by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Abrupt sea level rise looms as an increasingly realistic threat [link]
Tim Palmer presentation: Climate Change, Chaos, and Inexact Computing [link]
Professor Anastasios Tsonis joins the GWPF [link]
Study: Turns out global warming won’t devastate the ocean [link]
Opinion in Nature: Set up a public registry of competing interests [link]
Fascinating article about Joseph Weber: “Science is a self-correcting process, but not necessarily in one’s own lifetime.” [link]
Study finds ice isn’t being lost from Greenland’s interior due to unique process [link] …
Increased Arctic sea ice volume after anomalously low melting in 2013 [link]
Melting ice is causing the Earth’s axis to shift direction [link]
Death Toll Rises As India’s Heat Wave Breaks Records [link]
With Arctic Sea Ice Unusually Thin, Scientists Wary of Another Record Melt [link]
Feds Quietly Admit Polar Bears Doing Fine, Abandon Efforts To Ban Fur Trade [link]
Hurricanes key to carbon uptake by forests [link]
Earth’s energy imbalance and continental heat storage [link]
Mechanisms for low frequency variability of Arctic sea ice extent [link]
Effects of Arctic sea ice decline on weather and climate: a review [link]
Influence of sea ice loss on Arctic warming is shaped by temperatures in the Pacific Ocean [link]
Yale students fight college censorship the right way [link]
How to improve clarity in greenhouse gas emissions targets | by @piersforster and Myles Allen [link]
Antarctic ice shelf retreat may be irreversible [ link]
Randy Olson: Jimmy Kimmel helps Climate Hustle [link]
Blair King on the Fort McMurray forest fire [link]
Steve McIntyre: Gavin Schmidt’s histogram diagram doesn’t refute Christy [link]
Pingback: Week in review – science edition – Enjeux énergies et environnement
“Study finds ice isn’t being lost from Greenland’s interior due to unique process ”
and not from a warming trend
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2776867
McIntyre has really schooled Gavin Schmidt. First on baseline, and now on Gavin’s preferred visual showing that Christy is right and Gavin is wrong–again.
Reminds me of that tv appearance of Schmidt where he was so chicken of the skeptics also appearing that he demanded that the skeptic guy first leave the studio before he entered the stage. Pathetic.
Maybe such a construct would work for Climate Audit? First Steve has to go away for a long weekend in the boonies so Schmidt can safely place some comments on CA?
Rather than a human-effect on climate, history tells us concerns about effects should be the other way around: natural catastrophes and not human-caused disasters are the only realistic climate threats we face—e.g.,
Prof. Curry…
Should that be looms?
I find that very hard to believe. “[S]truggling”?
Even so, new construction (including rebuilt) can easily allow for higher sea-level rise rates over the planned life of the construction. This is a fanatasy catastrophe, even if such se-level rises occur.
oops thx
Loons?
can I just remind you guys of what Steve mc wrote
‘“At the end of the day, it is up to specialists to determine whether ice mass gain in East Antarctica exceeds the large ice mass losses in localized areas of West Antarctica or not”
The whole Yale360 article is biased. Rignot is the Pine Island glacier alarmist from UC Irvine/JPL. McIntrye posted a long detailed history of the Antarctic ice measurements on 12/2/2015. As GIA estimates have improved, the GRACE estimates of Antarctic ice loss have dropped to ZERO, while the IceSat measurements (Zwally 2015) suggest net gain.
And comparison to the Eemian suggests 3000 years at 23cm/century, which is not sudden. OLeary’s paper purporting tomshow sudden from west Australia highstand corals comprises academic misconduct. Figure 3 is not what it seems. Guest post By Land or By Sea.
From Zwally et al 2015:
The recent 90 Gt/yr loss from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier 61 Gt/yr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly, the recent 24 Gt/yr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases in the five other DS of WA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the increased losses.
Zwally may or may not be correct. Time will tell. You act like he is correct in stone, and he ain’t. Plus, he expects the situation to reverse.
“Zwally may or may not be correct. Time will tell. You act like he is correct in stone, and he ain’t. Plus, he expects the situation to reverse.”
too funny. you show more true skepticism than a skeptic.
It’s the faux skeptics most obvious flaw.
A good skeptic will suspend judgement as far as possible
A good skeptic will focus on uncertainty.
faux skeptics, claim that the science isnt settled, then THEN they proceed to make all manner of “definitive statements”. Their science is obviously settled in their minds. “X is wrong. X is misconduct. I proved Y. etc etc.”
Extraordinary how this gets kept out of polite conversations:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008NatGe…1..122C
Whoops. Don’t know why the link won’t fire up. Anyway, there’s an old sub-glacial ash sheet the size of some countries near Pine Island Glacier. Still hot down there.
I guess if it looks like a cordillera and quacks like a cordillera…
For what its worth, there are two comments pointing to serious flaws in Zwally et al (2015) which were just published in Journal of Glaciology in its most recent issue.
Currently unavailable for non-subscribers. Perhaps it will become available once next issue is released?
Robert Way “serious flaws in Zwally et al (2015)”
That’s kind of been my idiom: One paper does not make science.
Ominuso: For what it’s worth, both the letters are available under creative commons. It took me less than a minute to locate both letters. The links might be too long to work below, so you can maybe find an eighth grader to find them for you, print them out, and serve them on a platinum platter.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F8109_A086B2C6274D96F680B2BD66C41E7647_journals__JOG_S0022143016000599a.pdf&cover=Y&code=b60f68149919e646a22b52fd9ff5084a
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F8100_A086B2C6274D96F680B2BD66C41E7647_journals__JOG_S0022143016000605a.pdf&cover=Y&code=133e010be87f41963592b187924f0996
Were you ever a waiter, while you were in college?
HG:
My eighth grader couldn’t get the links to work either. But this one should get people to the right spot. Many thanks.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/quickSearch?jid=JOG&search=zwally&
Rather like Antarctic ice accumulation rates, my link may require a correction. If it doesn’t take you to the two comment letters, type “Zwally” into the search term box.
Well, I have to correct my comment. Zwally ain’t no longer not questionable nor weren’t it not chipped in stone.
I liked Zwally because my pet hunch is steric sea level rise is being underestimated. Hunches come; hunches go.
https://climateaudit.org/2015/12/02/antarctic-ice-mass-controversies/
Worth revisiting Steve McIntyre analysis, ‘Antarctic
Ice Mass Controversies.’ ‘An important and extremely
interesting sub-plot to the Zwally controversy is the
difference between trends in East Antarctica and
West Antarctica (plus Antarctica Peninsular.)
IPCC differing reports perhaps another sub plot?
Climate Audit 02/12/2015.
“AR4 was considerably more candid than AR5 about the
continuing impact of the end of the last Ice Age. In a
section entitled “4.6.3.2 Ongoing Dynamic Ice Sheet
Response to Past Forcing”, AR4 contained an
interesting comment that “retreat of the West Antarctic
grounding line in response to the end of the last ice
age” was estimated to contribute “about 90 Gt yr-1” to
ice mass loss:
Because some portions of ice sheets respond only slowly
to climate changes (decades to thousands of years or
longer), past forcing may be influencing ongoing changes
(Box 4.1). Some geologic data support recent and
perhaps ongoing antarctic mass loss (e. g., Stone et al.,
2003). A comprehensive attempt to discern such long-
term trends contributing to recently measured imbalances
was made by Huybrechts (2002) and Huybrechts et al.
