Climate science from climate scientists...
Climate science is one of those fields where anyone, regardless of their lack of expertise or understanding, feels qualified to comment on new papers and ongoing controversies. This can be frustrating for scientists like ourselves who see agenda-driven ‘commentary’ on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis.
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[Read more…] about Welcome to RealClimate
revised 01/06/11
This is one of a number of popular myths regarding temperature variations in past centuries. At hemispheric or global scales, surface temperatures are believed to have followed the “Hockey Stick” pattern, characterized by a long-term cooling trend from the so-called “Medieval Warm Period” (broadly speaking, the 10th-mid 14th centuries) through the “Little Ice Age” (broadly speaking, the mid 15th-19th centuries), followed by a rapid warming during the 20th century that culminates in anomalous late 20th century warmth. The late 20th century warmth, at hemispheric or global scales, appears, from a number of recent peer-reviewed studies, to exceed the peak warmth of the “Medieval Warm Period”. Claims that global average temperatures during Medieval times were warmer than present-day are based on a number of false premises that a) confuse past evidence of drought/precipitation with temperature evidence, b) fail to disinguish regional from global-scale temperature variations, and c) use the entire “20th century” to describe “modern” conditions , fail to differentiate between relatively cool early 20th century conditions and the anomalously warm late 20th century conditions.
par Michael Mann (traduit par Thibault de Garidel)
C’est un des nombreux mythes populaires concernant les variations de température sur les siècles passés. A l’échelle globale ou hémispherique, il est admis que les températures de surface ont suivi une évolution en forme de “crosse de hockey” – (“hockey stick”), caractérisée par une longue tendance au refroidissement depuis “l’Optimum Climatique Médiéval” (grosso modo, du Xie au milieu du XIVie siècle) jusqu’au “Petit Age Glaciaire” (grosso modo du milieu du XVie au XIXie siècle), suivie d’un réchauffement rapide au XXie siècle qui culmine par les températures anormalement élevées de la fin du XXie siècle. Ces températures élevées de la fin du XXie siècle, aux échelles hémisphérique ou globale, apparaissent, d’après de nombreux travaux récents évalués par des pairs, supérieures à celles maximales de l’Optimum Médiéval.
Les assertions de températures moyennes globales plus élevées au Moyen Age que maintenant sont fondées sur un certain nombre de prémisses fausses qui (a) confondent les indicateurs de sécheresse/précipitation avec ceux de température, (b) ne font pas la différence entre des variations globales et régionales de température, et (c) utilisent tout le 20ie siecle pour définir les conditions ‘modernes’, ce qui empêche de différencier les conditions relativement fraiches du début du 20ie et celles anormalement chaudes de la fin du 20ie.
This is yet another oft-repeated but problematic assertion based in this case on the mis-characterization of the so-called Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum” or “Mid-Holocene Warm Period”. Paleoclimate experts now know that the mid-Holocene warmth centered roughly 8000 to 6000 years ago was probably restricted to high latitudes and certain seasons (summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere). Because much of the early paleoclimate evidence that was available (for example, fossil pollen assemblages) came from the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, and is largely reflective of summer conditions, decades ago some scientists believed that this was a time of globally warmer conditions. More abundant evidence now demonstrates, for example, that the tropical regions were cooler over much of the year.
Cette assertion est très souvent répétée mais reste problématique en raison de la mauvaise caractérisation de cette période appelée ““Optimum climatique de l’Holocène moyen” ou “période chaude de l’Holocène moyen”. Les experts des paléoclimats, savent maintenant que cette phase chaude à l’Holocène (il y a approximativement 8000 à 6000 ans) était probablement limitée aux hautes latitudes et à certaines saisons (été dans l’hémisphère nord et hiver dans l’hémisphère sud). Comme la majorité des indicateurs du climat passé disponibles (comme par exemple, assemblages de pollens fossiles) provenaient des latitudes moyennes à hautes de l’hémisphère Nord, et étaient diagnostiques des condition climatiques d’été, certains scientifiques ont cru que cette période de temps était plus chaude globalement. Cependant, désormais, de nombreuses études montrent que les régions tropicales étaient plus fraîches pendant la plus grande partie de l’année.
