This is a follow-on post to the previous summary of interesting work related to the temperatures in 2023/2024. I’ll have another post with a quick summary of the AGU session on the topic that we are running on Tuesday Dec 10th, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
6 Dec 2024: Goessling et al (2024)
This is perhaps the most interesting of the papers so far that look holistically at the last couple of years of anomalies. The principle result is a tying together the planetary albedo and the temperature changes. People have been connecting these changes in vague (somewhat hand-wavy ways) for a couple of years, but this is the first paper to do so quantitatively.
The authors use the CERES data and some aspects of the ERA5 reanalysis (which is not ideal for these purposes because of issues we discussed last month) to partition the changes by latitude, and to distinguish impacts from the solar cycle anomaly (~0.03 K), ENSO (~0.07K) and the albedo (~0.22K) (see figure above).
What they can’t do using this methodology is partition the albedo changes across cloud feedbacks, aerosol effects, surface reflectivity, volcanic activity etc., and even less, partition that into the impacts of marine shipping emission reductions, Chinese aerosol emissions, aerosol-cloud interactions etc. So, in terms of what the ultimate cause(s) are, more work is still needed.
Watch this space…
References
- H.F. Goessling, T. Rackow, and T. Jung, "Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo", Science, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adq7280
Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
Sixty years ago , Roger Revelle and the authors of the Keeling Curve and the expression “Global Warming” responded to the emerging policy question of anthropogenic CO2 forcing by shifting their gaze from the Earth’s atmosphere to its surface and declaring that climate mitigation might be more tractable in two dimensions than three.
Just as local albedo change aggravates urban heat island effects, it can and does mitigate the impact of radiative forcing on ecosystems and human populations alike.
R Seitz: “ Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
In your contrasting “albedo” with “atmospheric forcing” what do you mean by the latter ?
If you mean GHG concentrations (I can’t think of anything else this could be used for) – then we have a problem:
G,R &J papers is about 2023 – i.e., ONE year. During ONE year – GHG concentration does not change ENOUGH to cause the observed change in T. Can you list the authors who ignored that fact, by explaining the T anomaly in a single year by being “focused [on GHG increase in that year] to the exclusion of albedo”?
If you can’t then you would have used a strawman fallacy – and therefore the scientific “hazard” (error? dishonesty?) you ascribed to others – would be all yours.
As for the concept of “moral hazard” – it has a very specific meaning: lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g. by insurance. .
Explain how does it apply to this situation – i.e. to the people who supposedly “focus on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo”?
In Re to Russell Seitz, 6 DEC 2024 AT 7:24 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-827952
Dear Russell,
As an enthusiast observing the developments of climate science as well as. climate-related public discourse and corresponding policies for decades, could you tell me if there was/is a response from proponents of the greenhouse effect mitigation by an albedo increase to the objection raised by prof. Axel Kleidon, namely, that the respective compensation of the GHG effect on temperature rise woul have come at the expense of global water cycle intensity decrease?
So far, I am not aware that this warning derived by prof. Kleidon and his pupils from basic thermodynamics has been disproved as false. Yet it is my feeling that it is basically ignored in climate discussions which seem to focus on global temperature and consider precipitation as a mere “feedback” that cannot change if the global mean surface temperature remains constant. The theory of prof. Kleidon, however, does not support this simple “feedback” assumption.
Could you comment?
Best regards
Tomáš
I suggest you read my comments on the global ubiquity of anthropogenic albedo change in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs and the December 2013 issue of Earth’s Future.
This was all I could find on Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2009-07-01/next-top-model
Here’s the Earth’s Future link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000151 – Being a shallow skimming kind of reader, I didn’t read it all, but appreciate the final paragraphs which are reproduced here for lazy people like myself:
“While the term “Anthropocene” debuted but a decade ago, the human transformation of land albedo began not with the Industrial Revolution but with the discovery of fire in Paleolithic times.
