages S85-90 lists a large number of long-lived gases with their abundance, trends, atmospheric longevity, and radiative forcing – including SF6. The combined radiative forcing of all the industrial gases combined is shown in figure 2.57. It had risen to about 0.4 W/m^2, compared to 0.56 W/m^2 for CH4. For comparison, CO2 forcing was estimated at an additional 2.26 W/m^2 over pre-industrial levels.
That’s interesting. So we have 0.56 W/sq. m. forcing for about 2 ppm (ie. now approaching 2000 ppb) of methane and 2.26 W for some 420 ppm of carbonic acid gas (c. 2022). And the albedo flip forcing and water vapor forcing? Those are some mighty ppm’s for our friend: fossil, fracked, unnatural gas.
As the rising incoming planetary heat flux, as well as rising Earth temperature, try to equalize with all this ongoing contamination “it’s getting hot in here.”
NK: everyone is so busy whining about “deniers” like Soon and Spencer (or a Tomas or a JCM or whoever else is deemed annoying enough) there’s no time left for such mundane boring activities like calculations of what is actually happening in the world of Science.
BPL: You might try consulting the journals. People are, in fact, “calculating” that sort of thing.
In the YouTube video titled Greenland: Ice Loss Accelerating, published 8 Mar 2024, duration 0:25:33, Peter Wadhams, Emeritus Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University and Climate Scientist, Paul Beckwith describe what is happening on this sensitive continent. The latest research shows that Greenland’s glaciers are shrinking at seven times the rate of just a few years ago, an average of 30 million tonnes an hour. Paul Beckwith says from time interval 0:03:58:
“We have very good data on measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica; [from] the gravity anomaly satellites ah, flying in tandem, and we’ve seen melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years typically, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica. And, ah, we’re still focussed mostly on the Northern Hemisphere, but with all that missing Antarctic sea ice and warming water, people are very concerned also with the Antarctic ah, glacier melt, and they’re tied together because if melt rates greatly increase at one pole, you know, the rising sea level can lift up floating ice shelves and, and cause accelerated melting at the other pole. So, there’s a connection, of course, between them. People are going to be very surprised, I think, at the, at the accelerated growth of sea level rise, in the next ah, you know, decade, decade or two, let alone…”
Host Dale Walkonen interrupted from time interval 0:04:54:
“What, what are we actually looking at? I mean, if all of Greenland melted, it would be 25 feet of sea level rise, according to what I’ve read. What, what is it likely to be within the next… Are we likely to see something significant within the next couple of decades?”
Paul Beckwith responded from time interval 0:05:09:
“Well there, the jury’s out on that. We don’t know for sure, but ah, I mean Hansen has said in the past, ah, he wouldn’t be surprised if we had five metres of sea level rise by 2100. He said that a number of years ago when the IPCC models were showing about ah, half a metre.”
Host Dale Walkonen interrupted from time interval 0:05:28:
“Yeah, that of course is James Hansen, the famous NASA scientist, um, who testified before Congress famously and warned everybody years ago and has now written several papers that are quite alarming!”
Paul Beckwith responded from time interval 0:05:40:
“Right. You know, it’s a work in progress. I mean, the rates are definitely accelerating, and of course we’re seeing a huge acceleration in global average temperatures. We’re seeing a huge acceleration in ocean water heating, so all of these things um, are, mean, mean that the sea level rise rates will have to, to be revised continuously, um, and ah, you know, I, I fully expect ah, you know, I think Hansen’s probably underestimating with his five metres by 2100.”
With Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melt rates apparently doubling “seven to ten years … typically”, then that suggests the current sea level rise (SLR) rate of 4.5 mm per year observed over the period 2013–2021, per AR6 WG1, is likely to accelerate. I did a calculation for the rate of SLR for 7- & 10-year doubling rate acceleration scenarios with a starting point of 4.5 mm/y in 2024:
Year _ _ _ _ 7-year _ _ 10-year
2024 _ _ _ 4.5 mm/y _ 4.5 mm/y
2025 _ _ _ 5.0 _ _ _ _ _ 4.8
2030 _ _ _ 8.2 _ _ _ _ _ 6.8
2035 _ _ _13.4 _ _ _ _ _ 9.6
2040 _ _ _21.9 _ _ _ _ 13.6
2045 _ _ _36.0 _ _ _ _ 19.3
2050 _ _ _59.1 _ _ _ _ 27.3
2055 _ _ _96.9 _ _ _ _ 38.6
2060 _ _ 159.0 _ _ _ _ 54.6
2065 _ _ 260.8 _ _ _ _ 77.2
2070 _ _ 428.0 _ _ _ _109.1
That suggests the global mean SL, relative to today’s (year-2024) levels, may perhaps be of the order of:
• 39.2 to 43.2 mm higher by 2030;
• 141 to 190 mm higher by 2040;
• 345 to 583 mm higher by 2050;
• 514 to 985 mm higher by 2055;
• 752 to 1,643 mm higher by 2060;
• 1,090 to 2,724 mm higher by 2065; and
• 1,567 to 4,496 mm higher by 2070.
So potentially, multi-metre SLR is possible well before year-2075 for both the 7- and 10-year doubling time acceleration scenarios, and 5 m SLR before 2100 is easily plausible.
Is there any jurisdiction planning for this order of magnitude of SLR?
I’ve done my share of exponential extrapolation, usually WRT deployment of cleaner technologies. I think it was Gavin who pointed out that exponential trends are ‘exponential, until they aren’t’. Real world trends run into limits of one sort or another. In the present case, melting ice takes energy, and at some point, the energy just won’t be available to double at those kinds of rates.
That’s not to say that “everything’s OK,” of course. I have friends on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, and even that paltry 6.8 mm by 2030 will be very expensive and troublesome indeed:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/13/winter-flooding-shows-climate-change-effects/72595436007/
And while I really don’t know how long exponential growth might continue in this case, my gut feeling is that the total SLR observed is likely to be considerably greater than that–and certainly by, say, 2040.
KM.
“I think it was Gavin who pointed out that exponential trends are ‘exponential, until they aren’t’. Real world trends run into limits of one sort or another. In the present case, melting ice takes energy, and at some point, the energy just won’t be available to double at those kinds of rates.”
Good comments.. It also depends on what has caused the exponential trend in Greenland ice loss. I have a recollection that it was largely natural variation of limited duration and that trend has slowed down a bit. It seems most likely Greenland would follow a non exponential but curvilinear trend in ice loss long ter,m trend which will be quite bad enough.
But the Antarctic is different. There is apparently a possibility that western ice sheets melting could cause further ice sheets to speed up movement towards the oceans. That sounds like a tipping point thing, that doesn’t require increasing energy input as such once its tipped, and might be exponential for a limited period of time , but long enough to cause considerably enhanced level of ice loss. to set in.
IPCC still predict 2 metres of SLR are possible by 2100. This is the result of just a curvilinear trend in melting ice form all sources, as opposed to a long term exponential trend. Again quite bad enough.
Kevin McKinney: – “That’s not to say that “everything’s OK,” of course. I have friends on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, and even that paltry 6.8 mm by 2030 will be very expensive and troublesome indeed: …”
The “6.8 mm by 2030” is for the global mean SLR rate of 6.8mm/year for the 10-year doubling acceleration scenario in year 2030.
Unfortunately, the Georgia and South Carolina coasts are likely to see faster rates, per Table 2.2 in NOAA’s Feb 2022 report on SLR, which shows relative SL projections in 2050 for various US regional coastlines, relative to the year-2000 baseline. For the Southeast coastline, the projected median range is 0.28 to 0.49 m for various (Low to High) emissions scenarios. Figure 2.3 shows observation-based extrapolations for eight coastal regions around the United States from 2020 to 2050 relative to a baseline of 2000.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html
Kevin McKinney: – “And while I really don’t know how long exponential growth might continue in this case, my gut feeling is that the total SLR observed is likely to be considerably greater than that–and certainly by, say, 2040.”
I’d suggest certainly while the EEI generally keeps increasing the global mean acceleration of the SLR rate (and that may vary for regional locations due to subsidence, uplift and/or gravitational changes) will continue. And the ocean heat content will likely keep driving SLR for centuries. The Earth System is already committed to more than 20 m of global mean SLR, per Prof Jason Box. The only way to reverse this process is to begin cooling the planet:
Reduce;
Remove;
Repair.
http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/06/three-climate-interventions-reduce.html
Oh, trust me… I know! But thanks for a good link on the topic. The last National Climate Assessment is also good on this, as it has regional impacts broken down.
One aspect that isn’t overtly stated, but is clearly implicit in the data they give, is that the characteristic salt marshes of the Southeastern coast are all at risk for conversion to mangrove swamp.
https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/
I find that heartbreaking change, given the ecological, historical, and cultural losses implied–and here I’m not insulting mangrove swamps, which are perfectly good ecosystems too. And I’m not even a native to this place. But “this place” won’t be “this place” anymore if that happens, because its character will have change into something else.
It’s an example of “solastalgia”–or would be, should it occur, as it well may.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia
@Geoff Miell
“I did a calculation for the rate of SLR for 7- & 10-year doubling rate acceleration scenarios with a starting point of 4.5 mm/y in 2024:”
Excuse me, but I fail to see there is a direct 1:1 correlation between Greenland/Antarctic ice melts volume or acceleration, and measurable SLR.
The (false) assumption must be made that the 4.5mm/yr current rate is a direct cause of Greenland/Antarctic ice melt alone. And it is not.
and
Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.
Ned Kelly: – “Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.”
Paul Beckwith may exaggerate, but I’d suggest we ignore James Hansen at our peril.
Per Global warming in the pipeline (bold text my emphasis):
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
I’ve updated my calculations for Global mean sea level rise rate scenarios to include 7-, 10- & 13-year doubling rates, for the period 2024-2075:
And then I derived a Global mean sea level scenarios graph.
The 7-year doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2056 and 2 m around 2062;
The 10-year doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2064 and 2 m around 2074;
The 13-doubling curve exceeds 1 m around 2072.
The 10- & 13-year doubling curves sit within the upper end of the range 0.15 to 0.43 m by 2050 in Table 3.2 in NOAA’s Feb 2022 report on SLR. The 7-year doubling rate curve may well be an outlier, but then who would have believed a few years ago that the rapid rate of warming happening now were possible?
The point of this exercise is to show how quickly SLR could get out of hand. As the late Albert Allen Bartlett said:
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Allen_Bartlett
I’d suggest SLR will be relentless for centuries, regardless of how quickly we reduce our GHG emissions.
I’d suggest no jurisdictions want to upset the developers…
Thanks for the qualifications Geoff. I’ve read Hansen in detail and get his reasoning and others like him. I reject the IPCC models outright now (well have a long time for good logical reasons). The system is too flawed and not credible (and the people who abide by it). Finally some are saying publicly they have no clue at all, do not know what’s happening or how fast or why. But they are still not the ones to listen to.
anyways, keep on doing what you’re doing while you still have the motivation and energy to do it.
NK: I reject the IPCC models outright now
BPL: Does anyone still doubt that Ned is a denier?
BTW, there is no such thing as an “IPCC model.” The IPCC doesn’t write its own models. They simply summarize what has been published in the literature.
BPL
I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier (denies greenhouse effect or that humans are warming the climate) . Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does.
I would say Ned is a well meaning hard left wing concern troll who genuinely believes humans are warming the climate, but that the IPCC and mainstream science hugely underestimate the warming.
I believe he also criticises renewables at least partly because the corporates and millionaires are benefitting from those investments. Based on things hes written. I’ve probably read more of his posts than you, being a retired guy with some time to spare.
I disagree with Ned on some stuff and agree with him on other stuff – at least to a point.
The truth on some of this stuff we discuss is often somewhere in the middle of different peoples views. The IPCC lean conservative on climate issues, but Hansen seems too far out in the speculative extreme for me. Truth is likely in the middle but of course can only be fully determined by better science or the unfolding reality..
The models conclusions of models forecasts predictions conclusions of predictions graphs tables anecdotes quotes from published papers, meta study summaries rants abbreviations whatever the f you want to call the content found in IPCC Assessment reports and their Summaries Authored by IPCC Authors etc etc etc I REJECT THEM NOW AS CRITICALLY FLAWED AND UNRELIABLE AND POLITICIZED …. LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN HOW THE CARDINALS ELECT THE POPE …. IT’S EXTREMELY BIASED AND UNSCIENTIFIC AND UNREPRESENTATIVE SWILL
THE IPCC and their REPORTS are CRAP ….. does that sum it enough for you to understand Barton the High Priest of Real Climate?
Same goes with CMIP6 models individually and averaged ….. crap, a waste of time and money.
>>> INSERT here where you cry me a river and I still do not give a f what you say or think !
BPL,
Not much doubt.
NK: I REJECT THEM NOW AS CRITICALLY FLAWED AND UNRELIABLE AND POLITICIZED
BPL: If you type it in ALL CAPS it really convinces people.
[ Again – my screen blinks and my post … shows as submitted, before I have had the chance to finish it – Here is a proper, edited version:]
Nigel: “ I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier. Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does”
Nigel, that’s like saying that a guy who called an opponent the N-word, is not a racist, but only “made himself look like a racist through his choice of the N-word“. Even if he assures you “I am not a racist“, particularly if he follows it with a “… but “.