(2004).[1] They found little long-term trend in volume of
the Greenland Ice Sheet, but a trend in antarctic shrinkage
of about 90 Gt yr-1, primarily because of retreat of the
West Antarctic grounding line in response to the end of
the last ice age.
This is not an incidental number as it is almost exactly
equal to the total Antarctic estimate in AR5. However,
discussion of post LGM long-term effects over the
Holocene vanished entirely in the AR5 (chapter 4)
discussion of the cryosphere, which used the word
“Holocene” only once in passing.’
McIntyre’s post indicated mantle density assumption is the big difference between east and west Antarctica.
http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/esrj/v17n1/v17n1a2
Oh those Glacial isostatic add-justments…
Climate Audit 02/12/15. ‘The size of the GIA adjustment
for GRACE gravity estimates is the same order of
magnitude as the estimate of ice mass loss and, in
many cases, is larger. These GIA adjustments have
been dramatically reduced by specialists over the past
decade and have concurrently reduced estimates of ice
mass loss.
Many popular (warmist) discussions of Antarctic ice mass
loss continue to use obsolete (overly high) estimates of
ice mass loss e.g. NASA’s estimate of “134 billion tons”
per year. Such estimates rely on GRACE estimates
using obsolete GIA adjustments.
The estimates of mass loss in IPCC AR5 were highly
questionable. They were much higher (nearly double)
than contemporary specialist (IMBIE) estimates. They
appear to have been based on studies using GIA
adjustments, already known to be obsolete. It was
separately highly questionable to attribute “high
confidence” (and relatively narrow confidence intervals)
to these very high estimates of mass loss.
Most of the Antarctic continent (especially East Antarctica)
appears to be experiencing ice mass gain, with ice mass
loss being localized to less than 5% of the continent: parts
of the Antarctic Peninsula and est Antarctica (especially
Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers).This peculiar
localization requires its own explanation. Recent specialist
literature has concluded that West Antarctica was up to
3 km higher in the LGM, while the height of East Antarctica
has changed little and might even have increased slightly
through the Holocene. West Antarctica has experienced
dramatic ice mass loss through the Holocene, attenuating
to the present.’
Olson’s take on the Kimmel video inadvertently promoting Climate Hustle is hilarious. (Hustle seems to be doing very well.) Apparently Olson prefers the “ignore the skeptics” strategy to the “criticize the skeptics” strategy.
http://www.scienceneedsstory.com/2016/05/05/38-jimmy-kimmel-helps-climate-hustle/
“Antarctica is, for now, losing ice more slowly than Greenland.”
Yes, it certainly is, so much so slowly that it is actually GAINING ice mass.
Kind of like driving in reverse on the highway and commenting that you are going forward more slowly than the cars zooming by.
Eh, like 12 studies show Antarctica losing ice and significantly so, while 1 shows it gaining.
If your default from just that information is to say that Antarctica is gaining ice, then you’ve got a bias.
RealClimate has a pretty good write-up:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/11/so-what-is-really-happening-in-antarctica/
See comment above. Read McIntrye’s review of all the studies. All of the early ones are wrong because of misguessed GIA.
Here is a CO2 molecule shown in a flat space representing 2500x its area. An admittedly Tim Palmer style gauge of the scale we are talking about.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/co2-2.png
This would represent ALL the CO2 in the atmosphere. The human component (if ALL the increase is human [doubtful]) would require a space three times as big.
So before you beat yourself to death with your preconceptions, at least figure out a reason why human CO2 SHOULD cause ice to melt in Antarctica.
Gymnosperm, we’re just talking about whether Antarctica is gaining or losing ice on net. We can determine that without even considering how much CO2 is in the atmosphere.
Too funny.
The real skeptic, Mcintyre, refuses to make definitive conclusions
“At the end of the day, it is up to specialists to determine whether ice mass gain in East Antarctica exceeds the large ice mass losses in localized areas of West Antarctica or not”
Faux Skeptics, can’t resist the urge to make definitive proclamations..
Here’s a link via Steve McIntyre 02’12’15 post which
he notes is not cited or discussed in AR5.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GC002642/full
Abstract says that they present preliminary geodetic
estimations for vertical bed-rock velocity at 12 survey
GPS stations in West Antarctica GPS Network plus
additional survey stations in North Antarctic Peninsular
and11 stations across the continent.They find that the
‘spatial patterns of these velocities is not consistent with
any post-glacial rebound model known to us…our initial
geodetic results suggest that most GRACE ice-melt rate
estimates are systematically biased and over predict
ice loss for the continent as a whole.’
Despite warm winter and average snowfall, lake levels continue to rise: http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Missions/GreatLakesInformation/GreatLakesWaterLevels/WaterLevelForecast/WeeklyGreatLakesWaterLevels.aspx
More Palmer Please
Judith, I won’t ever forget our lunch with Tim Palmer.
Humble, Brilliant. Clear.
One scene told the whole story of the man for me., As we were walking through AGU a student approached with a text book and asked Palmer to sign it. He seemed at once grateful and slightly embarrassed. After saying goodbye I went to session with a panel of folks whose names everyone here would recognize.
It made me think we have picked the wrong spokespeople.
More Palmer please.
Very disappointed in Palmer, obviously a man capable of very nuanced physics, yet who continues to base an edifice of conclusion on a high school conception of the radiative physics of CO2; his metaphorical wedge.
Time for Tim to step it up. The only place in the atmosphere CO2 works anything like a wedge is the first few meters above the surface, particularly on land.
And droning on about how atmospheric water is “largely” transparent to incoming solar radiation. Atmospheric water absorbs very strongly in the near IR, including two ranges where it completely “saturates”; i.e. completely devours incoming solar radiation.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/drawing.png
And of course any use of the disingenuous noaa graphic must be answered with a comparison to the adjustments:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/credit-tony-heller-vs-noaa-bar-anomaly.png
sorry no cookie for you.
two fake arguments.
Don’t eat cookies by design. Don’t do fake. You disagree about water and the incoming solar spectrum? Get some physics, bro’.
That’s all you got out of the talk, gymnosperm? When he uses “largely” to describe about 90%, you want to complain about the use of “largely”? What is your preferred word for 90%? In the visible part, it is near 100%.
Already admitted to being unimpressed, and freely admit herewith I have no recollection of any mention of “90%”. Possibly my bad.
I showed a well known graphic with some blue color for H2O absorption in the near IR. According to my eye an “area under the curve” analysis would reveal more than 10% blue, particularly if the bands to the far right that transition to earth spectra are included.
Kevin Trenberth would seem to agree with me (a rare occurrence):
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/greenhouse.png
He reckons 23% of incoming solar radiation being absorbed by the atmosphere. The graphic was intended to point out that reflected solar radiation, both from the surface and from clouds, must pass TWICE through the gauntlet of water’s near IR absorption.