“In the half-million years since, fire setting by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists has altered the reflectivity and hydrology of roughly half the land surface of the Earth. We therefore face a policy paradox—if the CO2 forcing of recent centuries is reduced or reversed, albedo may once again become the dominant force in anthropogenic climate change, for our albedo footprint is the cumulative legacy of hundreds of generations, and the signature of land use can endure on the ground for just as long as CO2 lingers in the air.”As we advance into the unknown country of the Anthropocene, we must realize that new as the term may be, the anthropic transformation of the landscape of history has been progressing for a million years.
“With so much already transformed by misadventure, we have a duty to consider whether the consequences of our prolonged interaction with land, sea and sky can be mitigated by design as well as eased by moderation. If population continues to grow, we will soon enough discover whether a civilization so globally dependent on agriculture, innovation, urbanization and trade can lighten, its geophysical footprint without unraveling the fabric of history.”
It affirms my appreciation of your contributions.
in Re to Russell Seitz, 7 Dec 2024 at 8:50 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828020
Dear Russell,
Thank you very much for the references.
A very inspiring reading indeed! I will need reading it more times and a longer time to process it.
Sincerely
Tomáš
RS: Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
BPL: A change in albedo would be an atmospheric forcing.
Barton, as well as differing from the physics of s radiative forcing in geopysical solids and liquids, radiative forcing in gases is already subject to several international conventions.
Albedo is not.
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 8 Dec 2024 at 8:32 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828028
Hallo Barton Paul,
I think that Russell Seitz might have meant that anthropogenic albedo changes may be an anthropogenic forcing that is quite independent from anthropogenic GHG emissions.
As I just wrote in a comment to Mal Adapted, 8 Dec 2024 at 4:39 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/twenty-years-of-blogging-in-hindsight/#comment-828042
I think that it may sound strange if someone asserts that there is a perfect scientific consensus that GHG emissions are a “primary” cause of the observed climate change. personally, I am afraid that there is still a quite incomplete understanding to the extremely complex mechanisms of Earth climate regulation and some of them, like just the anthropogenic influence on Earth albedo, seem to be still poorly quantified.
I do not know if Russell has similar doubts or, actually, intended to raise another point.
Greetings
Tomáš
While the paper can’t distinguish between shipping regulations and other causes, the evidence is there. The warming is most pronounced in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, where the reduction in shipping emissions (and the consequent impact on clouds) has the most impact. Hansen, Simons, et al have discussed this. If it isn’t that, what else could explain the very rapid and localized “extra” 0.2ºC of warming?
Dan Miller, a Copernicus article did suggest that the anomolously high warming in the Atlantic in 2023 to early 2024 article might be due to an unusual reduction in wind blown sand from the Sahara in that period, and they had some other explanations as well. Copernicus article:
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
There have been papers claiming the unusual warming level over the last two years is still within the boundaries of natural variation plus AGW.
The reduction in aerosols does seem like the most likely explanation for the unusually high levels of warming over the last couple of years. You have causation plus the ocean warming is most pronounced in the exact areas of aerosol reductions. If its not aerosols reduction, its one hell of a coincidence. Hansens analysis is very compelling where he says something like that the heat energy built up in the oceans from 2020 – 2023 and came out with the el nino.
The counter argument is this. Obvious explanations are sometimes wrong. And the difficulty appears to be that nobody is certain of the exact warming effect of a given quantity of aerosols reduction. All we have is a likely value,.so scientists are looking hard at other explanations, before jumping to the conclusion it must be aerosol reductions, so its all taking a while. Just my opinion. Im not an expert by a long way.
Dan Miller,
I tend to go a bit sceptical when the likes of Hansen or Simons are cited, and set about checking the data being wielded. I find them too unreliable to accept at face value. (I note Simons himself has brought a tiff he has had with our host into the thread below.)