So if it quacks like a denier (their “choice of a denier language“) and walks like a denier:
a) saying “the so called anthropogenic warming“, dismissing the climate science as a “church” that wants to “exterminate” anybody who dares to question its orthodoxy, dismisses the existing GHG mitigation as “doing more harm than good”, and claims that irrigation could counter the entire GHG forcing, or even cause the net cooling,
OR
b) rejects “outright now” the science of climate change based on his strong opinions on the matter, and dismisses GHG reductions projects in favour of proposing, well, what have your proposed instead, Ned ?
then it is a denier, even it assures us that it is not.
Nigel: I don’t believe Ned Kelly is a denier. Of course he makes himself look like a denier through his choice of language, same as Tomas Kalisz does. ”
that’s like saying that a guy who called an opponent the N-word, is not a racist, but only “made himself look like a racist through his choice of the N-word“.
Even if he assures you “I am not a racist“, particularly when he follows that line with “… but “.
So if it quacks like a denier (your: “chose of a denier language“) and walks like a denier:
-calling the AGW “ the so called warming“, dismisses the climate science as a “church” that “exterminates” anybody who dares to question its orthodoxy , dismisses the existing GHG mitigation as “doing more harm than good” and claims irrigation could counter the entire GHG forcing or even cause the net cooling that proposes to
replace them
or rejecting “outright now” the science of climate change in favour of … own strong opinions )
If somebody calls the AGW “ the so called anthropogenic warming” and dismisses existing ways of mitigation of GHG emissions, saying that they do “more harm than good” and has no real alternative to them, or reject the climate science “outright now”, dismisses existing ways of mitigation of GHG emissions
and does not propose any viable alternative in its place – then in they are both deniers of the urgent need to mitigate GHGs emissions NOW.
then it is denier, even if it declares itself not being one.
Piotr, I certainly think that when someone uses denialist talking points it means someone is most likely a denier, however its not always the case and we have to be careful we dont jump to conclusions. We get so used to the pattern, we assume things about people when they might have a reasonable sceptical point or are just being unclear.
I would say Ned Kelly is not a denier. Ned did write a couple of posts absolutely trashing climate models but he clearly meant they are underestimating warming if you have read his other posts and know his style. His climate model posts are not very clear is the problem.
If you read his many comments he is arguing quite clearly that IPCC badly underestimate warming and so do climate models, and Hansen is one of the few who really understand whats going on. This is not the views of a denier or even a luke warmer. Its more of a contrarian view. You may not have read many of his posts.
I would say Tomas Kalisz is more likely a luke warmer than a denier. I posted the following previously in response to one of your comments, but I cant remember where so I post it again fyi as follows with a couple of small amendments.:
Piotr, I understand denier to mean someone who denies that we are warming the climate by burning fossil fuels. I asked TK if he accepted the greenhouse effect and that burning fossil fuels warms the climate, and he said yes to both (in a very convoluted way but he did say yes)
I understand luke warmer to mean someone who accepts burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, but minimises the role of burning fossil fuels in the warming, and this minimisation fits TK perfectly. Like a hand in a glove. He minimises the role of anthropogenic CO2 and maximises the water cycle. Although his position seems ever shifting like the sand dunes.
Although you are right that TK pushes (completely crazy impractical) irrigation schemes as a major way of cooling the planet, he does seem to accept a role for renewables etc, (you may not have read these posts). But again that suggests he fits the definition of lukewarmer more than full on denialist. He has rejected CCS and the hydrogen economy, – but even I have my doubts about those things.
Of course this could all be hair splitting. Its not as if there is a crystal clear differentiation of denier and luke warmer. They are just terms of general convenience. Both conflict badly with the scientific consensus and IPCC reports.
I understand the duck test. Apparently it was Invented by the US military. I just think the test shows TK is a luke warmer.
And I agree TK is sea lioning. And its classic textbook sea lioning. But luke warmers also do that.
—————————–
Tomas Kalisz.
“Do you also agree to Piotr that it is the only possible way how my posts can be read? ”
Yes in respect of the issue of “Tomas Kalisz, May 30: “ Dear Piotr […] For transforming 2 W.m-2 into latent heat flux, we should artificially [evaporate] ca 12750 km3 water ”where the 2 W/m2 you chose specifically to ~ equal radiative forcing of GHGs.
THE ONLY reason to do so, is to imply that we can REPLACE GHG mitigation
with increased evaporation of “ca 12750 km3 water”. Then there is that: .”
Of course you may have made a mistake in what you really meant – but such a thing can be tidied up if you just clarify in concise, plain unambiguous language what you really mean (something you are not great at doing). You should also be prepared to admit to what you said or admit when you are wrong, or at least not go on defending the indefensible.
The problem is you make yourself look like a denier all the time with your incessant denialist talking points, and you also sometimes look dishonest and you are frequently ambiguous. When I first read your posts I thought denier and my reaction was same as Piotr. It was only later I shifted you mentally into the luke warmer category.
“Even though you classify me (correctly) as a kind of a “non-believer”, it appears that you do not take the “political profile” of an author as the only relevant criterion for assessing his/her contributions on the RC, because you are still willing to listen to me and even to agree, of course in some particular points only, to my views. ”
I try to look at what people post and be civil and objective and avoid exchanges of insults and vendettas against people. If I agree with some point they make I say so. If I disagree with some other point I say so.
But if people post crazy stuff and go on defending the indefensible like Killian, I ultimately put them in the stubborn egocentric crank category. Killian and Victor fit that category and you are close. Killian is also very, very nasty and no way would I associate with him offline. Point is I have my limits.
Clearly people may also have ideological motives for their positions as well. Piotr summed it up nicely as ideological, psychological or vested interests.
” I already noted the term “lukewarmer” used in paralell with “denier” or “denialist”, and intuitively guess that there may be rather a qualitative than a quatitative difference in the denialism of such persons, but I have not grasped yet how you (and others here on RC) make the distiction therebetween, Could you explain in more detail?”
Please see my response to Piotr directly above.
PS: I do not agree with Piotr over everything, but I cant recall him ever making a huge mistake, and I dont have time to respond to everything and I tend to concentrate on the crazy denialists claims. Its important they get rebutted, and I enjoy the mental exercise and I enjoy reading the informative technical responses.
I do not have a science degree, but I did some physical geography at university which deals with the climate basics, and I have other qualifications relevant to aspects of the climate issue and I hope I add something to discussion.
(One other comment Piotr. I agree with at least 90% of your criticisms of what TK and JCW says. Very hard to fault what you say. I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.)
nigelj says
23 Mar 2024 at 10:20 PM
Of course I am not a climate science, global warming, nor climate change denier Nigelj. So thanks for that small mercy.
But there is no point arguing the point with people like Piotr and all the rest of the clowns who infest this forum. They’re literally obsessively brainwashed having lost their ability for objective analysis and thought. They cannot even read what is written let alone comprehend it.
So I do not bother. My comments are not for them, It doesn’t matter to me what they say or what they think. They are all nobodies of no importance. They and this website make no difference to anything nor anyone. It’s only value is as an intellectual exercise. Like make believe military exercises to test systems and approaches, and to observe the responses.
Nigel: “we have to be careful we don’t jump to conclusions”
Even if they happen to repeat inadvertently a denier talking point, the test is in what they do after that – do they accept that they have been duped, and learn from it, or do they double down? See the production of Ned and Tomas for the answer.
I don’t think the distinction between a denier and luke-warmer is particularly productive – it is a poorly defined term: it means different things to different people. Most of the deniers would describe themselves as lukewarmers. From the other end – anybody who does not share their orthodoxy, who is not fully on board with the highest projections of temperature rise, like Gavin, and with the all-or-nothing response, like you or me) – is lukewarmer. So the term more hides than it illuminates.
As for specific cases – Tomas and Ned – by their fruits you shall know them.
After your earlier defense of Tomas, I started writing a response – a list of the denier talking points he promoted, and a list the denier techniques he has used (cherry-picking data to support them, not answering the direct questions, changing the subject, unable to make an honest apology, presenting cherry-picked fragments from their opponents as a support for him).
Then looking for a last quote I closed the wrong window and lost the draft. Decided … not to waste even more time on Tomas. What he is – everybody can see. And he declared it himself – he admitted to be a denialist and … demanded the respect other religions and beliefs command.
As for Ned – his attempts to discredit climate science and scientists, based not on his scientific expertise, but his … strong opinions, his disparaging available technologies and actions to reduce GHGs, while not offering feasible alternatives, are identical to those of many deniers. By their fruits you shall know them.
Particularly that Ned’s psychological motivation is likely the same as that of many climate change deniers and other conspiracy theorists –if everybody else got fooled, but me, then I must be smarter than them….
In Re to Ned Kelly, 24 Mar 2024 at 11:40 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820536
Dear Ms. Kelly,
It appears that although I personally perceive our interpretations of many climate discussion topics very distant from each other or exactly opposite, others see us basically as two sides of the same “anti-science” coin. I am aware that a common basis may indeed often exist for extremists of varous kind, however, I still doubt that such an explanation applies also to us.
I would like to propose, as a kind of an experiment, a discussion between you, as a “convicted alarmist” and me, as a convicted “denialist” and/or “lukewarmer”. We could try it, at least temporarily, as a replacement for some of previous exchanges in which we participated on this website. This way, we could spare time and efforts of others, and perhaps somewhat relieve their pain. Moreover, I am quite curious if this alternative perhaps might have finally appeared more productive in comparison with our previous discussions invloving other participants.
If you wish, please feel free to challenge any of my views on climate science and climate policy topics that differs from yours, and we can – preferably in a competely new thread – try to discuss. If you do not see such a preferred topics, I would like to explain in which aspects I do not agree to your view that present mainstream climate science may be distorted because it strives to minimize the fears of the public about the consequences of the ongoing climate change.
Greetings
Tomáš
Ned Kelly: Piotr and all the rest of the clowns [are] literally obsessively brainwashed
Fortunately, nobody can literally obsessively brainwash Ned Kelly, nobody!
Which brings us to the reason for your presence on this forum – you don’t come here to share your climatological insight with others, since you have none, nor you are here to learn about climate science: “I reject the IPCC models outright now” NK,
Which leaves the remaining possibility, the default motivation of the “skeptics”, “contrarians” and conspiracy theorists: boosting one’s ego:
If everybody else got “literally obsessively brainwashed”, BUT NOT YOU – then you must be really, really, smart – much smarter than Gavin Schmidt and the other IPCC clowns. Hence:
“ I reject the IPCC models outright now”
Ned “Of course I am not a climate science denier” Kelly
Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
me: “I’ve never said that he has NEVER been correct. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
Nigel: “ I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.”
… to the broken clocks, perhaps. You seem you choose calling the glass 1/10 full,, I call it 9/10 empty. If it offends the glass – so be it.
Pulling your punches achieves nothing – it won’t open JCM or Tomas to being convinced, because they are not here to learn, but for an ego boost: if a lay person like them can see what the best minds in the field have missed, then he must be VERY smart. You just can’t compete with _such_ psychological reward.
And my response has nothing to do with emotions (“frustration”) – I _could_ be frustrated for 2 reasons
1. for being unable to prove an opponent wrong – not the case here (see above), or
2 for seeing the other person failing to accept/understand a valid logical argument. But this applies only to the people who _can_ change their minds. Not the case here either.
Assuming a glass 9/10 full represents an exclusive generic focus on atmospheric forcing and feedbacks to climates, this leaves a 1/10 of the glass for niche interest. I notice that the 90% of the glass has been discussed to exhaustion, with available citations for such matters relentless.
In this 9/10 glass full perspective, the most complex factor is deemed to be the atmospheric radiative transfer aspect, and feedbacks thereto. I could play around with semigray and semianalytical games of tau and subsequently gain praise by affixing fundamental change on the fields as a consequence. Then I can claim to be an ally in improving the prospects of sustainable food production, and dismiss rural conservative insight.
An entire academic career can be borne from a niche interest in high latitude low-cloud optical depth feedbacks, for example, which represent far less than 1/10th the climate influence. If I pontificated on this subject does this make me a 9/10 glass full personality? If that is presumed to be the case, it’s supposed that I could pack up shop of landscape restoration initiatives, and instead contribute to academic citations on high latitude low cloud optical depth feedbacks – and therefore participate more meaningfully in climate stabilization as an approved ally. It is only then I could gain the status as a legitimate observer and quantifier of change in the fields. However, then still, that leaves an additional 1/10th the glass unfilled, and for what?
– Patrick: “ it’s not like JCM has never been correct ”
– me: “I’ve never said that he has NEVER been correct. Even broken clock is correct twice a day (admittedly, a high standard for our JCM, but still … ;-) )
– Nigel: “ I understand your frustration with JCM but broken clocks is becoming a bit insulting.”
– me: … to the broken clocks, perhaps. You seem you choose calling the glass 1/10 full,, I call it 9/10 empty. If it offends the glass – so be it.
JCM Mar 28: “Assuming a glass 9/10 full represents an exclusive generic focus on atmospheric forcing and feedbacks to climates”
and … why would you assume that??? As you can see from the quotes above, the glass metaphor was NOT about the topics of RC site, but about the quality of your arguments. And you remember it wrong – it was “9/10 EMPTY,” not “9/10 full”. Nobody claimed the latter – patrick defense of you was …much more modest than that: “it’s not like JCM has NEVER been correct” ;-)
Since you based your entire post on that initial misunderstanding of the subject, there is no point to comment the rest of it, Garbage in, garbage out.