The actual number is about 90% which you can probably get from your graphic, 100% in the visible, also from your graphic. “Largely” not blue, I would describe it as, so yours is a quibble a best.
So you disagree with Kevin. I do that quite often, so I completely understand, but I do it on the basis of some sort of evidence, which I would be very interested in.
Ok, 77% can justify the word “largely”. My point is that 23%, or even 10%, of TSI is a big number.
Kevin would tell you that 23% includes ozone and clouds, of course, both at least as large effects as water vapor.
“Time for Tim to step it up. The only place in the atmosphere CO2 works anything like a wedge is the first few meters above the surface, particularly on land.”
wrong.
C02 does it’s work ABOVE the ERL.
What altitude do you judge to be the ERL? Here are a few MODTRAN runs to help you make your decision:
100m
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/greenhouse.png
280 v 400ppm 5 km
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-5km-280v400ppm-co2.png
280 v 400 ppm 10km
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-10km-280v400ppm-co2.png
280 v 400 ppm 20km
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-20-km-280v400ppm-co2.png
Please check for evidence of “wings” of CO2 absorption at 400ppm.
Please also bear in mind that ay choice of altitude above the tropopause ~12km, requires an explanation for how CO2 “does its work” by COOLING.
Okay Mosh. You’ve officially lost it mate. You need only visit a desert at night. You may find that you need a jumper.
Honestly. You used to be a rational chap. What’s going on?
blunderbunny.
It’s basic AGW.
GHGs keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise.
They do this by RAISING the ERL.
The height of the ERL is determined by the concentration of GHG ABOVE THE ERL.
if you guys want to criticize the science, first learn it.
The ERL is the altitude at which photons escape the system and where radiative warming transitions to cooling.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/giss-anomaly-by-altitude-and-lblrtm-cooling1.png
According to this model the lapse rate continues to warm well above warming zones and into the teeth of CO2 and Ozone cooling in the mid stratosphere. Ozone shows far more warming and CO2 far more cooling…
“And of course any use of the disingenuous noaa graphic must be answered with a comparison to the adjustments:”
too funny.
bad physics
and
conspiracies.
Yes, 2001 bad physics; 2015 good physics. Keep rubbing those high/low alcohol thermometers. No conspiracy required, just dumbass.
“C02 does it’s work ABOVE the ERL.”
What’s the effective temperature of that effective radiant layer again?
Capt’nDallas
O Captain! My Captain!
“What’s the effective temperature of that effective radiant layer again?”
Is this the battle ground where CO2 and Ozone duke it out; one for cooling and the other warming? Or, have I just lost the thread?
RiHo08, “Is this the battle ground where CO2 and Ozone duke it out; one for cooling and the other warming?”
All of the greenhouse gases have temperature and pressure “sweet spots” where they are most effective at doing the greenhouse thing. Below that sweet spot they become less and less effective as noted in the
Antarctic where increasing CO2 likely increases cooling.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.3,
Benestad (2016) puts it at 254 K and an altitude of 6.5 km: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-016-1732-y
That’s a global average for cloudy/cloud-free regions, and represents the temperature and altitude at which bulk heat loss = bulk heat gain as the net of all radiative transfers, including solar SW. It is of course not constant due to local weather conditions, and long-term climatically-relevant means are also sensitive to latitude — ERL tends to be greater at low latitudes than at higher latitudes. Which brings us to …
You’re correct that rising CO2 may indeed cool central Antarctica, but the mechanism you invoke is … not even wrong. It’s true that any LW-active species’ spectral properties are sensitive to temperature and pressure. How I understand it — with the caveat that I’m doing some synthesis here — whether increased concentrations result in a heating or cooling trend as a result is a function of vertical position relative to what I call the “local ERL” for any given layer. The temperature/pressure sensitivity determine a given species’ efficacy in doing either, NOT whether they have a net heating/cooling effect.
With that in mind, the central highlands of Antarctica are an unusual (and interesting) case because its mean surface temperature is cooler than the stratosphere above it. Schmithüsen et al. (2015) explain: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066749/full
Abstract
CO2 is the strongest anthropogenic forcing agent for climate change since preindustrial times. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 absorbs terrestrial surface radiation and causes emission from the atmosphere to space. As the surface is generally warmer than the atmosphere, the total long-wave emission to space is commonly less than the surface emission. However, this does not hold true for the high elevated areas of central Antarctica. For this region, the emission to space is higher than the surface emission; and the greenhouse effect of CO2 is around zero or even negative, which has not been discussed so far. We investigated this in detail and show that for central Antarctica an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system. These findings for central Antarctica are in contrast to the general warming effect of increasing CO2.
They don’t explicitly state it in the body of the paper (it’s open access, and well worth a read), but the way I interpret their argument is that the central plateau of Antarctica is above the “local ERL” for significant portions of the year, sufficient enough that CO2 has a “negative greenhouse” effect at the surface in terms of the annual average.
Fascinating work; however, not confirmed by observation so far as I can tell from reading the paper (it’s a model study).
brgates, “You’re correct that rising CO2 may indeed cool central Antarctica, but the mechanism you invoke is … not even wrong. ”
Cute. You might want to rethink your logic though.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
See if you can figure out where a “CO2” sweet spot might be and where the “CO2” ERL might be
captdallas,
Better educated minds than mine already have thought about it. See again Schmithüsen et al. (2015). Their Figure 2 tells the story quite well:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a83B-JL0v8M/Vy58c_EwWsI/AAAAAAAAA2M/hXMzFlYL1xcPLYYP5qA1ajC4v-ojI7uZACLcB/s1600/Schmithusen%2B2015%2BFigure%2B2.png
The original caption reads: Extraterrestrial emission spectra calculated with ALFIP, using temperature profiles shown in Figure 1. The simulated South Pole spectrum for c = 380 ppm replicates the intensity maximum in the CO2 band around 15 µm, which corresponds to the negative greenhouse effect of CO2 as observed by satellite over Antarctica (Figure 4).
The model results in the bottom plot are consistent with a “negative greenhouse effect” due to the upper atmosphere being cooler than the surface at the South Pole in March.
I’ve already tried, months ago. If my understanding is correct, to guesstimate ERL, we need to know net SW flux by altitude; MODTRAN only outputs LW fluxes. Best I’ve been able to do is show the LW flux profiles by altitude for the tropical standard atmosphere:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1tq_5l0tlpk/VtdgrjLya8I/AAAAAAAAAps/kIL_kyP-v1E/s400/MODTRAN%2B1D%2BModel%2Bby%2BLevel%2BTropical%2BClear%2BSky%2BCO2%2B400%2Bppmv.png
That plot comes from this article: http://climateconsensarian.blogspot.com/2016/02/on-competing-mechanisms-for-observed.html
I wrote a follow-up showing MODTRAN “experiments” for various CO2 levels and/or humidity assumptions: http://climateconsensarian.blogspot.com/2016/03/modtran-radiative-atmospheric-model.html
The best resource I know of discussing the ERL mechanism is Benestad (2016), which I also previously cited. You might do well to read it and argue against its points instead of claiming that I haven’t personally thought things through myself — I have, just not with the same level of knowledge and expertise seen in primary literature.