A preliminary look at Goessling et al (2024) shows the CERES data and the ERA5 reanalysis data mapped out in their Fig 4. If there was a major contribution from the reduced albedo from the 2020 shipping regs, I would expect to have seen some majorly sign associated with the big shipping routes showing mapped out in that Goessling et al (2024) Fig 4 (or Fig S5). If you look closely (which shouldn’t be necessary if it were such a major effect), there is perhaps maybe something of a streak of increased Absorbed Solar Radiation and increased low cloud cover between the eastern US sea-board and Europe, but nothing major, nothing in the 2023 maps that are absent from the 2013-22 trend maps. If there is some shipping emissions effect, it has not left any direct mark of its presence.
So regarding your assertion that “the evidence is there,” there is no indication within Goessling et al (2024) of anything associated with “reduction in shipping emissions (and the consequent impact on clouds) has the most impact” and if this is where “the warming is most pronounced,” it is not showing itself in Fig4b.
Of course, you may still be referring to other evidence that is there elsewhere.
Is there any evidence of a reduction in ocean acidification resulting from the attenuation of SO2 emissions?
Re Tim Jones Dec 6.
it depends on how the reductions in ship SO2 emissions have been achieved – by switching to the more expensive fuel desulfurized already on land, or by using on-board scrubbers, with resulting wash water containing SO2 is released into the sea. The latter if anything, would increase the local ocean acidification along the shipping lanes – as all the acid would be released into these waters, as opposed to being transported away by wind and rained out on land or areas of the ocean away from the shipping lanes.
Hi Piotr – the reduction in SO2 emissions was based on lower sulfur content in the fuels. Here are a couple snippets from a NASA article (and note the industry response to less-than-global regulation in the last paragraph).
“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. COVID-19-related trade disruptions also played a small role in the reduction.”
[…]
“By capping fuel sulfur content at 0.5% (down from 3.5%), IMO’s global regulation in 2020 changed the chemical and physical composition of ship exhaust. Less sulfur emissions mean there are fewer of the aerosol particles released to form detectable ship tracks.
According to the Yuan and colleagues, similar but regionally defined sulfur regulations – such as an IMO Emission Control Area in effect since 2015 off the west coast of the U.S. and Canada – had not had the desired effect because operators altered their routes and charted longer courses to avoid designated zones.”
Cloud cover variation is now most closely correlated to ENSO.
“ENSO is the primary driver of the changes in deseasonalized monthly cloud fraction, cloud top temperature, and cloud optical depth”
From: ENSO’s Signature on the Estimation of Cloud Feedback to Global Warming
Ilan Koren, Huan Liu, Orit Altaratz (2023)
Vous êtes donc d’accord, si je comprends bien l’article de Science “Goessling et coll”, que la hausse de la température moyenne globale ne provient pas que du réchauffement climatique anthropique ? Mais d’une réduction de la couverture nuageuse basse dans les latitudes moyennes et les tropiques du nord qui influe sur l’albédo ?
[Response: Ce n’est pas clair. Les changements d’albedo peuvent etre lie aux retroactions, ou aux impactes des aersools. Voir le preprint de Tseliouidis et al, et aussi les calculations publie les deneriers mois. On vera. – gavin]
M. Demol, one explanation for the jump in GMST last year is a reduction in cloud albedo over the North Pacific and North Atlantic, due to a global switch to low-sulfur marine shipping fuels. That counts as anthropogenic, even if it’s not directly due to greenhouse gas emissions.
What this seems to confirm is that trying to model and simulate any of Earth’s unpredictable natural variability with any high degree of confidence is a hopeless venture.
Bullshit. Congratulations. I think we can now award the prize for the most unscientific attitude expressed in 2024. “It’s hard” does not equate to “it’s impossible.”
Not everyone believes modeling is a hopeless venture, Ken. It depends on how high a degree of confidence you demand. According to Wikipedia,
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) stated that there is high confidence that ECS is within the range of 2.5 °C to 4 °C, with a best estimate of 3 °C.
That’s based on the CMIP6 model ensemble with upper and lower constraints from paleoclimate evidence. Good enough for me to call for collective intervention in the energy market, to take the profit out of selling fossil fuels. IMO, your lack of confidence says more about you than about the models!