Ned Kelly: – “Well I’d like to see that “research” actually stating that as validated – but until then a grain of salt and I presume unsupported exaggeration by Beckwith.”
In addition to my earlier comments (at 17 MAR 2024 AT 7:23 PM):
I’d suggest Paul Beckwith is not exaggerating about Greenland’s ice sheet loss. Nature journal published on 17 Jan 2024 a paper by Chad A. Greene et al. titled Ubiquitous acceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet calving from 1985 to 2022. In this paper, Fig. 2 | Cumulative mass change resulting from glacier retreat since 1985, shows almost every glacier in Greenland has lost substantial mass since 1985. It seems per Fig 2, the Greenland ice sheet mass loss has doubled over a period of about the last 7 years.
The paper includes:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06863-2
GrIS loss = 221 Gt/y (IMBIE loss estimate) + 43 Gt/y (paper’s additional loss estimate) = 264 Gt/y or 30.1 Mt/h
The Antarctic ice mass loss estimate, based on GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite data between 2002 and 2023, shed an average of 150 Gt/y. I’d suggest the satellite data may perhaps be underestimating the actual loss.
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/265/video-antarctic-ice-mass-loss-2002-2023/
There are multiple contributors to sea level rise (SLR), including ordered from largest to smallest:
* Thermal expansion;
* Greenland ice sheet;
* Terrestrial storage;
* Antarctic land ice;
* Other glaciers;
* Canadian arctic glaciers;
* US Alaskan arctic glaciers;
* Greenland glaciers;
* Scandinavian glaciers;
* Russian arctic glaciers.
See the Arctic Monitoring & Assessment Programme (AMAP) Figure 9.3 Comparison of Arctic sea level rates 2004–2010 with other global sea level components, at:
https://www.amap.no/maps-and-graphics/search?keywords=arctic+ice#3406
I’d suggest AMAP needs to update their Figure 9.3 to reflect more recent data.
Barton Paul Levenson says
16 Mar 2024 at 1:17 PM
NK: If you want to know what’s really happening to the Climate System, ask an Alarmist.
BPL: No. Ask a climate scientist.
SusanA Quote: “We don’t really know what’s going on,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me. “And we haven’t really known what’s going on since about March of last year.” He called the situation “disquieting.”
Elizabeth Kolbert, not Susan A. I’ve put in the conclusions of her article in reply to the cite just now.
Blaming potential allies who are trying to make progress in the real world is unhelpful at best, a terrible waste of time and energy. It’s so much easier than making an effort to inform the real offenders who are good at ignorance, exploitation, and backlash and have pots of money and power.
No matter how satisfying it is to get it off one’s chest, it’s not telling us anything we don’t already know.
Cognitive science can explain why climate science and climate scientists, their committed groupies, the IPCC, the UNFCCC and COP system, Nasa and every other pro-climate action institutions are failures. Because their whole being is based on multiple cognitive myths and flawed beliefs, their communication is ineffective, a failure to change anything substantial.
Facts will never change someone’s opinion or beliefs or values. 98% of reasoning, or thought, is unconscious.
A science lecture:
The Neuroscience of Language and Thought, Dr. George Lakoff Professor of Linguistics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJP-rkilz40
Grade school level – Metaphors and how we think and speak and why.
Life is a Metaphor – Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
12 mins book summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcQcwUfo8c
From 1980s but ends up being one of the world’s best kept secrets.
Another science lecture from 2015:
George Lakoff: How Brains Think: The Embodiment Hypothesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
If you don’t understand how brains think, then you’ll never understand why climate scientists and climate science, and the IPCC have all been such a failure to date and will continue to fail.
NK: Cognitive science can explain why climate science and climate scientists, their committed groupies, the IPCC, the UNFCCC and COP system, Nasa and every other pro-climate action institutions are failures.
BPL: It can also explain why Ned is a vicious serial killer who has left a trail of mutilated bodies across seven southern and midwestern states.
The logical fallacy is that an explanation is being offered for a “fact” which does not, in fact, exist.
NK.
Lakoff: “If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you may not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You may not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!”
Agreed. Our ideological tendencies for example liberal versus conservative are deep in our genetic structure, so we are born leaning one way or the other:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/09/study-on-twins-suggests-our-political-beliefs-may-be-hard-wired/
https://theweek.com/articles/489731/liberal-gene-instant-guide
https://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/02/11/politics.genes/index.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027161452.htm
Although I sense it doesn’t seem too rigidly fixed as some people do modify their political leanings over time. Probably a bit of nature plus nurture going on. Genes plus environment. And self awareness of ones own leanings and intelligent analysis of them helps counter the tendency to be excessively influenced by them.
Lakoff is right that such political and ideological leanings do define what facts we accept but I would suggest its not rigidly so. Firstly leanings towards liberal and conservative do not seem absolutely rigid as previously mentioned. People also often find common ground. And facts do eventually get through to most people. If this was not the case we would still be living in the stone age.
But its presumably important how such facts are presented. They need to be framed to appeal to different ideologies and they need good evidential basis according to the experts. Beyond that its hard to see what more can be done.
N: And facts do eventually get through to most people.
NK: No they do not. That was the point of the research / conclusions.
N: If this was not the case we would still be living in the stone age.
NK: This silly thought bubble flies in the face of 50 years of cognitive research. It’s a nonsense fallacy you are throwing out here.
N: But its presumably important how such facts are presented. They need to be framed to appeal to different ideologies and they need good evidential basis according to the experts.
NK: No. You are being obsessed with ideologies and poltics. The issue is COGNOTIVE ie MENTAL not merely “political ideological”.
N: Beyond that its hard to see what more can be done.
NK: You are talkig as if what could be done is alreasdy being done. Nothing is being done. Look, Gavin keeps wrtiign silly “fact based” arguments to Soon and Spencer …. over a dozen anti-denier article sin the lst 12 months continually spinning his wheels and wasteing his and everyon eelse time and energy.
What more could be done? One thing is Gavin could EDUCATE HIMSELF …. then there are another at least 60,000 other climate scientists who could do the same …. and then ……. but just like Gavin has repeatedly refused to do so, so will all the others. So will everyone reading here remain ignorant speaking and acting like fools imagining they are making a difference.
They are not.
Nothing is being done Nigelj. Nothing is going to change here Nigelj.
Only after the catastrophes might somethings begin to change. In a world that will be much more manageable and simple for surviving humans. No one then will care what Gavin said either.
Ned Kelly.
N: And facts do eventually get through to most people.
NK: No they do not. That was the point of the research / conclusions.
N. I still suggest facts do get through eventually to most people. An example. A majority of Americans ( a small majority) now accept the theory of evolution which is a considerable change on previous decades and centuries, and despite being a very religious country. So clearly the religious adherents would be very, very resistant to those facts yet some of these people have changed their views.
https://www.sciencealert.com/more-americans-are-finally-coming-around-to-the-idea-that-life-really-does-evolve
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210820111042.htm
Lakoff is clearly saying ithat SOME people are resistant to the facts for psychological and political or religious reasons and SOME of those people wil never change their views. We admittedly still have a flat earh society. But hes not saying all are. Remember Lakoff said: “If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you MAY not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You MAY (emphasis mine) not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!” ( And I dont dispute that)
So Its important to still state the facts. Even just for the benefit of fence sitters and mild sceptics.
NK: No. You are being obsessed with ideologies and poltics. The issue is COGNOTIVE ie MENTAL not merely “political ideological”.
N: I bought up politics because the article you posted bought up politics! Repeatedly.
NK: You are talkig as if what could be done is alreasdy being done. Nothing is being done. Look, Gavin keeps wrtiign silly “fact based” arguments to Soon and Spencer …. over a dozen anti-denier article sin the lst 12 months continually spinning his wheels and wasteing his and everyon eelse time and energy.
N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer. They are the very guys that would influence politicians. However other things need discussion as well and in ways the general public can easily grasp otherwise its a bit pointless.
NK: “Only after the catastrophes might somethings begin to change. In a world that will be much more manageable and simple for surviving humans. ”
N: This is thought provoking statement. It will probably take a climate catastrophe for really serious action to be taken on climate change given the many reasons people are complacent about mitigation. But in your post catastrophe extinction level event simpler world of fewer humans, will we be any wiser or will all the old bad habits emerge again? You could end up with a Mad Max like society of warring groups.
However fewer people left surviving does equal fewer environmental pressures. But what a grim way to fix environmental problems. Hopefully we wake up and get the climate problem solved before it kills vast numbers of people.. However I alternate between hope and despair on that issue.
nigelj,
The age old problem, how to deal with a Gish galloping roo…
Nigel, it might be instructive to examine instances in the past in which political opinions have changed both radically and nearly instantaneously. One interesting example is the American South. Following the US Civil War the South voted for the Democratic Party almost exclusively. The saying “yellow dog” Democrat was around. Meaning a Democratic candidate in the South would receive votes even if the candidate was a yellow dog. This voting pattern persisted for over one hundred years but changed completely within a couple of decades.
NIGELJ ….
yes, many things you say are fine. But can I suggest you spend much more time to go learn what he says and why. I cannot educate you here, no matter how well I try.
eg N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer.
If you knew Lakoff you’d already know HOW Gavin is doing this is NOT effective and is counter productive. It’s a waste of time. I’ve said it’s a waste of time. and it is not even important.
YOU see it differently, sigh, ok fine. Double down if you wish, I am not going to argue, with you, or the fools who call 50 years of cognitive science and psychological science as gishgallop.
This place is full to the brim with really stupid fools. You’re not one of them Nigelj — but it’s impossible to explain all the issues you raise in back and forth posts to this dysfunctional forum.
You are on the right track though …. I humbly suggest go read more about it, videos etc and think about it more broadly. And watch Nate hagens guests …. some are already acting as if they know Lakoff inside and out, there’s a lot of wisdom there nigel, there is none here.
cheers, take care.
NK,
You mistakenly opined:
Nobody implied that. Gish galloping refers to the rhetorical tactic that you use which, along with your bragging, name calling and mischaracterizations, is either a red flag for trolling, or an indication that you’re not in a position to be lecturing people on communication.
Arguing about arguing is one of the worst things humans can do at this point.
Stop, the lot of you.
Killian,
Why are you arguing with me about arguing about arguing?
re Jonathan David https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820280 nice ironic example. (AFAIK/as I understand it: The Democratic Party changed (for the much better), and many people refused to follow.)
Radge, it could be argued that Killian was rather admonishing than arguing with you.
But, frankly, I fear the assertion might be perceived as argumentative.
Kevin,
Indeed, well put. We could argue about whether or not Killian is arguing about arguing about arguing, but then we’d be arguing about arguing about arguing about arguing.
I’m still not convinced, however, that this rises to the level of being “one of the worst things humans can do at this point” as Killian asserts. Personally I’d argue that this is an overstatement as there are a large number of things that are worse.
Nigelj I would argue that both yourself and Ned Kelly are correct. I agree with you that it’s possible to convince others based on logical argumentation and presentation of facts. Except, and this crucial, as long as the information you are trying to impart does not contradict and conflict with another individuals deeply held beliefs and sense of identity. In that case the information will be registered as a threat and rejected.
The fossil fuel lobby, Fox News etc. seem well aware of this and exploit it by associating terms like “climate change” with concepts we have been taught to fear such as “communism”.
There are workarounds, I believe. The best is simply generational. Later generations are not bound by the fundamental beliefs of previous generations and overall acceptance can increase.
Another workaround is the brute force method in which emotional manipulation is used to convince a person that their currently held beliefs are, in fact, more threatening to them than the alternative. An example is the political shift in the traditionally heavily Democratic South (USA) following the introduction of legislation that eliminated segregation. This caused an ideological crisis in the South and almost complete shift to the Republican party. Generally this is not a pleasant alternative and not something I would approve of except in the most extreme cases of risk. This may be what Ned is trying to do.
Disclaimer: I have no background in psychology or cognitive science, just my personal observations.
” N: Its important that this website rebut people like Soon and Spencer. They are the very guys that would influence politicians. ”
You might like to reflect on why you believe Soon and Spencer are so INFLUENTIAL, when all Gavin is doing is trying to influence them they are wrong, while looking good on some obscure climate science platform no one ever reads and no one ever quotes in the media and no politicians would even know existed.
The rhetorical question might be why is Gavin Schmidt NOT himself making any efforts at all to “influence denier leaning” POLITICIANS himself?
I think the answer is self-evident.
If you look close enough, you will see it in everything LAKOFF has to say on the issues, and the dozens of ineffective retorts to his favourite “denier” scientists Gavin has written about on this platform over the decades ……
Instead of criticising no bodies like me, why not take the people to task with expertise who are doing nothing to influence the politicians instead? Answer that question honestly and your own duplicity and denial of reality will be exposed. Cheers
It IS a serious problem. I encounter so many conversations that turn into arguments about HOW people say things and the content gets ignored, buried under a bunch of stupid rhetoric. This site in has been a perfect example of this. Important messaging was dismissed for 8 years due to petty, nasty nonsense that had nothing to do with the solutions or science and everything to do with biases, personal dislikes, and patronizing attacks on people who didn’t toe the conservative climate science line.