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In a recent paper, McKitrick and Michaels (2004, or “MM04”) argue that non-climatic factors such as economic activity may contaminate climate station data, and thus, may render invalid any estimates of surface temperature trends derived from these data. They propose that surface temperature trends may be linked to various local economic factors, such as national coal consumption, income per capita, GPD growth rate, literacy rates, and whether or not temperature stations were located within the former Soviet Union. If their conclusions were correct, this would hold implications for the reliability of the modern surface temperature record, an important piece of evidence indicating 20th century surface warming. However, numerous flaws with their analysis, some of them absolutely fundamental, render their conclusions invalid.
[Read more…] about Are Temperature Trends affected by Economic Activity?
This post is obsolete and wrong in many respects. Please see this more recent post for links to the answer.
14/Jan/05: This post was updated in the light of my further education in radiation physics.
25/Feb/05: Groan…and again.
Recent discussions of climate change (MSU Temperature Record, ACIA) have highlighted the fact that the stratosphere is cooling while the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and surface appear to be warming. The stratosphere lies roughly 12 to 50 km above the surface and is marked by a temperature profile that increases with height. This is due to the absorbtion by ozone of the sun’s UV radiation and is in sharp contrast to the lower atmosphere. There it generally gets colder as you go higher due to the expansion of gases as the pressure decreases. Technically, the stratosphere has a negative ‘lapse rate’ (temperature increases with height), while the lower atmosphere’s lapse rate is positive.
Des études récentes du changement climatique (MSU température Record, ACIA) ont mis en évidence un refroidissement de la stratosphère, en parallèle a un apparent réchauffement de la surface et la basse atmosphère (troposphère). La stratosphère se situe entre 12 et 50 km d’altitude environ. Elle se caractérise par un profil de température qui augmente avec l’altitude, en raison de l’absorption des radiations solaires ultraviolettes par l’ozone stratosphérique. Les choses sont très différentes dans la troposphère (de 0 a 12 km d’altitude environ), ou, en général, la température baisse lorsque l’altitude augmente, en raison de l’expansion des gaz alors que la pression atmosphérique diminue. En d’autres termes, la stratosphère a un gradient de température négatif, alors que la troposphère a un gradient positif.
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[Read more…] about Why does the stratosphere cool when the troposphere warms?
There are quite a few reasons to believe that the surface temperature record – which shows a warming of approximately 0.6°-0.8°C over the last century (depending on precisely how the warming trend is defined) – is essentially uncontaminated by the effects of urban growth and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. These include that the land, borehole and marine records substantially agree; and the fact that there is little difference between the long-term (1880 to 1998) rural (0.70°C/century) and full set of station temperature trends (actually less at 0.65°C/century). This and other information lead the IPCC to conclude that the UHI effect makes at most a contribution of 0.05°C to the warming observed over the past century.
[Read more…] about The Surface Temperature Record and the Urban Heat Island
The current contributors to content on this site are:
William Connolley was a contributor, but has now left academia; Ray Bradley, David Archer, and Ray Pierrehumbert are no longer active; Jim Bouldin was a contributor from 2009 and Caspar Ammann and Thibault de Garidel were early supporters of the site. Group posts can be assumed to be the from the whole set of current contributers, or will be individually signed.
Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York and is interested in modeling past, present and future climate. He works on developing and improving coupled climate models and, in particular, is interested in how their results can be compared to paleoclimatic proxy data. He has worked on assessing the climate response to multiple forcings, including solar irradiance, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, and greenhouse gases.
He received a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from Oxford University, a PhD in Applied Mathematics from University College London and was a NOAA Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Global Change Research. He was cited by Scientific American as one of the 50 Research Leaders of 2004, and has worked on Education and Outreach with the American Museum of Natural History, the College de France and the New York Academy of Sciences. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is the co-author with Josh Wolfe of “Climate Change: Picturing the Science” (W. W. Norton, 2009), a collaboration between climate scientists and photographers. He was awarded the inaugural AGU Climate Communications Prize and was the EarthSky Science communicator of the year in 2011. He tweets at @ClimateOfGavin.
More information about his research and publication record can be found here.
All posts by gavin.