Weather forecasts now are about as good on day 7 as they were at 48 hours out when I started as a forecaster. Not bad for a “hopeless venture” based on improving models.
Phew! Just as well then that no-one in the (scientific) climate world focuses on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
Had me worried for a moment there!
In the policy world there is some merit to focusing on what we can measure and influence, especially when we know it is the major cause of the problem whatever albedo consequences it has, and whatever the indirect albedo responses like clouds have in driving short term anomalies. The transient part of that albedo change wasn’t there before and won’t be there afterwards. The CO2 was and will be.
Even within the albedo sphere, it makes more sense to focus on secular changes not transient ones – melting snow and ice, shrinking seasonal snow, desertification, replacement of forest by cropland, cleaning up smokestacks and exhausts, etc. (even if some of those have a cooling effect, the reason we’re intentionally giving up that effect is because the flip-side like pollution in children’s lungs outweighs whatever cooling we’d get by keeping the bad stuff going).
The increase in Absorbed Solar Radiation over the main shipping area of 4.3 W/m² (above 2000-2009) is a crucial indicator.
https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1865428517032239434?t=5WXvHrdGFEGLxoRHwnOxJQ&s=19
Of. course, no mention of the massive fracking boom that has been driving temperature spikes for 14 years now.
Climate scientists shamelessly avoid hydrofracturing in their studies, despite the obvious, blatant facts:
1) Methane has been riding sharply since the advent of fracking
2) This methane has been attributed to ‘wetlands’, ‘cows’ etc; because of its biogenic carbon isotope signature
3) But of course fracked methane also carries this signature – duh
4) The US is now the world’s largest (fracked) oil producer, and this has increased even more as LNG is supplied to the EU following the shut-off of Russian gas imports
5) Rig counts and temperature oscillations match perfectly for each US presidency, as frackers fear potential ial regulations imposed by upcoming administration’s
6) As a result of climate science avoidance, Argentina and other regions have also started fracking (recently Canada, leading to the recent massively increased Canadian wildfire season)
7) Continued fracking is going to lead to 3.1°C on the current trajectory; with a cost equivalent to 30% of GDP, potentially as soon as mid-century
8) This is game over, and will result in societal breakdown leading to collapse
https://danielrwilliams.medium.com/hydrofracturing-the-real-cause-of-recent-global-temperature-spikes-cfe108a1aedc
DW: Climate scientists shamelessly avoid hydrofracturing in their studies
BPL: Those shameless hussies! They should put on a petticoat RIGHT NOW!
In Re to Daniel Williams, 8 DEC 2024 AT 2:55 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828026
Dear Daniel,
Are you sure that fossil natural gas has an isotopic composition that makes it undistinguishable from methane released by recent anaerobic fermentation processes?
If so, could you present some references supporting this surprising finding?
Best regards
Tomáš
“But of course fracked methane also carries this signature…”
No, it doesn’t. It may be ultimately biogenic, but it’s not isotopically the same as recent biogenic emissions. Which is not to say that fracking isn’t a problem.
NG article from 2019:
https://chemistry.beloit.edu/classes/Chem117/pdf/fuel/frack_national_geographic.pdf
It’s not that simple. Accusing scientists of ignoring fracking is nonsense. Here’s a useful overview about the developing scientific enterprise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJJxn-gCdo
If we had a CERES data record from 1900 to 2000, we might encounter surprises concerning the “residual variation” of 1.16 K attributions…
I was a little disappointed Chen Zhou’s 2016 paper was not cited, but some of the paper’s he co-authored were..
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/04/judy-currys-attribution-non-argument/#comment-677575
Meanwhile, back in the tropical stratosphere, some unsuspected chemistry is leadint to Mie scatterind:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08192-4?fromPaywallRec=false
Barton, I was using albedo in its geophysical sense of being the sum of the reflectivity of clouds and the water and land under them.
Gavin’s, “Well, hold on there, pardner!” post right on cue.
LOL
Here’s my, “Well, get on with yer taking risk seriously” post, also right on cue.