How much further along would we be if people had taken the ECS forcing issue more seriously 15 years ago? Or the EN-ASI connection? Or the lack of hysteresis? Or the acceleration of warming? ALL of these things were raised and all of them were buried under huge piles of aggression. And this is just one site.
So, yeah, to me it is a big issue. Thankfully, most of that seems to be gone here – though I note the denialists and others still get a good shot to the ribs on the regular. A couple have taken a shot at flame wars, but I have refused to play that stupid game any longer.
Maybe there is hope for the future yet…
But, yes, anything not a sincere effort at problem-solving is maladaptive. The boat’s sinking. Everyone bail, please, and save the angry, nasty rhetoric for when we either solve the problem or there is no hope left.
K: How much further along would we be if people had taken the ECS forcing issue more seriously 15 years ago?
BPL: Well, ECS isn’t a forcing. But you’re right about the general situation. The world needed to act 40 years ago, and every year since then has been a lost opportunity.
Hi Ned, I would have to disagree with some of your points. The first is that this blog’s intended readership is the “general public”. Dr Schmidt has himself stated why he makes particular posts. This is for the simple reason that he receives requests for comments from colleagues. Writing a post is more efficient than issuing multiple verbal rebuttals. Scientists are not trained to engage in dialog with the general public. There should be an intermediary layer of educators (such as Zebra, perhaps?) journalists, non-specialist scientific colleagues, and popularizers who can function as go-betweens.
As far as Dr Schmidt himself, he does appear to have a significant public presence. It’s true that he is not storming into Joe Biden’s office and pounding his fist on his desk. But seriously, your question as to why he and others are not doing more to hold politicians to account has a simple and obvious answer. That is, that he and other climate scientists have not contributed a few million dollars to their election campaigns. Absent that scientists really have no agency or authority to influence any powerful actors, politicians, multi-national corporations, Wall Street, etc.
Why are you not advocating holding the politicians and money mangers to account? I have to say though that I have always suspected that, in the the end, the climate crisis will be blamed on scientists. There are too many previous examples of disasters that have been blamed on a convenient scapegoat. That’s just the way the powerful act in the end.
Jonathan David
Exactly. That is worth repeating. The status of evolutionary theory, for instance, might be very different if not for “Darwin’s Bulldog” T. H. Huxley.
With that in mind, the Real Climate About page:
This is certainly not a site for science bashers with a grudge.
update on Mauna Loa CO2.
Week beginning on March 10, 2024: 425.74 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 420.08 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 400.31 ppm
Last updated: March 17, 2024
The annual increase of 5.68 ppm is the second highest increase rate since 1959.
Last week also saw the highest ever recorded daily value (March 15: 427.93 ppm).
A comparison with the last ten years avg rate increase gives the real dimension of what is going on right now:
a 2.54 ppm/a increase on average…
Have no fear for La Nina will save us and all will go back to normal again. Peace will prevail upon the Earth. /sarc
Ned Kelly the sock puppet,
If you wish to do the nerd-thing with the MLO CO2 data, you do need to be more attentive.
The weekly data from MLO has only been published by NOAA since 1974, not 1958.
Also, March is the most wobbly part of the CO2 annual cycle at MLO so not the best time to be comparing inter-year weekly data. Additionally, comparing today’s numbers with ten-year-old ones may encounter methodological issues as the process for accepting/rejecting measurements will almost certainly not be consistent. Note that both these 7-day periods you are comparing have missing days.
If folk are into number crunching, the NOAA MLO CO2 daily record since 1974 is now published (rather than just graphed on their 2-year Interactive Plot).
But to save us all the bother, NOAA do publish the Annual Growth Rate. They use Nov-Feb averages so the 2023 Growth is not long published
At +3.36ppm, 2023 shows the highest Annual Growth on record, with 2016 now 2nd highest (+3.03ppm), above 2015 (+2.95ppm), 1998 (+2.97ppm) & 2018 (+2.85ppm). This is wobbly data with a big El Niño signal in it.
So while 2023 recorded the highest Annual CO2 Growth, it should be noted that 2022 recorded the lowest since 2008 and that 5-year rolling averages have been flat since 2015-19.
Of course, these Annual Growth Rates don’t just need to stop getting bigger, they urgently need to begin dropping, and dropping rapidly.
Ned Kelly, Nigel et al., The result that humans tend to reach their beliefs more by emotion than by examination of the evidence is not really a new one. Francis Bacon developed the scientific method precisely to combat such tendencies–and it has proven the most reliable method humans have developed for developing reliable understanding of the natural world.
I understand that the slow, methodical pace of science may be frustrating–especially when we are confronting a potentially existential threat with a short (at least geologically speaking) fuse. However, science is the only reliable way forward. We should not think ourselves immune to illogical tendencies merely because we are “on the right side” of an issue.
Despite concerted efforts by Vulture Capitalists and other merchants of doubt to discredit science and scientists, science remains the most trusted human endeavor across the political spectrum. Facts presented as independent entities may not be persuasive, but facts with the imprimatur and understanding science provides can and do make a difference for all but the most ideologically blinkered individuals.
The facts, the truth, remain our most important powerful weapons in confronting the anti-science trolls precisely because, if we adhere to them, they are weapons that cannot be turned against us. Appeals to emotion…not so much.
RL. Agreed. None of us are immune from cognitive biases, effects of emotion on thinking and evaluation of facts, illogical thinking and cherry picking, but some of us are aware of such influences and dont let them rule us or at least counter them to some extent. It just takes discipline and anyone can do it. Of course science also trains people to avoid such things. I was lucky as a child I stumbled across a book on logical fallacies which made a big impression on me and helped. This stuff should be taught in school.
“The result that humans tend to reach their beliefs more by emotion than by examination of the evidence is not really a new one.”
And it’s irreducible, because even from a strictly rational perspective you’ve got to have some givens–which, by definition, can’t be arrived at from previous considerations, or logical processes.
When we’re dealing with matters that are of concern to humans, that means values, which while they may be informed by logic and reason, or examined by logic and reason, are also to some extent a priori to either. I’m a musician because I care deeply about music, and while I may employ rationalizations about its role in human development on both individual and social levels, or its value to the economy (see the “Taylor Swift” effect, which has national governments bickering about alleged subsidies), or its potential to facilitate communication and build community as the late, great Pete Seeger was so adept at doing, none of that is actually why I care. I care because of the emotional responses I have.
In the climate realm, some people value life, and some people value immediate profits, and the latter will not be much moved by the prospect of hundreds of millions of climate refugees (presumbably, they think they can wall them out)–or lost biodiversity (they just think “who cares about snail darters or barred owls, anyway?”)–or threats to agricultural productivity (“Let them eat cake–or Spam?–or maybe Soylent Green?”)
Kevin: “And it’s irreducible, …”
I don’t fully agree with this–the key to reducing the illogical aspects of human cognition is the scientific method–especially the part where we emphasize evidence that conflicts with our beliefs rather than that which supports those beliefs. We need to look at the predictive power of what we believe rather than the explanatory power.
Of course, we know that science is fun ’til somebody’s ox gets gored, but goring oxen is the key to progress. And we need to be especially ruthless with pseudo-scientific narratives that pretend to profundity while in reality merely being a place where curiosity goes to die.
I do not dispute that this is difficult, but it is essential if humans are to overcome the limitations of our own brains and survive longer than a geologic instant.
Ray, I think we are talking past each other a bit. I agree that:
However, I’d view “beliefs” as essentially posterior, meaning that they emerge (in my mental model of this, at least!) from the interplay of data with what I called
“values” meaning here something like “the personal significance weighting of the various aspects of the world.” “Values” in this sense are essentially prior to the process of belief formation. They are also hard to change.
We’re in serious trouble…
Why Is the Sea So Hot? | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot
Substantial quotes from this article above, search ‘kolbert’
Excellent short science communication by Elizabeth Kolbert, who does that kind of thing extremely well. Gavin is quoted:
I don’t know about all y’all, but if Gavin is disquieted, so am I.
Chuck Hughes: – We’re in serious trouble…”
…and most people are still oblivious.
Leon Simons tweeted on Mar 20:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1770100867032645942
And Leon Simons tweeted on Mar 18:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1769477306748207495
See the full interview by Canadian Prepper with Leon Simons in the YouTube video titled ⚡ALERT: ITS MUCH WORSE THAN WE’RE BEING TOLD, EXPECT EXTREME EVENTS IN NEXT FEW MONTHS, duration 1:04:48.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
New Yorker: “It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand metres of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules”. So minimal heat into the ocean then, so the concern is that Trenberth’s Missing Heat has gone on steroids. Who stole it all this time ? I know I know I’m just kidding. El Nino is heat out of the ocean and off to space so heat uptake, delta-OHC, should be low during El Nino (I vaguely recall OHC going down during 1997/98 from ORAS4 and recall calculating in 2013 roughly 45 zettajoules out of the ocean to space through 1997/98 from a single colour-coded temperature section across tropical Pacific and very-vaguely recall NOAA or NASA having 35 zettajoules out of the ocean to space through 1997/98). I just find it so predictable that the News Media will provide no information even when they provide quantities, like above.
Note: Just had my ninth publication in a peer-reviewed science journal:
Levenson, B.P. 2024. A comprehensive semigray climate model. Planetary and Space Science 243, 105866.
Congrats!
Thanks, guys.
Congratulations! More than a little beyond my skillset.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0032063324000308
congrats!
Well done !
Outstanding, Barton!
Thanks, Mal, and everyone else. I appreciate it,
Well done Barton.
What is a “semi grey” climate model? (Anyone). I did try googling this but couldnt find anything.
Hallo Nigel,
see the reference kindly provided by Ms. Anderson
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0032063324000308
Greetings
Tomáš
Nigel,
These are radiation physics terms. A body with the same absorptance, reflectance, and transmittance (A + R + T = 1) at every wavelength is “gray.” A special case is where A = 1.0, R = 0.0, T = 0.0, and a body like that is “black” (a “black body”). My climate model splits the electromagnetic spectrum into two bands, shortwave and longwave (the split coming at 4 microns wavelength), so it’s “semigray.”
I’m breaking the 1-comment rule at 8:35 pm because I’ll forget tomorrow. Straight cut’n’paste of mine to a rather-lazy ignoramus and bit of a Parrot, though he was too pleasant and unofficious in his ignorance for me to get infuriated with like I usually do for 11 years and a few tens of thousands of fruitless exchanges.
—————-
Barry to @Your point that simply extrapolating past performance indefinitely into the future is pretty much worthless is a correct point that you made. In 1968 I wrote IBM 360/44 computer program to extrapolate seismic time series, as directed by my Bosses. It was understood by the mathematicians, geophysicists, (former astronomer) at our office that accuracy worsens with each additional extrapolated time step. Thus Dr. James Hansen “10 year or 20 year doubling time” and a far worse “will double every 7 years” from a rather-sickening “Paul Beckwith” character is precisely worthless (and jaw-droppingly LAZY) Junk Science. That ain’t the hard-working pursuit of a physical science, which is the STUDY OF ALL RELEVANT PROCESSES to form an accurate prediction. Of course, past performance must be studied as an important part of studying how these processes already operated, but to simply fit a trend through past performance and extrapolate that trend beyond 1% past the end of the measured time series becomes increasingly uselessly inaccurate (Your “There may be beneficial factors” and also ) because past performance DOESN’T GUARANTEE future returns. Shame on Jim Hansen for doing that, blotting his copybook, and that “Paul Beckwith” is a sickening creature with his ABSURD “I predict 7 metres of sea level rise by 2070”. For crying out loud !!!!!!
————-
Barry to @ after response: “fair to say that while atmospheric greenhouse gas levels increase, or even remain stable at present levels, the decadal average sea level increases will likely increase”. The rate of ice loss from Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and Antarctic ice sheets (East EAIS, West WAIS) WILL increase. This is obvious. The ocean takes 400 years to warm 85% and has only just started. Ice sheets are even far slower so this WILL increase over the coming decades & centuries (future humans decide whether it’ll slow over Millenia). “I wouldn’t be surprised if we have several meters sea level rise by the end of the century myself”. Well no because you’ve obviously never studied it and thought about it at all and you are musing. “several meters sea level rise” is meaningless. Here’s my 5-second assessment of prediction quality & brain quality any place you find it (the predictions) by 2100 CE relative to 2024:
0.5m – 1.0m certain to likely enough
1.0m – 1.5m likely enough to definitely plausible
1.5m – 2.0m definitely plausible to sort-of plausible
2.0m – 2.5m sort-of plausible to quite unlikely
2.5m – 3.0m quite unlikely to highly unlikely
3.0m – 3.5m highly unlikely to unrealistic, losing touch with simple reality
3.5m – 4.0m unlikely to unrealistic, losing touch with simple reality to Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land
4.0m – 4.5m Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land to just plain imbecilic
beyond 4.5m beyond imbecilic
There you go. Where do you stand, wonders me.