Erratum: The model results in the bottom plot are consistent with a “negative greenhouse effect” due to the upper atmosphere being
coolerwarmer than the surface at the South Pole in March.too funny
they object to the greenhouse analogy
they object to the thermos analogy..
when you talk about the ERL
they cant even spell it, much less read the papers.
The fundamental problem with the conception of an ERL is that it presumes a continuum of absorption and radiation from the surface to the ERL such that lower layers warm because they can radiate away less effectively because your HIGHER levels are warmer due to their own absorption and radiation. This process is construed to continue to a level where there is finally insufficient HIGHER level CO2 to prevent radiation to space. This ERL is presumed to be at a lower blackbody temperature with less intensity as a result of increasing CO2.
Just another high school level misconception that is not bourn by reality.
The ERL in CO2 bands has been extensively measured since the Nimbus era. It looks like this:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/gap.png
The ERL in the CO2 bands is seen from satellites in a remarkably narrow range clustered around a blackbody temperature of 220k. This corresponds to an altitude where there is no further lapse and above which the lapse goes positive, like ice mass in Antarctica.
brgates, ” You might do well to read it and argue against its points instead of claiming that I haven’t personally thought things through myself.”
Actually, I am arguing what you think I said versus what I said. The maximum CO2 absorption band is to the right of the peak surface emission band. If the peak emission is aligned with the peak absorption band, that would be the point of maximum CO2 absorption or “sweet spot”. Mosher said “CO2 does it’s work above the ERL” which probably is close to 254K.
You can zero out everything but CO2 in the MODTRAN model to get an idea of what CO2 by itself might be able to do in and ideal world with uniform temperature distribution and a surface at 254 K degrees.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pjEApuQK2kE/Vy6O1XRkCeI/AAAAAAAAOWQ/MbNrG6Z9PukZ9b3pnOfUVVpHVRhVIVWVgCCo/s912/brgates%2Bmodtran.png
That is at 40,000 ppm CO2
captdallas,
Fair enough; however, what you wrote doesn’t make physical sense to me: Below that sweet spot [GHGs] become less and less effective as noted in the Antarctic where increasing CO2 likely increases cooling.
That implies that at some pressure/temperature combination, CO2 would begin to have a net cooling effect regardless of vertical position relative to ERL. That doesn’t work for me because so long as a given species is absorbing at a given wavelength any layer of atmosphere containing it will tend to extinguish some portion of radiation at that wavelength passing through it. Whether the net effect is heating depends on a given layer’s vertical position relative to what I have coined as the “local ERL”.
Yes, when plotted with the x-axis as wavenumber. Not that it matters, it falls right under the peak of the distribution when the wavelength is instead chosen as the x-axis units.
Ok, sure, I understand better what you were getting at. Wavenumber is probably the proper x-axis unit to use for this argument such as I kinda sorta understand it — but not really.
We agree on the temperature of the globally averaged ERL — it’s simply the effective temperature of the planet as viewed from space. From Benestad (2016):
The planetary energy balance can then be described approximately by the simple equation
S₀(1−A)/4=σTe⁴, (1)
where σ = 5.67×10⁻⁸ W/(m²K⁴) is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, A∼0.3 is the albedo, and S 0 = 1361Wm⁻² is the ’solar constant’ (Schneider and Dickinson 1974; Wang WC and Stone P 1980; Kopp and Lean 2011). The left hand side of this equation represents the energy input while the right hand side describes the bulk heat loss.
I don’t understand where Mosher was going with his argument. In my mind, CO2 is doing its thing at any and every altitude and temperature.
Yes, that’s quite a handy feature. You can’t entirely get rid of everything in the U. of Chicago website implementation, IIRC, CFCs stay in and stratospheric ozone I think. But for these kind of discussions, those are negligible.
Mmmmhmm. The CO2 emission bands are still bumping along the 220 K curve, which for the tropical atmosphere corresponds to an altitude between 12-13 km. One … weakness … I suppose of this particular MODTRAN implementation is that radical surface temperature offsets create weird breaks in the vertical temperature profile below 11 km. So I tend to leave surface temperature fixed when I’m doing radical things to CO2 concentration:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SxrxRlHZ6xQ/VtkORJGIzyI/AAAAAAAAAsY/RYrgh56D150/s1600/MODTRAN%2BCO2%2BOnly%2Bvs%2BNIMBUS%2B4%2BIRIS%2BW%2BTropical%2BPacific%2BCO2%2B965000%2Bppmv.png
Look ma’, no “saturation”.
Steven Mosher,
Pedantry knows no bounds it seems, especially when part of the argument is that the papers’ authors flunked hi sk00l fizzicks.
gymnosperm,
I think you meant because higher levels are warmer than they would be otherwise. Up to the tropopause, lapse rate is assumed to be positive, i.e., temperature decreases as altitude increases.
It’s very much not the case that suddenly 100% of 15 micron photons are able to escape at some magic altitude. And again, ERL is NOT defined as “the” altitude where 100% escape happens. It’s where bulk radiative losses equal bulk radiative gains … and that includes SW in addition to LW.
No. ERL temperature stays constant so long as albedo and solar output don’t change. The canonical temperature is 254 K. Futzing with the optical depth of the atmosphere only changes the altitude where on average that temperature happens.
[eyeroll]
Your failure above to properly restate the ERL argument is not a failing of climate scientists’ primary education.
We need to integrate radiant intensity across all wavebands and calculate total flux. It’s difficult to get a globally representative number out of MODTRAN for that. Try the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere with all other input parameters set to their defaults. The answer will come back 260.2 W/m^2 outbound LW, corresponding to an effective temperature of 260.3 K. (The similarity of the numbers is not a typo.) 260 K corresponds to an altitude of about 4.5 km.
You’ve reversed the lapse rate sign, but that’s a quibble. ERL is not constrained to the altitude of the tropopause or vice-versa. They are in fact generally quite different, with ERL well below the tropopause. The Antarctic central plateau a real oddball since the tropopause near the poles is already quite low, especially in winter. As it happens, the stratosphere is warmer than the surface at the South Pole for a good portion of the year, and that does imply that rising CO2 might tend to cool, not warm the surface.
Totally agree that the surface temperature in Antarctica commonly being as cold as the tropopause makes it entirely possible that increasing CO2 will tend to cool the surface as well as the stratosphere there. However, the temperatures are already so far below the freezing point of water that this has little bearing on the ice mass.
“We need to integrate radiant intensity across all wavebands and calculate total flux.”
You are arguing that there are emergent properties of the “soup”? In my opinion we are not at a point in our understanding where we can evaluate that. What we must do is separate the spectra to understand them individually. Then we can see if the sum equals more than the parts.
Interesting that you should choose 260K/4.5km. There is an important transition there. It is the first altitude at which there is a coherent blackbody “flat spot” corresponding to the 667.4 fundamental bend of CO2.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/modtran-5km-280v400ppm-co2.png
(The “background run” is 400ppm.)