It’s not the mechanics of the vast ice sheets that must flow hundreds of kilometres to reach the ocean & discharge that I’ll cite here because that’s extremely complicated for this sad venue of Googles comments. I’m not doing that. No, it’s a matter of lack of heat, much simpler to ponder on ultra-eye-blink time scales like 76 years. Where’s the heat coming from stud ? To melt ice requires a special heat called “latent heat” just to convert solid ice at 0 degrees to liquid water at 0 degrees and it’s a VERY LARGE AMOUNT. Where’s that heat coming from stud, did you ever ponder that a little bit ? I did. Thing is you see that the vast heat required to melt the 1,440 trillion (with a “T”) tonnes of ice for the 4.0m Now Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land scenario is 480 Zettajoules which would be a huge 26% of the present Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) but only 3% is now being used to melt ice and 93% is being used to heat the ocean. The only way to make that vast adjustment is to get that ice off Greenland & Antarctica and into the ocean in billions of little bits, not millions of big bits, so’s the ocean can use a quarter of its “new heat” to melt ice bergs instead of warming water. However, ice reflects a lot more sunlight than ocean so it’s cutting down the heat by doing that. Also, surface warming sends more radiation to space. That’s the “Planck feedback” or “Planck response” to warming and there’s no reason to think that surface warming will stop just to make it convenient for you to hold back 480 Zettajoules to melt the 1,440 trillion tonnes of ice. A Lump of Heat can only be used EITHER to raise surface temperature thus sending the heat to space OR to warm the ocean, warm the ground or melt ice. It CANNOT both melt ice AND raise surface temperature. It’s a choice. Also note that a single 1 trillion tonnes of ice berg slab broke off Larsen C in August 2017 and then floated for 3 years before finally finishing melting. Lastly, ponder that 4.0m of SLR by ice loss could be done hypothetically (not in reality) by new sea ice 4.4m thick covering the ocean from ice off Greenland & Antarctica. Antarctica sea ice is mostly 1m-2m thick, Arctic sea ice is mostly 2m-4m thick. So picture 4.4m thick sea ice covering the ENTIRE GLOBAL OCEAN. It’s massive is what I’m saying. It’s a non-starter Entering Ga Ga Cloud Cuckoo Land.
——–
Barry to @ after response: “If said icebergs then take 3 years or even 10 years to melt somewhere in the wide open oceans is neither here nor there”. Not at all “neither here nor there” because of ice albedo vs ocean albedo as I explained. You’ve failed to produce any viable scenario that would get even close to 4m SLR over 76 years starting now. You’ve established 34.2 zettajoules which melts 7% of the ice that has raised sea level by 4m SLR over 76 years so then in 76 years there’s about 1,340 trillion tonnes of ice floating on the global ocean which averages ice 4.1m thick if the thousands of trillions or millions of trillions of pieces are well dispersed. This reduces ocean albedo so much that intense global cooling has started. You made no effort at all to quantify a workable scenario for 4m SLR over 76 years and you obviously never will so I’m done now. Bye bye.
Barry E Finch: – “Thus Dr. James Hansen “10 year or 20 year doubling time” and a far worse “will double every 7 years” from a rather-sickening “Paul Beckwith” character is precisely worthless (and jaw-droppingly LAZY) Junk Science.”
And yet the rate of global mean sea level rise (SLR) in the past ten years (2014–2023) is more than twice the rate of SLR in the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002).
https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/climate-change-indicators-reached-record-levels-2023-wmo
And the Greenland ice sheet mass loss has doubled over a period of about the last 7 years. See Fig. 2.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820296
And the Earth Energy Imbalance has more than doubled since year 2000.
https://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EEI-corrected-1.png
And you seem to be disputing the statement in the peer-reviewed Hansen et al. (2023) paper:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820251
Do you deny the observed ice sheet changes and paleoclimate evidence, Barry? I’d suggest if it has happened in the past then it can happen again, if the conditions are suitable.
The current rate of CO₂ and temperature change is almost unprecedented in the entire 4.5-billion-year geological past, per the late Will Steffen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2C6NfFIK_g
The Greenland high plateau has been experiencing ice ‘surface darkening’ and rainfall events. These are accelerating the ice loss. The Antarctic is also experiencing some rainfall events.
See the YouTube video titled Arctic climate insights and low fidelity climate models, duration 0:07:35.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbpbm_1Qss
See the YouTube video titled insane flooding rain to Greenland – rapids in an atmospheric river, duration 0:11:26.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tua4p9ns2JY
Barry E Finch: – “You’ve failed to produce any viable scenario that would get even close to 4m SLR over 76 years starting now.”
Barry, did you miss my earlier comment? Reiterating:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820251
Of course you did! It seems to me you only want to see what fits within your ill-informed ideological narrative and limited imagination. Bye bye…
the late Will Steffen?
Jeez, how did I miss that. RIP Will, he was a wonderful human being and a really decent scientist and a great respectful communicator.
Barry E Finch: – “You made no effort at all to quantify a workable scenario for 4m SLR over 76 years and you obviously never will so I’m done now.”
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761–3812, 2016, James Hansen et al., Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous, included (on page 3766):
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
Barry, I think you clearly have no idea what’s a workable SLR scenario.
in Re to Barry E. Finch, 19 Mar 2024 at 8:09 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820356
MA Rodger, 27 Mar 2024 at 9:38 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820597
and to all other participants therebetween in this interesting thread.
Dear Sirs and Madam,
in a parallel thread, participant Dredd, 18 Mar 2024 at 11:36 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/02/new-study-suggests-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-amoc-is-on-tipping-course/#comment-820286
cited from his own website dealing with oceanography. To my understanding, he objects among others that ascribing sea level rise (partially) to ocean volume expansion due to absorbed heat may be complicated, because although heating warmer upper layers must indeed cause a volume expansion, heating deep cold water may, oppositely, result in a volume contraction.
The function of the sea level as a global thermometer (mentioned by Dr. Benestad in the discussion to one of his articles) may thus be complicated and may depend on the fraction of the heat absorbed by the ocean that is transported to deep cold water.
As recently nicely summarized by Piotr, 25 Mar 2024 at 10:39 AM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820549
this transport proceeds mainly in North Atlantic, and it is supposed that it drives the global “conveyor belt” current slowly mixing the entire ocean.
In this respect, I would like to ask three questions.
1) Is the ratio of deep and surface water heating known?
2) It appears that if the extent of heat transport into deep waters is high, climate sensitivity to external “forcings” may be low, whereas if the extent of this transport (in comparison with overall heat absorbed by the ocean) is small, sea surface temperature, sea level etc. can react with a significantly higher sensitivity, am I right?
3) If so, is it possible that the AMOC indeed slightly slowed down in the last year and that the observed “bananas” temperatures of the last ca 12 months might be partly caused by slower heat transport to the deep ocean and through a commensurately increased climate sensitivity?
Thank you in advance for your comments and best regards
Tomáš
Tomas @3
Yes. And yes to many other possibilities too not captured in climate models, or mainstream thinking or discussions.
Everything is connected and everything adds up …. whether it’s counted (by the so-called experts) or not. :-)
in Re to Ned Kelly, 28 Mar 2024 at 10:15 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820656
Dear Ms. Kelly,
Thank you for your feedback!
First of all, a correction. As regards Dredd, I knew that water is not transparent for infrared radiation but I supposed that he at least knows what he writes about sea water density. Nevertheless, Piotr (29 Mar 2024 at 10:58 AM)
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820678
seems to be right that in ocean, absorbed heat can in fact cause volume expansion only. I do not posess a textbook of oceanography, however, I hopefully found the right reference
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/key-physical-variables-in-the-ocean-temperature-102805293/ ,
wherein in second paragraph under Figure 2, I found the sentence that Dredd has likely missed:
“Although maximum densities occur at temperatures of around 4°C for fresh waters, for Absolute Salinities greater than 23.8 g/kg, seawaters at the freezing point are most dense.”
In this respect, the idea expressed by Dr. Benestad (that the global sea level is a good thermometer (or, more precisely, calorimeter) showing a change in accumulated heat) seems to be still correct.
As regards my questions 1)-3), I am sorry that so far, only you commented thereon. Whereas 3) is a quite wild speculation (from the previous discussions in the “AMOC” thread, I have not noted any hint that the heat transport into deeper ocean layers indeed already slowed down), I still think that questions 1) and 2) can be rather relevant.
If climate sensitivity can change (and it does look like it really can change if ocean may react to its surface warming by changing its mixing regime), I would take any projections of the future climate very cautiously.
Greetings
Tom
Tomas, your final paragraph caught my attention:
“If climate sensitivity can change (and it does look like it really can change if ocean may react to its surface warming by changing its mixing regime), I would take any projections of the future climate very cautiously.”
My background is that of a forecast meteorologist. I am not a climate expert, although I always have had a strong interest in a subject closely related to my specialty.
As a weather forecaster, I have to be quite concerned about the quality of my predictions, and their utility for others. A weather forecaster has an advantage over a climate scientist in that we get to make lots of predictions, and see quite soon how they turn out. However, the principles are very similar. We rely on fundamental science, especially physics, plus observations and measurements that are also input for computer models. The models generate projections for the future that are always somewhat uncertain, and require interpretation to be most useful. Finally, we have a history of actual events that show what “normally” happens, and what can happen when things aren’t “normal.” As a small example, nobody would bother to discover what conditions might precede tornado development if tornadoes weren’t observed. They are rare events, but they do happen, and can bring sudden danger.
Projections of future weather and climate need to be taken cautiously, but perhaps not in the way you imagine. I could go to work every day knowing that my forecast would not be perfect. I would learn something from my mistakes, and hope not to repeat them, but there are very many ways to make mistaken forecasts. In some ways caution is always appropriate.
However, in my career, I have seen more grief from errors of omission than commission. It often occurs that for large weather disasters, the full gravity of the situation is not recognized in time – by the public if not by the forecaster. There is a constant pressure not to “cry wolf” over a potentially large event, because these are seldom realized to their full extent. But it is also true that the relatively rare situations that require dire warnings are the ones with the heaviest consequences. The forecasters themselves may not believe that things could get that bad, unless they know some history of similar past events. Even if they do issue a dire warning, these are often downplayed by a public who may not have experienced such a disaster. It is simply easier to disbelieve an ominous forecast and avoid having ones life disrupted. Of course, this doesn’t mean that dire warnings are always correct, but it is important to recognize that the forecasters who issue them have a serious reason to think that there is a potential disaster ahead.
The same applies to warnings about climate change. Those caught up in disputes about uncertainties in the correctness of the climate models will always be able to find something to pick at. Similarly, observations are never perfect, and can often be interpreted various ways. However, climate history is telling us that something very big is in the process of happening, well outside of human experience. We don’t know exactly how fast it will occur, since it will involve multiple tipping points. (Those include abrupt changes in important ocean currents.) However, it is clear that current greenhouse gas levels will bring us to a climate range that the Earth has not experienced for millions of years – and we are steadily making an already dire outcome much worse. What’s more, our present climate is now far out of equilibrium with current GHG levels, and will be so for thousands of years. The relatively steady climate we have been used to for most of human history will be a thing of the past.
Uncertainty about near-term sensitivity is not your friend in this situation. It is possible that there will be some escape from the worst consequences of fossil fuel burning before it is too late for most of the inhabitants of this planet. But the odds are looking worse all the time. Caution lies on the side of taking whatever actions we can before it is indeed too late.
Please take heed!
In Re to John Pollack, 30 Mar 2024 at 11:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820738
Dear John,
Many thanks for your detailed comment. I perfectly agree that warnings before undesired consequences of human interferences with Earth climate mechanisms are desirable and necessary, and that the same applies for actions that should improve our preparedness to undesired and unexpected developpments.
My problem with media reporting about climate science and with the mood of discussions about climate change and climate policies is that they often provide a picture of knowledge and certainty, which is in my opinion heavily distorted and confusing. I am afraid that the real danger consists in our insufficient knowledge of the mechanisms driving Earth climate and its responses to human activities.
I am afraid that in fact, present climate science does not allow predicting / projecting future climate developments with any reasonable reliability. In this respect, I am afraid that the necessary risk management and relevant public policies may be also heavily distorted and very easily become counter-productive, if they are based on an assumed knowledge which may actually be a mere illusion.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz
“,i> Dear Sirs and Madam, in a parallel thread, participant Dredd, 18 Mar 2024 …
cited from his own website dealing with oceanography
Your “participant Dredd” is just another ignoramus, who thinks he that with his high-school level knowledge of physics, he just discovered things all the top scientists in oceanography have never thought of.
See BPL and John Pollack in the original thread patiently explaining to Participant Dredd that he knows nothing what he talks about: our boy-genius compared the speed of photons in vacuum with …the speed of ocean currents. ;-)
Consequently – Participant Dredd’s claims have no ability to make “ the function of the sea level as a global thermometer (mentioned by Dr. Benestad) [more] complicated“. Garbage in, garbage out.
Tomas: “heating deep cold water may, oppositely, result in a volume contraction”
Only if oceans were made of fresh water (and therefore 4C were the temperature of maximum density).
Get yourself an oceanographic textbook or take a course – don’t rely on Internet cooks. And please refrain from complimenting me in the same post in which you promote the ignorant idiocies of Participant Dredd as deserving our attention.
“Dredd” appears to me to be a crank of the highest order.
That seems to be wrong in multiple ways.
Apparently I stopped reading before I got to the claim that warming abyssal water could cause contraction, but that seems patently ridiculous. Contrast this statement:
http://ocean.stanford.edu/courses/bomc/chem/lecture_03.pdf
We don’t know Dredd’s last name–if indeed Dredd is a name at all–but I have to suspect his initials are “DK.”
Kevin: MAR 29 “Dredd” appears to me to be a crank of the highest order.
no wonder that Tomas found him, considers credible and promotes here. Birds of feather flock together …
https://juliancribb.blog/2022/01/04/the-end-of-politics/
2014
https://clivehamilton.com/can-humans-survive-the-anthropocene/
“The IPCC process is keeping people ignorant” … says a Climate Scientist
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1769477306748207495
It’s been known for years. Only fools and liars deny this.
I thought Leon was rather a “climate researcher,” Mike, erm, I mean Ned.
NK: You are not ‘educating’, you are alienating. I comprehend and share your fears, as do all but the few deluded deniers and/or fake skeptics who take advantage of this platform’s tolerance to promote their lies. Your activity here qualifies as ragebait and is not helping to solve anything.
RealClimate exists for a specific purpose, to provide good quality climate science information for those who seek it. Its mission predates your insults, which are a form of toxicity that is unhelpful at best.
Thanks, Susan.
Ned should know better than to upset you.
Thanks Wilard.
I wouldn’t call it ‘upset’. I’m annoyed by waste & rudeness, especially towards those who have something to offer here, like our generous hosts.
from 1stDogOnTheMoon: Constant bad news doing your head in? Why not read about the fish doorbell instead – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/mar/22/constant-bad-news-doing-your-head-in-why-not-read-about-the-fish-doorbell-instead
Willard (my bad, typo)
Oh, well, if a Canadian prepper on X made a video about it, that must be right, then!
Does the data ‘lie’?
“22:31 in the reality there’s the there’s much more sunlight being absorbed than the models assume which causes much more
22:39 heat accumulating in the system than the models assume but even the lead author hasn’t
22:46 published has hasn’t written about this and and shared this with the media so nobody knows about this right
22:53 so it’s and and people are still ignorant about it “?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
James Charles says
20 Mar 2024 at 6:32 AM
Nice quotes James — fyi using transcript , click the 3 vertical dots you can toggle off the timestamps, and also edit it for clarity… . eg
QUOTE – Leon Simons
“… these are models, climate models from Schmidt et al 2023 (Gavin Schmidt) which show — (mouse pointing) here see, you see the climate models — and how much sunlight is being absorbed in these models — and then you compare it to the satellite observation and in reality there is much more sunlight being absorbed than the models assume — which then causes much more heat accumulating in the system than the models assume.
But even the lead author (ie Gavin Schmidt) has not written about this and has not shared it with the media — so nobody knows about this right — so people are still ignorant about it. ”
[end quote]
and then by clicking on one line before the beginning of a transcript passage like that, go to Share button, check-mark the “Start at” box and you have a direct link to that quoted passage. eg
https://youtu.be/Rq34Xn4CZnI?si=XpCWul0UJTZzEGiC&t=1325
NK – Gee if only the lead author had a Twitter Account or his own Blog website. He would be able to communicate this knowledge to the world of how much these Climate Models models seriously underestimate global warming today. Damn. What a shame.
Canadian Prepper. Yep, now there’s a name I’ll trust for reliable, calm scientific info! Yessireebob!
At 19 MAR 2024 AT 8:09 PM my “This reduces ocean albedo” S.B. “This increases ocean albedo” but really correction is an excuse to obviate the Regulations here. Suppose surface wind speed reduced over sizeable ocean other than tropical Pacific (probably hasn’t and I’m certainly not spending time searching for a little thought experiment. Now there’s 2 entirely-different processes warming ocean surface (I mean additional to clean ships & less shiny clouds):
– ENSO El Nino regular effort where heat in the west down to ~400m spreads east & surfaces. This is discharge of a battery that had been getting charged from an internal Forcing cyclic EEI increase during La Nina (maybe neutral, I don’t know) and the deep water is ACTUALLY WARMER than the central & east surface). Heat’s coming out of the ocean. The EEI reduces due to increased Planck feedback. OHC over the region increases at a reduced rate.
– Unrelated (?) Wind slows elsewhere and reduces depth of the well-mixed layer below its typical so the shallower well-mixed layer is heated more by the Sun. So permanent thermocline + well-mixed layer (excluding Pacific) Tropical & Sub- is like 5.0 degrees (bottom) to 29 degrees (top) (or whatever like that, example only, I’m not searching around for the numbers) instead of a 5.0-27 degrees. The EEI reduces due to increased Planck feedback. OHC over the region increases at a reduced rate.
Maybe El Nino slowed some other winds ? I dunno, I’m burbling (but then Gavin Schmidt said they don’t know nothing neither).
This might explain the loss of the missing 13 ZJ (if El Nino isn’t enough) that a “New Yorker” said has gone missing compared to 2022 that I was accusing one of you of thieving and was gonna hold you’all back in the Forum without dinner until one of you steps forward and fesses.
Me: “increases at a reduced rate” S.B. “decreases or increases at a reduced rate”.
Also, same topic, statements on the amateur “Channels” that “heat is pouring out of the ocean” are junk-science drivel when not applied to ENSO because (apart from minuscule bits at -1.8 to 0.0 degrees). Ocean is 0.0 degrees at the bed warming to 5.0 degrees at 89% of the way up to surface, then warming to surface temperature and colder thing can’t warm warmer thing per 2nd Law of Whatsit (I finally got to be a Denier and say colder can’t warm warmer so it’s hoaxers) but rather my example (hypothetical, not necessarily happening) is one of the 2 ways (1) Solar heats shallower like I hypothesized) (2) Ocean reduces rate of bringing up its cold store (20 Sv AABW + portion of 17 Sv NADW) that took 2,200 or 3,300 years to store full cycle.
A follow on from above … https://youtu.be/Rq34Xn4CZnI?si=c4PDIkSbW-1EfNzl&t=1397
23:17 Leon Simons … actually they’re saying it themselves their research shows it right the
research shows it’s not it’s not me, like it’s me I’m saying it, but I’m just showing what
their Data says, what their paper shows right I’m showing you what the data shows which
they are presenting but not communicating of course they’re not apologizing but
with the data they show that they have been wrong and yeah that unfortunately we
and the data we present are correct …
The next section Leon then addresses the many negative issues surrounding the IPCC system and their failures to communicate.
Gee this Climate Science Communication issue thing really seems like a bit of a problem don’t ya think?
And these Models, so what’s with that? There are no climate science deniers required for these problems and errors or false reporting or cover ups! It is in fact, an own goal.
But you just watch the “denierosphere” grab a hold of these issues and run hard with it ….. LOL it’s like Tweedledee and Tweedledum go camping with the Three Stooges.
Did you get a good mental picture of that happening? I do hope so, because that is exactly what this is.
The Keystone Cops on Steroids.
2024-03-20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq34Xn4CZnI
2:25 Usual junk-science, entirely incorrect pseudo-description of the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere. I’ll not waste time describing it properly yet again here because no audience and nobody cares about facts on that simple physics, even important ones.
8:50 Good SWR LWR EEI pictorial
9:48 Worthless plot with no scales on it (trying out the never-fails, scale-free methods of Heartland Institute the last 20 years ? Hey, what’s sauce for the goose).
10:14 No date on the Forcings pictorial.
10:14 Aerosols Forcings pictorial. Direct=0.51 w/m**2 Cloud=0.69 w/m**2 Total=1.20 w/m**2 Jim Hansen asserts 1.5 to 2.0 w/m**2
(Incidental: There’s some babbling, lazy, faker comments on RealClimate from a bloke who heartily approves of this video & Jim Hansen video too even though they violently disagree on Aerosols Forcings. Lazy, unstudied babbler will babble absolutely any old rubbish, a Parrot basically).
12:21 I was SERIOUSLY misinformed by climate scientist talks (more like internal discussions than this low-level Public Social thing Leon does here) as recently as a couple years back by them saying that “Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI)” plot 2004-2023 at bottom RHS
17:28 Meaningless because Leon doesn’t bother to say compared to what.
19:30 Leon correctly points out that the increase in global heater from reducing Earth’s albedo is within weeks. That’s the simple theory. Yet the shipping SO2 emissions are clearly plotted, and at 10:29 Absorbed Solar Radiation is clearly plotted, and all that happens in 2020 when the SO2 goes sharply, hugely down is that Absorbed Solar Radiation goes DOWN, decreases instead of increasing. I’m a tad surprised that neither Leon nor the host noticed that since it’s specifically their jobs and what this video is all about. Aren’t you a tad surprised too you brain-dead sleep walkers supposedly watching this and supposedly listening to it ?
19:20 It’s true what Leon says about the ocean delaying warming for 400 years but be aware that Leon is challenged by top Climate Expert Doctor Guy McPherson who says Earth will warm 5 degrees “I’m talking in days or weeks” owing to Earth not affording an ocean like some of the planets in the more-fashionable wealthy arm of the Milky Way have got. Many people find McPherson’s science compelling and have bought his text book for British kindergarten children and all North American adults. In fact Doctor McPherson invented aerosols and they’re named after him.
27:40 and 33:44 For several years I’ve been finding it weird that nobody but me has mentioned that CO2 is THE ONLY FUEL FOR FOREST FIRES. It didn’t get burned 300 million years ago, it got buried. Now it’s dug up or pumped up and the bit that ain’t in the ocean is available for burning. The same CO2 molecule can burn endless times because Mister Sun sits there ready to unburn it for you as soon as it burns. The coal-oil-gas bunch keep calling it “Lovely greening up” and none of you half wits have ever noticed or realized that it’s THE ONLY FUEL FOR FOREST FIRES. I did though. I commented many times but of course nobody’s interested. I even heard Forest Fire Chiefs on CBC saying “fires seem to burn hotter we don’t know why”. Humans increased the fire fuel (CO2)by 50% and he “don’t know why”. Really ? Yes really.
——–
The entire video is absent a potentially very large thing and the video hoist failed to question it because he’s clueless about the science and Leon made no mention of it because he’s the aerosol bloke, has the air pollution Business, and doesn’t want to discuss big stuff that’s not what he’s all about, what’s best for him. So at 55:40 Leon misleads by implying that clouds are only uncertain due to aerosols. THEY SURE AREN’T. No mention of whether clouds increase or decrease WITH WARMING of the troposphere. It’s an argument goes back decades to Richard Lindzen’s “Iris cloud hypothesis” where he claims clouds will increase as it warms and limit warming to 1.6 degrees for doubled CO2 (or equivalent, which is 3.7 w/m**2). I think pretty much all other scientists disagree and think clouds will become less reflective as it warms (like has happened in the plot here at 11:53 since 2014) but the fact is that high cloud is understood with high certainty and low cloud is understood with low certainty and that’s a big problem and has nothing to do with human air pollution, it’s to do with the cloud changes because the air warms, a completely different thing and deliberately omitted here (Leon the pot calling scientists the kettle black). So how does Leon know that the push of increased Absorbed Solar Radiation at 10:29 is due to aerosols reduction, especially since the timings don’t match at all. Of course Leon doesn’t know, the cloud changes might just be a +ve feedback to the warming air. See the highly-varying Model assessments of cloud +ve feedback to the warming air at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc at 10:36, 11:28, 14:07 & 17:27.
Else it’s fine, nice thanks, hope you make good coin from it all.
Barry E Finch,
You say “he cloud changes might just be a +ve feedback to the warming air.” The CERES reflected sunlight (& OLR) data 2002-20 is plotted with ERA5 SAT data in a double-graphic HERE posted 5th Dec 2023. The bottom of thus double-graphic shows a very strong correlation between SAT and the reducing albedo for most of this period. It does go a bit odd 2006-12 when the SAT & albedo turn from a negative correlation to a positive one.
And I would caution all to be aware that Leon Simons spouts a high level of nonsense .
MA Rodger: – “And I would caution all to be aware that Leon Simons spouts a high level of nonsense .”
In the Foreword to Breakthrough’s Aug 2018 report titled What Lies Beneath: The Understatement Of Existential Climate Risk, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber concluded with (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath
Mainstream climate scientists run the risk of becoming the new climate deniers. As in:
https://www.jonathonporritt.com/mainstream-climate-science-the-new-denialism/
Geoff Miell,
To throw your quoting of Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber back in your face: I would agree with the line “…it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf” but note the words I embolden. The ‘voice’ under discussion is Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not “understand the issues.”
MA Rodger: – The ‘voice’ under discussion is Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not “understand the issues.””
Big call! I think this is another example of your judgement being flawed and I think you are at risk of becoming one of the new climate deniers.
I note that Leon Simons is the third name on the list of authors to the paper Global warming in the pipeline
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
In the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23, Professor Jeffrey Sachs moderated a discussion with:
* Dr. James Hansen, Lead Author and Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute;
* Leon Simons, The Club of Rome Netherlands, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands;
* Dr. Norman G. Loeb, CERES Principal Investigator, NASA;
* Dr. George Tselioudis, Author and Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies;
* Dr. Pushker Kharecha, Author and Associate Research Scientist, Director, Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, Columbia Climate School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
MA Rodger, by you stating that “Leon Simons who time and time again demonstrates he does not ‘understand the issues.'”, it implies to me that you are also suggesting Hansen, Loeb, Tselioudis and Kharecha also don’t “understand the issues”.