Unfortunately for the ERL concept, whatever is lighting up CO2 at this altitude is DIFFERENT energy than surface emitted LWIR. We established a long while back that surface energy is extinct in these bands at about 100 meters. Your 260K/half atmosphere level is where lots of clouds form. My suspicion is that solar near IR absorbed by water (both liquid and vapor) is kinetically lighting up CO2 at this altitude.
“No. ERL temperature stays constant so long as albedo and solar output don’t change.”
Brandon, this is simply incorrect. Lapsed, lower temperature, lower intensity, radiation at a higher altitude has always been the heart of the ERL argument.
My question to you is what do satellites (and balloons and aircraft) looking down from above 20km “see” if not the ERL? They don’t see 260K, they see 220K.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/all-down-looking-planck-bounding.png
I say they are seeing exactly what you describe as the ERL, the level where net escape exceeds net recapture.
brgates, “. One … weakness … I suppose of this particular MODTRAN implementation is that radical surface temperature offsets create weird breaks in the vertical temperature profile below 11 km. ”
You could select the arctic temperature if you don’t like my large offset, same basic result. You can also vary altitude to those weird breaks that result because there are none of the other GHGs that help shape the standard profile, like stratospheric ozone and stratospheric water vapor which have their largest influence over the poles. MODTRAN doesn’t appear to do a very good job with those most likely because their concentration varies with pole ward advection which is a bit tricky to model.
The paper you linked mentions convection, but thanks to advection, the poles are on the order of 50 C warmer than otherwise due to stratospheric O3 & H2O transported via the Brewer-Dobson circulation which is generally well above the typical climate model “lid”. This indicates that 2-D models and Mosher’s cyrptic over simplifications aren’t all that useful.
Oddly, when modelers raise the “lid” and adjust cloud parameterization the models tend to agree with the current energy balance models and their ~1.6 C per doubling. That would be reducing uncertainty which isn’t really in the best interest of radical activists that keep quoting the same ol’ same ol’ often cryptically :)
captdallas,
More the issue here is that I don’t fully understand the ultimate argument you’re making. As the real system actually warms, the peak of the blackbody emission curve will shift right, i.e., toward, the 15 micron CO2 “sweet spot”.
That seems a bit high to be explained by radiative transfers alone. I would think the majority of the higher than expected temperature due to advection is simply by virtue that the air coming in from lower latitudes is warmer.
Upon reading Benestad (2016) closer, I think I better understand the point Mosher was making above:
Indeed, this conceptual model explains why ’saturation’ is not an issue for the GHE, neither on earth nor on Venus. The reason is that an increase in Z T254K will lead to a warming at the surface as long as the lapse-rate γ is approximately constant. The explanation for why Z T254K changes as a response to increasing IR opacity of the atmosphere is that emissions from a constant height will to a greater degree become re-absorbed when the air becomes increasingly opaque at or above this level. It will therefore no longer represent the depth from which the planetary heat loss takes place.
That’s consistent with what I was saying to gymnosperm previously — the bulk emission temperature stays the same so long as albedo and absorbed solar radiation remain constant, altitude changes as a function of atmospheric optical depth. As optical depth increases, the bulk emission altitude changes. Ts must therefore also rise if lapse rate stays constant. It isn’t expected to remain constant, but it’s also not expected to change so much that this simple model “breaks” for a decent first approximation.
That’s a very general statement about a large number of different models. I would need to see some citations to discuss further.
gymnosperm,
Glad we agree on Antarctica.
A broadband sensor does the integration for us. But with decent spectral resolution from actual observation, we can still integrate intensity across all wavebands and compute net flux in W/m^2. That’s one of the MODTRAN outputs.
I agree that it’s quite educational to knock out everything but CO2 in a radiative transfer code like MODTRAN to see how spectral intensities change with altitude and/or mixing ratio. But for real world applications, the best results are obtained when the atmospheric model contains a reasonable approximation of all species, especially water vapor, as they vary by altitude. Otherwise, the atmospheric “window” regions are far too big, and spectral overlaps between different species aren’t properly accounted for.
I’ve seen it quoted as 10-30 meters at 15 microns at sea level. Whatever the actual value, the takeaway is that the atmosphere is opaque at that wavelength many times over.
Molecular collisions induce emission wherever they occur, but not whenever — on the order of 6% of collisions cause a given CO2 molecule to burp out a photon. OTOH, only about 1 in one million photons absorbed by CO2 are re-emitted immediately. The balance of the time, that thermalized energy is transferred to another molecule kinetically, and by the numbers most of the time that’s going to be a diatomic molecule which is not radiatively active in the LW spectrum.
I don’t see how what I wrote contradicts that.
I explained that previously. Since the 15 micron band is where CO2 most strongly absorbs/emits, photons at that wavelength tend to be emitted at a higher, and therefore, cooler altitude on average than anywhere else in the emission spectrum. When you integrate across the entire spectrum, the total flux indicates the effective blackbody temperature. The global average over a sufficiently long period of time works out to ~254 K as theoretically predicted by plugging in the solar constant of 1,361 W/m^2 * 0.25 and 1-0.3 = 0.7 for albedo into the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
ERL is the average altitude at which transmission of outbound LW radiation to space is 100%. Your argument makes no sense because net LW is negative (outbound) at all altitudes:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1tq_5l0tlpk/VtdgrjLya8I/AAAAAAAAAps/kIL_kyP-v1E/s400/MODTRAN%2B1D%2BModel%2Bby%2BLevel%2BTropical%2BClear%2BSky%2BCO2%2B400%2Bppmv.png
The yellow curve to the left is the net LW flux, as you can see it’s always < 0 indicating a net outbound flux.
“I don’t see how what I wrote contradicts that.”
You said, “No. ERL temperature stays constant so long as albedo and solar output don’t change.”
According to the argument ERL temperature does NOT stay the same.
“Since the 15 micron band is where CO2 most strongly absorbs/emits, photons at that wavelength tend to be emitted at a higher, and therefore, cooler altitude on average”
Wrong in every physical sense. Since it absorbs strongly it gobbles up all the photons at a lower altitude at higher CO2 concentrations. As you point out CO2 thermalizes very efficiently. Once thermalized, entropy reigns and the energy is dissipated. This is why there is zero flux of IR photons from the surface to the tropopause in the primary bending bands. Forget the “yellow curve”. Look at this:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/gordon-on-nasa.png
The base image was from a NASA Learjet descending in circles from 10km with a spectrometer. The presence of a radiation gap in the “saturated” bending mode is obvious.
About 4.5km, as you suggested, a change occurs and you begin to see some flux again, but it is NOT surface energy. It is new energy
The entire concept of a discreet ERL is ridiculous.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/stratospheric_cooling.jpg
The saturation gap is brain dead obvious.
CO2 warms briefly at the stratopause but is cooling like crazy above 100mb. It appears to be getting a second wind in the Mesosphere.
Ozone has a very different warming and cooling altitude profile.
All the while in the water bands below WN 500 cooling proceeds upwards at the slope of the lapse rate from near the surface to just below the tropopause, where it ends.
What are you going to do? Average all this and pretend the average has some meaning? Some yellow curve?