I think it is you, MA Rodger, that is one of many that doesn’t apparently understand the issues.
Geoff Miell,
Your fixation with this Leon Simons continues, this despite the numerous times that you blindly present instances of his incompetence in these RC threads.
Quite why he merits third-place in the list of authorship in Hansen et al (2023) ‘Global warming in the pipeline’ I know not. He “provided ship emission information and aided interpretations’ but doesn’t appear in the list of references. (Mind, he is only listed as authoring two previous papers – here – and here and in those both well down a very long list of authors. And strangely, his talk of 2021 has not been followed by a proper write-up, this despite Hansen’s name on the presentation.) I would suggest Simons has not shown himself able to work alone without introducing an overly large level of error and thus he certainly should not be considered a reliable source of analysis.
For the record, I have for some decades asked if anyone wants to bet on a mean sea level rise in excess of 10 cm/decade in the next decade and , acceleration notwithstanding, have had no takers.
When will the bananas rhetoric turn into bets ?
Russell Seitz: – “For the record, I have for some decades asked if anyone wants to bet on a mean sea level rise in excess of 10 cm/decade in the next decade…”
Perhaps you’ve previously asked in the wrong decades?
Per AR6 WG1, a sea level rise (SLR) rate of 4.5 mm per year was observed over the period 2013–2021.
For scenarios with a starting point SLR rate of 4.5 mm/year in 2024:
* For a 7-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 11.0 mm/year is reached in 2033;
* For a 10-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 10.3 mm/year is reached in 2036;
* For a 13-year doubling rate, then a SLR rate of 10.0 mm/year is reached in 2039.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that satellite altimetry data indicates the rate of SLR was 4.77 mm/year averaged over the period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023. See the Global Mean Sea Level graph published on Mar 20 in a news article at:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-20/wmo-climate-records-broken-global-temperature/103604076
For doubling scenarios with a starting point SLR rate of 4.77 mm/year in 2024, the SLR rate exceeds 10 mm/year a year earlier, compared with a starting point of 4.5 mm/year.
Real-world ice melt will not follow a smooth curve.
I’d suggest it comes down to whether people think the SLR rate is doubling, at about a 13-year or less acceleration rate, or not, to take on your bet now.
Geoff Meill,
I see up-thread you have found another spouter of vacuous climate nonsense, educator Paul Beckwith.
It would be better to ignore this fool and examine the GRACE-FO data which did show a worrying acceleration of ice loss from Greenland, but that acceleration stopped in 2012. And the Antarctic ice loss doublings? Were they ever a thing?
MA Rodger: – “It would be better to ignore this fool and examine the GRACE-FO data which did show a worrying acceleration of ice loss from Greenland, but that acceleration stopped in 2012.”
Did it, MA Rodger? Did you miss my comments at 18 MAR 2024 AT 6:09 PM?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820296
Per (former Australian Chief Scientist) Prof Penny Sackett’s Answers to Questions taken on Notice re the NSW Parliament Inquiry into Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023 (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/other/18661/Professor%20Penny%20Sackett%20-%20received%206%20November%202023.pdf
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that satellite altimetry data indicates the rate of SLR was 4.77 mm/year averaged over the period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023. See the Global Mean Sea Level graph published on Mar 20 in a news article at:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-20/wmo-climate-records-broken-global-temperature/103604076
The SLR rate of 4.5 mm/y (averaged for period 2013–2021) has already increased to 4.77 mm/y (averaged for period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023).
If there is no acceleration of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica, as you assert MA Rodger, then why is the observed rate of SLR continuing to accelerate? Can you please explain that one, MA Rodger?
Geoff Miell,
This educator Paul Beckwith is talking specifically about “measuring the mass of both Greenland and Antarctica” so is referring specifically to GRACE & GRACE-FO data. Is that showing “typically” the “melt rates at least doubling every, what, seven to ten years …, both for Greenland and also for Antarctica”?
Polar ice loss is one of the major factors feeding SLR. And SLR is accelerating, averaging 3.7mm/y over a period centred 2012 then 4.5mm/y for a period centred 2017. (If this were ‘typical’ SLR acceleration, it would be showing an 18-year doubling time with a projected 2012-2100 SLR of 3m.) So if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today, the SLR acceleration will be due to one or more of the other major factors feeding SLR.
MA Rodger: – “Polar ice loss is one of the major factors feeding SLR.”
Yep. Per the Arctic Monitoring & Assessment Programme (AMAP) Figure 9.3 Comparison of Arctic sea level rates 2004–2010 with other global sea level components, the Greenland ice sheet is the second largest contributor to SLR (after thermal expansion) and Antarctic land ice is fourth.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820296
So why would Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet loss stop accelerating while SLR continues to accelerate, MA Rodger?
And yet the 2024 Nature paper by Chad A. Greene et al. (I’ve referred to earlier and you appear to continue to ignore) indicates ubiquitous acceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet calving from 1985 to 2022. The authors estimate the Greenland ice sheet loss is now around 30.1 Mt/h.
MA Rodger: – “And SLR is accelerating, averaging 3.7mm/y over a period centred 2012 then 4.5mm/y for a period centred 2017.”
Again, you appear to ignore the latest WMO rate of SLR of 4.77 mm/year averaged over the period Jan 2014 through Dec 2023, and stick with the now apparently dated AR6 WGI figure.
MA Rodger: – “So if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today, the SLR acceleration will be due to one or more of the other major factors feeding SLR.”
The WMO’s report State of the Global Climate 2023, in Fig 6 (on page 6), indicates SLR acceleration is 0.12 ± 0.05 mm/y². It also states:
https://library.wmo.int/records/item/68835-state-of-the-global-climate-2023
MA Rodger, I think you are in denial of the accumulating evidence/data, and are attempting to denigrate the non-mainstream voices (that Schellnhuber refers to), or alternately ignore anything inconvenient to your ideological narrative.
Geoff, I framed my SLR bet question in response to the multimeter rise prediction books that greeted the Millennium.
After one London publisher’s best selling cover featured the inundation of St. Paul’s cathedral, I asked who wanted to bet on which decade would be first to see a 10 cm rise?
The decadal average SLR needed to get to 1 meter by 2001 has since risen past 1.3 cm/decade, so while last year’s exotically high SST’s have obviously altered the odds ,on future decades, any who bet on the first two (and likely the third) have already lost.
Russell Seitz (at 25 MAR 2024 AT 5:17 PM): – “The decadal average SLR needed to get to 1 meter by 2001 has since risen past 1.3 cm/decade, so while last year’s exotically high SST’s have obviously altered the odds ,on future decades, any who bet on the first two (and likely the third) have already lost.”
Per the WMO’s report State of the Global Climate 2023, in Fig 6 (on page 6):
* SLR rate at 2.13 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 1993 through Dec 2002);
* SLR rate at 3.33 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 2003 through Dec 2012);
* SLR rate at 4.77 mm/year (averaged from period Jan 1014 through Dec 2023);
* SLR acceleration at 0.12 ± 0.05 mm/y².
Evidence/data indicates:
* 2001-2010 (first decade of millennium) rate of SLR was well below 10 cm/decade;
* 2011-2020 (second decade of millennium) rate of SLR was well below 10 cm/decade;
* 2021-2030 (third decade of millennium) rate of SLR is, I’d suggest, highly unlikely to exceed 10 cm/decade, but in year-2024 it’s probably already exceeding 5 cm/decade.
But are there any takers for betting that the rate of SLR will exceed an average 10 cm/decade within the fourth decade (2031-2040)?
Geoff Miell,
This is all pretty-much up to your usual standard. (Or should that be “down to”.)
☻ If you are capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly, you will note they are saying the ice loss reported by GRACE-FO cannot detect subsurface ice loss which has been replaced by seawater. So, like the Arctic sea ice, this missing ice melt around Greenland reported by Greene et al does not impact SLR.
☻ If you were able to compare the acceleration implied by the 3.7mm/y, the 4.5mm/y and the 4.77mm/y, you would find the first pair suggest an annual 3.99% increase in SLR while the second pair suggest an annual 3.96% increase.
☻ The WMO ‘State of the Global Climate 2023’ report you quote gives SLR increasing from 2.13mm/y to the 4.77mm/y, this over a 21-year period, so an annual acceleration of 3.91%.
☻ And as I pointed-out up-thread, Schellnhuber wrote “…it is all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf” [my bold]. Your penchant for bring here cries of “It’s the wolf!! It’s the wolf!!!” have ever failed to achieved Schellnhuber’s listening requirement.
MA Rodger (at 27 MAR 2024 AT 9:48 AM): – “☻ If you are capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly, you will note they are saying the ice loss reported by GRACE-FO cannot detect subsurface ice loss which has been replaced by seawater. So, like the Arctic sea ice, this missing ice melt around Greenland reported by Greene et al does not impact SLR.”
The Greene et al. (2024) paper includes (bold text my emphasis):
I interpret that to mean that the GRACE system doesn’t accurately detect ALL ice loss. Some of that ice loss can contribute to SLR by thermosteric effects, which to date is the single biggest contributor. Some other ice loss is too small in spatial scale to be detected. MA Rodger, it seems to me you aren’t capable of reading Greene et al (2024) properly.
MA Rodger (at 27 MAR 2024 AT 9:48 AM): – “☻ The WMO ‘State of the Global Climate 2023’ report you quote gives SLR increasing from 2.13mm/y to the 4.77mm/y, this over a 21-year period, so an annual acceleration of 3.91%.”
An annual acceleration of 3.91% represents a doubling time of 18.0719 years.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/math/doubling-time
That’s within the range of Hansen’s estimate:
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
With the rate of global warming apparently accelerating, from +0.18 °C/decade (1970-2010) to at least +0.27°C per decade post-2010, per Hansen et al. (2023), I’d suggest the rate of SLR is likely to increase (and the doubling time is likely to shorten).
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
James Hansen discusses Scientific Reticence: A Threat to Humanity and Nature
https://csas.earth.columbia.edu/videos/james-hansen-scientific-reticence-threat-humanity-and-nature
MA Rodger, I think you display classic reticence. Science is about explaining the data. I think you fail to do that and instead denigrate the people who do so that don’t fit with your ideological narrative.
Geoff Miell
“But are there any takers for betting that the rate of SLR will exceed an average 10 cm/decade within the fourth decade (2031-2040)? ”
I’m not a scientist but this is my two cents worth. Extrapolating the existing decadal SLR trend ( a quadratic) gets to very roughly 7.2 cms decade by 2031 – 2041. So to get to 10cms decade by 2031 – 2041 would require a significant acceleration of the acceleration. An acceleration of warming beyond the recent trend would cause a further acceleration of SLR. If you believe Hansen that global warming is now accelerating sharply due to aerosols issue, 10 cms by the fourth decade might be possible.
The exponential trend in Greenland a while back has fizzled out and appears related to local natural variation. But reducing aerosols could possibly trigger something similar in coming decades. But there are uncertainties about future SLR, especially the rate at which ice sheets might destabilise, and the timing of SLR this century,. So while 10 cms by fourth decade looks possible, I wouldn’t be betting serious money.
Geoff Miell,
Evidently you are not capable of reading Greene et al (2024) You actually only need to read the Abstract to find them telling you that the “mass loss we report has had minimal direct impact on global sea level” and if you dig a little deeper you will see this “minimal direct impact” is “minimal” because within the ocean volume, the ice is being replaced by seawater. Thus the only direct impact is due to the relative density of the two and thus this “minimal direct impact” would actually be negative.
Note also that, contrary to your assertions, this “minimal direct impact” would be “detected” by GRACE/GRACE-FO. What would not be possible is its “locations to be pinpointed by GRACE.”
The issue in Greene ey al (2024) which is perhaps controversial is the 20% figure. This is found using the 2020 IMBIE Team report but usual reports for GRACE numbers give a higher level of Greenland ice loss and thus the 20% figure shrivels to perhaps 4%. (See this graphic from US EPA which shows IMBIE numbers as ‘combined’ plus GRACE numbers as ‘NASA JPL’.)
The appearance of acceleration values for global SLR of 3.99%, 3.96% and 3.91% found comparing the SLR rates up-thread was pretty incredibly. The data (eg this) anin’t than smooth!!
I did myself point out up-thread 3.9%/y would suggest an 18-year doubling time, this with potentially four doublings up to 2100 were such an acceleration sustained that long. That would suggest SLR by 2100 would be something like +40mm/y & 340mm SLR appearing the 1990s, the cumulative 2100 total reaching 3m. But this is little more than convecture.
What isn’t conjecture is that we have already stoked up a pile of ‘in the pipeline’ SLR which doesn’t just stop at 2100. The acceleration today would (presumably?) end if AGW stopped but that ‘pipeline’ figure will not so easily disappear. Any rate of SLR reached in 2100 will not decline greatly for a long long time while AGW temperatures remain un-reversed. Perhaps the 2,000yr and 10,000yr commitment set out in IPCC AR6 Table 9.1 should be be more widely known (and to hell with the ‘low confidence’ caution). The pipeline (2,000yr) SLR for 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C are given as 2m-to-3m, 2m-to-6m respectively and pipeline (10,000yr) 6m-to-7m, 8m-to-13m and 10m-to-24m respectively. How much and when do these 2ky/10ky ‘pipeline’ values becomes unstoppable? In my opinion, these are the important SLR considerations and should not be drowned-out of discussion by silly projections to 2100.
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “You actually only need to read the Abstract to find them telling you that the “mass loss we report has had minimal direct impact on global sea level” and if you dig a little deeper you will see this “minimal direct impact” is “minimal” because within the ocean volume, the ice is being replaced by seawater. Thus the only direct impact is due to the relative density of the two and thus this “minimal direct impact” would actually be negative.”
So, where is the volume of water coming from to account for the observed acceleration of SLR, MA Rodger? As you stated earlier: “if neither Greenland & Antarctic ice loss is significantly accelerating today“, then I ask again where’s it coming from? Can you please explain that one? It seems to me you would much rather denigrate people like Paul Beckwith, Leon Simons and Professor Eliot Jacobson, than offer an explanation of observed data.
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “I did myself point out up-thread 3.9%/y would suggest an 18-year doubling time, this with potentially four doublings up to 2100 were such an acceleration sustained that long. That would suggest SLR by 2100 would be something like +40mm/y & 340mm SLR appearing the 1990s, the cumulative 2100 total reaching 3m. But this is little more than convecture.”
I think you’re assuming the doubling rate of circa 18-years will continue much the same over the remainder of this century. The Earth System warming rate is already being observed to be accelerating. Why wouldn’t the rate of SLR accelerate (and thus the doubling time shorten) further? MA Rodger, I think you are displaying continued reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data.
The latest communication (dated 29 Mar 2024) by James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Pushker Kharecha titled Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium, includes:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2024/Hopium.MarchEmail.2024.03.29.pdf
I’ve already referred earlier to the Hansen et al. (2016) paper, where “5m in a century” SLR is possible and “the assumed 21st century climate forcing is also more rapidly growing than any known natural forcing”.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820375
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “The acceleration today would (presumably?) end if AGW stopped but that ‘pipeline’ figure will not so easily disappear. Any rate of SLR reached in 2100 will not decline greatly for a long long time while AGW temperatures remain un-reversed.”
I’ve highlighted this multiple times here at this blog before in earlier comment threads;
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box said (bold text my emphasis) from time interval 0:15:27:
“And at this level of CO₂, this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise. So, obviously it would help to remove a hell-of-a-lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and I don’t hear that conversation very much, because we’re still adding 35 gigatonnes per year.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
MA Rodger (at 29 MAR 2024 AT 1:44 PM): – “The pipeline (2,000yr) SLR for 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C are given as 2m-to-3m, 2m-to-6m respectively and pipeline (10,000yr) 6m-to-7m, 8m-to-13m and 10m-to-24m respectively. How much and when do these 2ky/10ky ‘pipeline’ values becomes unstoppable? In my opinion, these are the important SLR considerations and should not be drowned-out of discussion by silly projections to 2100.”
I’d suggest a global mean of only 1 m of SLR would be catastrophic for many coastal infrastructures and low-lying agricultural lands (e.g. Bangladesh & Mekong River delta) around the world, and I’d suggest that magnitude of SLR is guaranteed to arrive well within this century while we/humanity continue to pump more GHGs into the atmosphere, and not even begin to Reduce, Remove, Repair.
That raises critical questions about whether it would be worthwhile to continue defending coastal infrastructure/property or abandoning and retreating.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber believes if the Earth System goes much above +2.0 °C warming we will get to +4.0 °C warming because of tipping points and feedbacks, which would spell the end of human civilisation.
https://twitter.com/CodeRedEarth/status/1751563836685942870
If we/humanity continue with BAU, then what happens beyond the next few decades may become moot for most of us/humanity.
Geoff Miell,
Perhaps you need to check out the “observed acceleration of SLR” before you pose questions that rely on it existing at the rate your questioning implies.
SL data is lumpy, even at a decadal level. So the tidy assertions in the WMO 2023 report showing a +0.12 (+/-0.05) mm/y/y SLR acceleration has to cover over a lot of potholes and bumps in the data series. Using the same data WMO say they use, (reproducing their actual results would require knowing the method used) an OLR thro’ the monthly averages gives an acceleration 1993-2023 of +0.085mm/y/y (+/-0.04 2sd).
The decadal SLR averages found for the periods used by WMO yield +3.07mm/y, +3.25mm/y, +4.59mm/y. The WMO gave +2.13mm/y, +3.33mm/y, +4.77mm/y.
And attempting to calculate the acceleration…
5yr ave SLR increases &
their annual accelerations.
(Period centered on year)
1996 … + 2.91mm/y
2001 … + 3.24mm/y … +1.6% or +0.07mm/y
2006 … + 2.76mm/y … -3.2% or -0.10mm/y
2011 … + 3.75mm/y … +6.5% or +0.20mm/y
2016 … + 4.28mm/y … +2.7% or +0.11mm/y
2021 … + 4.90mm/y … +2.6% or +0.12mm/y
To give you a better take on what the data looks like, I post a graphic showing the rolling 12-month & 60-month annual SLR increase HERE (posted 31/3/24)
And given all this, and the literature such as it is of late, I’d say the data shows a lot of wobbles making its acceleration difficult to measure. But I do not signs of an exponential rise within these data. And if there were exponentiality, it would be a big job defending its continuation to 2100. (I don’t think Hansen et al (2016) achieves such a defense, interesting though the hypothesis is.)
So, while we would be idiots to ignore the threat of SLR, I don’t think it would be helpful to revisit your misunderstanding of the comments of Jason Box.
And tipping points? One step at a time, please. It is the “observed acceleration of SLR” that is the subject under discussion.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “To give you a better take on what the data looks like, I post a graphic showing the rolling 12-month & 60-month annual SLR increase HERE (posted 31/3/24)
And given all this, and the literature such as it is of late, I’d say the data shows a lot of wobbles making its acceleration difficult to measure.”
Thanks for the graph. I’d suggest the graph clearly shows a general trend of acceleration of the rate of SLR over a period of roughly 2½ decades of satellite altimetry data, despite the “wobbles”. I note that there also appears to be a significant change in the rate of SLR from around 2010, with a general increase mainly above the 4 mm/y threshold in the 60-month average curve, and an apparent much higher volatility during the early- to mid-2010s in the 12-month average curve. That seems to coincide with the regulation by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for reductions of sulphur emissions over seas and oceans.
See the graph presented by Leon Simons in the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming from time interval 0:37:30.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “But I do not signs of an exponential rise within these data. And if there were exponentiality, it would be a big job defending its continuation to 2100.”
It seems to me you are obfuscating – classic reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data:
* The EEI has been increasing – that means more energy is being accumulated in the Earth System;
* The rate of global mean SAT is increasing, from +0.18 °C/decade in 1970-2010 to +0.30 °C/decade in 2010-2023, 67% faster;
* SSTs at record highs.
The acceleration of the rate of SLR will continue while ever the energy inputs into the Earth System, and more particularly into the cryosphere, increase.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “(I don’t think Hansen et al (2016) achieves such a defense, interesting though the hypothesis is.)”
There’s peer-reviewed evidence/data (Fairbanks, 1989; Deschamps et al., 2012) that suggests “5m in a century” SLR has happened before. MA Rodger, are you disputing this evidence/data? It looks like it to me.
Hansen et al. suggest “the assumed 21st century climate forcing is also more rapidly growing than any known natural forcing.” MA Rodger, are you disputing this statement. It looks like it to me.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820375
I think it would be foolish to bet against Hansen on this issue.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “So, while we would be idiots to ignore the threat of SLR, I don’t think it would be helpful to revisit your misunderstanding of the comments of Jason Box.”
What misunderstanding would that be, MA Rodger? I quoted word-for-word what Jason Box said in the video highlighting: “…we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/03/unforced-variations-march-2024/#comment-820692
I’d suggest if there is any misunderstanding of Jason Box’s words, it would be yours, not mine.
MA Rodger (at 31 MAR 2024 AT 7:07 AM): – “And tipping points? One step at a time, please. It is the “observed acceleration of SLR” that is the subject under discussion.”
I’d suggest you see/hear Pam Pearson’s presentation (from about the 10 min mark) re irreversible tipping thresholds in the cryosphere, and particularly those for the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets (from about the 14½ min mark).
https://csas.earth.columbia.edu/videos/james-hansen-scientific-reticence-threat-humanity-and-nature
An irreversible ice mass loss of the Greenland & WAIS directly affects SLR. Scientific consensus suggests that an irreversible tipping threshold is fast approaching (sustained at +1.6 °C warming level or higher for a long-term). I’d suggest that will accelerate observed SLR further.
MA Rodger, I think you are displaying continued reticence in the face of overwhelming accumulating evidence/data.
FWIW, U Colorado gives an acceleration rate since 1995 of 0.083 mm/y2, which would be a doubling rate of ~8.3 years, if I’ve done the conversion correctly. UCol’s margin of error on the acceleration is a pretty hefty 0.025 mm/y2, which at the slow end would yield a doubling time of just under 12 years.
The SLR curve is pretty noisy, though, and I’ve elsewhere questioned the applicability over time of an exponential model–though intuitively it would seem that it’s more likely to ‘go logistic’ relatively later than earlier. But based on those numbers, 10 mm/yr by 2040 would seem like a pretty fair bet. And the fast end of the margin of error would give a doubling time of ~6.4 years, which should easily get us to 10 mm by 2035, barring a big random drop such as we saw in 2011-12 or so.
Ray Ladbury “Canadian Prepper. Yep, “. Best watch it. I sit here typing at North Lake Huron retired in the forest wearing my 50% discount Canadian Tire camouflage carpet slippers for the hardy rural type into survival & heavy weaponry, yet liking the comfort of a really nice carpet slipper.
The daily ERA5 re-analysis data at Copernicus Climate Pulse webpage is now showing to 21st March, so easily enough to say with certainty that March 2024 will be the tenth ‘Scorchisymmooo!!!’ month in a row. The last-31-day average is running at +0.73ºC with the March-to-date (1st-21st) averaging +0.78ºC and (depending on whether we see rising or falling anomalies thro’ the rest of March) the full month should end up somewhere in the range +0.73ºC to +0.82ºC. (Jan & Feb 2024 were +0.70ºC & +0.80ºC with the last quarter of 2023 averaging +0.85ºC.)
The previous hottest March on thw ERA5 record was 2016 (+0.63ºC) with the next three hottest Marchs 2023, 2019 & 2017 pretty-much =2nd (+0.50ºC).
With March usually the month giving the top anomaly thro’ an El Niño, the potential of the ‘bananas’ anomalies seen in late 2023 being given an additional El Niño boost in early 2024 appears to have passed unfulfilled. The monthly SAT anomalies do suggest a decline in the 2024 ‘bananas’, this decline quite evident in the wobbly daily data (so not just due to the alignment of the wobbles. The 5-day, monthly & 151-day averages are plotted out in a graphic HERE first published 15/12/23.)
And when the continued AGW is factored in, (perhaps +0.17ºC since 2016), the ‘bananas’ in the SAT may be now withering away.
The slowly declining 2024 surface temperatures are not reflected in the TLT numbers with RSS and UAH recording 2024 monthly anomalies higher than the ‘bananas’ of 2023.
Updating the comment above.
With the merry month of March ending today, the ERA5 re-analysis has now posted to the 29th and the anomaly for the full month looks to be coming in +0.73ºC to +0.74ºC, so a tenth-in-a-row Scorchisymmooo!!!’ month.
The drop in the ERA5 anomalies since the start of 2024 has been down to the northern hemisphere anomalies. The southern hemisphere anomalies have remained wobbling along at the same level since June 2023. Yet the SH was a minor part of the 2023 “bananas” anomalies which roughly were 15% SH, 30% NH Ocean, 55% NH Land.
Nate Hagens: “Episode 100 – The Great Simplification” (Interviewed by Kate Raworth)
Kate Raworth (00:27:26):
Well, you’re very kind. Actually, a podcast is high in my sights. I really think this
method of exploration, of ideas, of conversation is where so many people learn and
have time, whether you’re doing the washing up or the ironing or taking kids to school
or… Right? Certainly, for many adults, I know this is the only place I get to listen and
get ideas rather than reading. But I think conversation between people is a fantastic
way of all of us opening our minds, which is I think why this podcast has become so
popular in the way you host it.
So you’ve given us the big concept of The Great Simplification.
Now let’s just step back. How did you get into all this then? You didn’t
start out doing this work. Take us back to what you were doing before you were doing
this. I want to hear the start of that journey and what triggering events have led you
to be sitting here.
Nate Hagens (00:28:30):
How far back?
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/100-nate-hagens
Ideas of Nate Hagens & Kate Raworth need to be Coupled with this SCIENTIFIC FACT: All Reason is indirect.
“If you have a certain political ideology on one side or another you may not be able to understand what other people with a different ideology are saying. You may not be able to hear a fact and make sense of it if you have a view of the world in which that fact does not fit. You can’t understand just anything!”
The Neuroscience of Language and Thought, Dr. George Lakoff Professor of Linguistics
@6:38 mins https://youtu.be/JJP-rkilz40?t=398