“There’s no saturation at all, not even an approach to saturation”
Not choose to average in water and ozone etc. in a yellow curve.
brgates, “More the issue here is that I don’t fully understand the ultimate argument you’re making. As the real system actually warms, the peak of the blackbody emission curve will shift right, i.e., toward, the 15 micron CO2 “sweet spot”.”
Shift right below the ERL and left above, but when steady state is roughly regained, back to where it was but with a slightly higher ERL. Below the ERL you have increased convection and above you would have reduced water vapor due to higher altitude/lower temperature.
“That seems a bit high to be explained by radiative transfers alone. I would think the majority of the higher than expected temperature due to advection is simply by virtue that the air coming in from lower latitudes is warmer.”
It are a combination of mechanisms involved, O3 and H2O are just the radiative components. Susan Solomon suspected the reduction in stratospheric water vapor was a primary “cause” of the pause.
“Indeed, this conceptual model explains why ’saturation’ is not an issue for the GHE,”
You don’t need “saturation” and it is really a strawman. The efficiency reduces or you could say certain frequency ranges “approach” saturation, but there is never perfect saturation.
“That’s a very general statement about a large number of different models. I would need to see some citations to discuss further.”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n1/full/ngeo.2007.53.html
Compared to clouds this is fairly minor and about as incomplete, but the stratosphere was originally ignored until models started diverging from reality. Since then it has become a hotter topics along with mixed phase liquid topped clouds that tend to be a negative feedback.
When you have a hard time explaining the invisible physics to people always try to remember…
http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/news/articles/2015/unossc_on_climate_change_forum.html
you won’t even need that wedge, when you take out the old steamroller.
captdallas,
I roughly agree, with the caveat that increasing optical thickness of the atmosphere shifts ERL height first, creating a downward radiative energy imbalance. Thus, I misspoke when I said the effective temperature of ERL remains constant (all else being equal) — during the transient period on the way to the new steady state equilibrium, effective temperature as seen from space will be slightly lower due to the decreased LW flux making it out of the atmosphere.
I think the point you’re making is that if the effective temperature were higher (say, due to increased solar output and/or a lower albedo) the peak intensity of the blackbody curve below ERL would shift toward CO2’s “sweet spot”, thus making it a more potent GHG.
I agree with increased convection in the sense that it will tend to push the tropopause higher. However, because ERL by definition returns to the per-perturbed temperature at the new equilibrium, it stands to reason that the temperatures just above and below ERL will be roughly similar.
You talking about this paper? http://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.full
Recent observations have suggested a correlation of the post-2000 stratospheric water vapor decrease with SST changes near the tropical warm pool region and associated cooling of the cold point that governs water vapor input to the stratosphere in the tropics (Fig. 1C). However, the relation between SSTs in the warm pool region and stratospheric water vapor changes character (from negative to positive short-term correlations) from 1980 to 2009, suggesting that other processes may also be important or that the correlation may be a transient feature linked to the specific pattern of SSTs at a given time rather than to the average warming of SSTs around the globe. It is therefore not clear whether the stratospheric water vapor changes represent a feedback to global average climate change or a source of decadal variability.
Seems the jury is still out. One of the references was interesting, Stuber et al. (2005), Why radiative forcing might fail as a predictor of climate change: http://elib.dlr.de/10339/1/fulltext.pdf
They propose that the climate sensitivity parameter isn’t constant for spatially inhomogeneous forcing agents and/or feedback processes. I believe there are more current papers along the same lines.
It’s not just a strawman, it’s dead wrong.
There’s no saturation at all, not even an approach to saturation. The only practical upper limit is the number of absorbers which can be packed into a given radiation path.
Thanks for the ref. Google scholar shows that it’s been cited 29 times, so it’s very much not being ignored now.
Yeah, I caught that out of the corner of my eye recently. When are clouds NOT a hot topic in the modelling community?
brgates, “There’s no saturation at all, not even an approach to saturation. The only practical upper limit is the number of absorbers which can be packed into a given radiation path.”
Right, which is why the Antarctic “negative” greenhouse effect “discovery” is fairly recent :)
captdallas,
Doesn’t follow. The deal with the Antarctic central plateau is the stratosphere/surface temperature inversion during certain parts of the year. I suppose one way to think about it is that DWIR from the stratosphere that would otherwise make it to the surface increasingly doesn’t as the CO2 mixing ratio goes up. Hence the surface cools more than it would otherwise.
Yes, the negative greenhouse effect came as a complete surprise to all my relatives who live in the small towns of the central plateau of Antarctica.
JCH, “Yes, the negative greenhouse effect came as a complete surprise to all my relatives who live in the small towns of the central plateau of Antarctica.”
You related to Eric Steig :) I thought that was hilarious.
Who is this “we” that has picked the wrong spokespeople?
come to the secret meetings and all shall be revealed.
If they’re secret, how do we get to them?
David
Yes, I wondered who the ‘we’ were.
Anyway, our secret meetings are so secret that no one has yet found the venue or knows the time to convene or what to discuss.
tonyb
“If they’re secret, how do we get to them?”
Who is this “we” that wants to get to them?
see how well questions work?
Funny how david thinks that misinterpreting a sentence amounts to an argument, or leads to dialogue.
What misinterpretation is that, M? I am asking what group your pronoun “we” refers to? Or does it include all groups, in which case it is vacuously arrogant. Oh wait, that may be it.
Pretty simple david.
‘we’ ‘pick’ spokespeople through non canonical process of social validation and reinforcement.
‘skeptics’ pick spokespeople as well. You like what Monckton writes..
you repeat it.. Other follow or ignore what you do.. Its not a conscious choice.. its a process of social validation by repetition and citation.
Nobody, chose him or Mcintyre or Watts or Micheals, in an election.
But they become recognized as thought leaders and “authorities” through an informal social process.
Hint. you are not a thought leader.
you are not the face of skepticism.
Well worth watching and he’s obviously genius.
Climate is not = global average temperature, of course.
Palmer speaks of the atmosphere being chaotic, but it’s the numerical solutions being chaotic that he is referring to – the atmosphere will produce only one reality
Exabit computing takes 100 MegaWatts to improve climate models? Sounds like a job for a coal fired electric plant!
He goes on about increasing compute power which would certainly improve resolution, but even infinite computing can’t change the non-linearity of the equations. All the kings horses and all the kings men, may never ever predict climate again. And given the quarter of a century of unimproved model uncertainties during great increases in compute power and resolutions, we may have already witnesses this.
Palmer closes with a reassessment of the issue being not about science but assessment of risk, something, despite the brilliant assessment of physics, he doesn’t and can’t offer very much. There is some vague intimation of certain temperature levels being dangerous but no evidence of such, and obviously century rates of warming that exceed even the peak rates we’ve observed. And temperatures will exhibit a distribution, of course.
And climate includes wind, storms, rain, clouds, etc. which, unlike temperature, don’t have a direct global causal changes effected by either temperature or CO2.
Also missing are larger assessments of some rather obvious trends already occurring, which have nothing to do with physics – falling fertility, falling populations, increasing efficiency and falling co2 emissions. These are observable and indicate the problem, if warming is a problem, won’t persist.
The contrast between his humility and brilliance. ( this isnt a question for science) and your hubris and..mere cleverness is fun to observe.
More Palmer Please
“Climate is not = global average temperature, of course.”
strawman much?
thought so.
The contrast between his humility and brilliance. ( this isnt a question for science) and your hubris and..mere cleverness is fun to observe.
I’m glad you are enjoying yourself.
I was hoping you might have something substantial to offer.
There is a great deal of evidence that increasing CO2 will increase temperature. Planck response of about 1C per 2xCO2, water vapor could doubled that to about 2C per. Let the oceans take some of the load and you get about what we observe, somewhere around 1.5C per 2xCO2.
Speaking about 5C warming when that’s so far removed from reality proves brilliance is no inoculation from the emotions of risk assessment.
There is not much evidence that increasing CO2 will change circulation in ways that don’t already occur. Why?
Because none of the formulas described so eloquently in the presentation involve temperature! With the exception of the equation of state, the equations are of derrivatives of temperature, not temperature.
“Climate is not = global average temperature, of course.”
strawman much? thought so.
Which is warmer, San Francisco? or Saint Louis?
“Climate is not = global average temperature, of course.”
strawman much? thought so.
And the more I think about it, the more significant this point is.
The presentation, like much of the discussion, is about climate change described, not by just temperature, but by just global average temperature, which is even less meaningful than an actual experienced temperature, with an unsupported claim about knowing what precise global average temperature means harm.
Well, we have had warming. About 1C of warming.
And humans are better off than ever in history.
Was that because of global average temperature?
Probably not, but it reminds us that 1C was irrelevant.
Which is warmer, San Francisco? or Saint Louis?
And of course, San Francisco and Saint Louis have about the same average annual temperatures, but very different climates.
But in the minds of the climate movement, their climates are identical because they can only imagine that the average annual number is significant.
“Which is warmer, San Francisco? or Saint Louis?”
ill posed
“And of course, San Francisco and Saint Louis have about the same average annual temperatures, but very different climates.
But in the minds of the climate movement, their climates are identical because they can only imagine that the average annual number is significant.”
That’s silly.
1. We can barely predict climate at continental scales
2. Regional predictions are in their infancy.
3. Climate is more than the annual average
a) we are concerned about changes in seasons
b) we are concerned about sea level ( yes planning for Treasure
Island took into account AGW)
c) we are concerned about drought( SF) and floods (the mississippi)
d) we are concerned about heat waves ( St Louis)
More strawmen and ill posed questions.
Here are the questions you should look at.
1. What will emissions look like
2. How much warming will that bring
3. What are the risks and benefits
Those are real questions.
The answer are not settled.
Work on that.. Do science.
“The presentation, like much of the discussion, is about climate change described, not by just temperature, but by just global average temperature, which is even less meaningful than an actual experienced temperature, with an unsupported claim about knowing what precise global average temperature means harm.”
The purpose of the lecture was to Establish a couple points.
1. Chaos!!! doesnt have anything to do with what we are trying to predict
2. the climate is more than temperature ( the prime example Palmer refers to in almost all his talks is hurrican force winds in England.. and frame the climate question as “will these types of events” become more or less frequent. See his working on blocking
3. Temperature is an easy metric to understand the basic points
we dont predict the trajectory (its chaotic) we predict the statistics
of events or states.
4. he actually particularized the discussion around a 5C increase to note that SOME areas would become uninhabitable at that level of increase.
The problem with taking on the Giant TE, is that you are no David.
“Well, we have had warming. About 1C of warming.
And humans are better off than ever in history.
Was that because of global average temperature?
Probably not, but it reminds us that 1C was irrelevant.”
1C, all other things being equal, was probably BENEFICIAL.
That’s not the question.
The question is.
Will the next 1C be good or bad? for whom?
will an additional 1C be on balance good?
will 5C be good?
10C?
20C?
100C?
The real question is not was the last 1C good or bad, the real question is what lies ahead.. As Palmer argues; Risk.
Risk is just another word for uncertainty.
Real science, as opposed to TE comments, seeks to push the envelop of knowledge.
proving the next 1C will cause no harm would be a great feat.
your Nobel Prize awaits you.
When you have an analysis, share your code and data and I will look at it.
Until Then, you provide amusement. Like Goddard, but with 3 digits in your IQ.
Looks like I will have to retract the compliment of cleverness
‘Speaking about 5C warming when that’s so far removed from reality proves brilliance is no inoculation from the emotions of risk assessment.”
1. Given BAU, and given the uncertainty in ECS, 5C is not impossible.
2. You’ll note that he left all the risk assessment up to you.
“There is not much evidence that increasing CO2 will change circulation in ways that don’t already occur. Why?”
yes, its an open question. Palmer studies it.
you make proclamations.
jeez you went from Clever to obtuse in the span of a couple comments.
The crazy thing is that Palmer gave you a wide range of uncertainty to play in.. and then you became a faux skeptic.
The real question is not was the last 1C good or bad, the real question is what lies ahead.. As Palmer argues; Risk.
One cannot just claim risk, one has to demonstrate it.
We have an observed period of increasing temperature every year: summer.
We do not associate summer with calamity.
Instead, we associate summer with picnics.
35:45: “Something has to be done, but they’re not being represented by the proper rules of physics.”
“One cannot just claim risk, one has to demonstrate it.”
Err no.
Risk refers to the future. you cant demonstrate the future.
Now, we can demonstrate it in a way by refering to similar events in the past or present.
So for example. We can say that the US is at risk for Yellowstone erupting. We cannot demonstrate this risk exactly. We cant force yellowstone to erupt to demonstrate the risk to unbelievers. We cant even calculate the damage from the risk.
We can point to some evidence that it happened before.. So the probability of occurance is NON ZERO. hence it is a risk. It may be a low risk.
The planet is at risk from a large impact of a asteroid. We cannot demonstrate that risk. But we know the event is possible. And from past evidence we know that bad things happen. Its a risk. maybe low.
As for climate change. The risk is non zero. The probablity of a temperature rise of 1c,2c,3c,4c,5c is non zero. Its happened before without mans interference, the question is will the wedge of c02 make that state more likely rather than less likely.
We know the planet has had higher sea levels. So even totally disregarding the science of AGW we know that higher sea levels in the future are possible. There is a non zero probability of this. Its a risk.
Maybe low, maybe high.
To understand the risk we dont actually have to see the sea level rise.
All we need to do is go scuba diving to cities that were formerly above water.
There is no risk that monkeys will fly out of my butt. I wont be buying insurance against that.
1. What will emissions look like
Apparently, emissions have been flat for three years now. Demographics ( both slowing population and aging ) and energy efficiency can account for this. Both factors appear associated with economic development.
2. How much warming will that bring
We do have observations. And the longer they continue, the more likely they would appear to constrain the answer to that question. Since 1945 ( when rates of radiative forcing began to increase ) 30 year temperature trends have ranged from -0.5C per century to +1.8C per century, with the most recent about +1.6C per century. Any case for a higher response would have to answer why it hasn’t occurred so far.
3. What are the risks and benefits
And would we be arguing without a conterfactual for either?
“Palmer closes with a reassessment of the issue being not about science but assessment of risk”
I guess we are demanding divination of the future from science and science seems all too willing to let us think they can do it if we just give them time and a new computer.
Predictions are fun when they are out beyond the average life (or attention) span.
Someday the Mahdi will return.
TE, there’s people in India and Canada who think it’s no picnic at the moment (see items).
AK
’35:45: “Something has to be done, but they’re not being represented by the proper rules of physics.”
I find it hilarious AK that so many skeptics miss this.
1. They blather on about how models are not experiments
2. They blather on about the statistics of ensembles
3. They blather on about tuning
4. They blather on about models running hot.
and they miss ( for the most part ) the places in the science where there are real challenges.
They miss the best arguments against the science which are found INSIDE the science
TE, there’s people in India and Canada who think it’s no picnic at the moment (see items).
Canada is a great example of confirmation bias.
The fires in Canada were ascribed to a dry winter.
What do the IPCC models predict about precipitation in Canada during winter?
TE, they predict longer fire seasons, and that hasn’t even started yet.
@Steven Mosher | May 7, 2016 at 4:47 pm |
Perhaps. I’m skeptical. When I read with sympathy/charity, I get the impression that many understand that little “black” box and its role, they’re just not describing it in a way that resonates with you:
They’re certainly experiments in what the model does. But the model is enormously simplistic compared to the real world (a point Palmer makes a few seconds earlier IIRC). So they’re not really experiments with the climate system.
But how much difference is there among the various types of “black” box at the end of that truncated chain of Russian dolls? Do the various boxes of different models really cover the space of possible boxes? (obviously not).
But tuning is how the parameters for any of those different boxes in different models are chosen.
Well, they do. And given the likely incestuousness of the different parametrization schemes, it’s quite plausible that the current crop of models are all variations on a single wrong theme.
Are you accusing them of “blather” because you believe they don’t understand how those non-physical boxes relate to the issues like tuning and ensembles? That they’re just repeating the words of scientists (and other experts) who do understand?
I’d say it’s probably true for some. There’s certainly plenty of blather on “both sides” of the “debate” here. But I suspect a lot more “skeptics” understand this issue than you give credit for.
But I could be wrong.
TE, they predict longer fire seasons, and that hasn’t even started yet.
The answer is, GCMs indicate a strong consensus that global warming causes winter precipitation to increase in Canada, not decrease, making the recent fire an exhibit of confirmation bias:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/images/Assessment%20Reports/AR5%20-%20WG1/Chapter%2012/Fig12-22.jpg
=>> ” before we decide to risk the world by throwing away the capitalist system?”
Waaaaaat??? Straw man much?
That said, of course economic risk is part of the question, extending on both directions. Unfortunately, people on both sides ignire economic uncertainties. “Skeptics,” in the main, demagogue the uncertainties related to the economics of fossil fuels.
I guess the jury is out on the Canadian fire and climate change, but here is Mann’s take. He says that the warm, dry winter and temperatures 40 F above average for May may have something to do with it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-change-canada-wildfire_us_572a42ece4b0bc9cb0457d9a?utm_hp_ref=climate-change
I’ve always found the ‘insurance’ arguments for CAGW to be hilarious, because the Climate Faithful never consider how much they’re asking us to pay for it. Would you pay 10% of your homes value per year for insurance? What about 20%?
and what about all the true believers who expect us to give up more the just a cash equivalent for their peace of mind? Should we cut off the gas and electricity to our house to decrease the odds of that possible fire? Or do we need to sell that fire trap off entirely and move into a nice fireproof cave?
Of course, all this assumes that you believe the risk you’re insuring against is a possibility. I personally have fire insurance on my house, even though I think it’s unlikely I’ll ever have a fire. It’s worth the small cost I pay to know I’m protected if the unlikely happens. I don’t however have hurricane insurance, and I wouldn’t get it no matter how cheaply it might be offered for.
I live in Indiana.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/22/climate-change-uncertainty
Hmmm. Now where have I heard something like that before?
Yep.. More Palmer please.
How cheaply can “we” cut emissions? Are there cheaper ways than the crop of current proposals? Given we don’t know “the probability of serious climate change”, shouldn’t we be looking for some really cheap approaches before we decide to risk the world by throwing away the capitalist system?
“How large does the probability of serious climate change have to be before we should start cutting emissions?”
It requires zero probability of serious “climate change” to focus on improving energy efficiency, improve air quality, conserve land and forests, provided the cost is reasonable.
Kind of funny actually, emissions trading for SO2 was an incredible success until constantly changing regulations destroyed that system and made the credits worthless. Oddly, the SO2 reduction didn’t have the expected environmental impact projected by sound science of the day. I believe that would be “fool me once”. Now we have a similar situation with the same basic game plan, but with even more uncertainty. The world could have had an emissions trading scheme for particulates had the proponents for the new more inclusive version had stayed out of it, it wasn’t broke and didn’t need fixing. Radicals aren’t very rational or particularly bright..
=>> ” I believe that would be “fool me once”.”
Are you referring to the right wing economic alarmism about cfc reduction?
“Are you referring to the right wing economic alarmism about cfc reduction?”
Nope, talking about black carbon and other particulates that Bush considered “doable” but Hansen had a hissy fit because “it wasn’t enough!”
Joshua,
Analogy with insurance fails. Many insurance policies are bought because other entities like lenders and banks require them on contracts – not on individual assessment of risk.
I suppose this excuses the compulsory imposition of measures like making coal mines too regulated and thus uneconomic, or some windmill contraptions subsidised and therefore $ honey pots.
CAGW is nor really about risk assessment, is more about how to get control of the money bags and how to move big dollars your way at the expense of the uneducated and poor.
How large does the probability of serious climate change have to be before we should start cutting emissions?
Most nations have falling emissions rates already.
Global emissions have been flat for three years.
If they fall in 2016, can we please stop panicking?
Geoff –
==> Joshua,
Analogy with insurance fails.
The value of analogies is always limited. They can be instructive and help to improve understanding and dialogue. When they are used as rhetorical devices, they will ultimately fail because by their very nature of being analogies, their congruency will never be complete. People can always find a way to conclude that they’ve failed.
I consider the value of that analogy to be rather simple. It speaks to that we often hedge against risk, particularly high damage risk. We don’t usually consider ignoring risk to be very prudent, although sometimes we do choose to not hedge against risk. Choosing to not hedge against risk usually a deliberate decision. But consider that you can’t decide not to hedge against risk if you ignore its existence, if you don’t quantify its magnitude.
Turbulent Eddie,
There’s a difference between for calls for urgent additional action and panic.
What would reduce my urgent calls is planned action designed to bring emissions to zero in time to plausibly keep GMST below the traditional 2 C policy target, and to see the results of those policy implementations track to the emissions goals over the course of *several* years. Think five years or so. It would be especially nice if the policy implementations weren’t draconian belt-tightening efforts as part of a last-ditch crash program.
COP21 didn’t accomplish that. And it shaved a half-degree off the GMST target. Didn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.
Geoff Sherrington,
That actually strengthens the analogy. Lien holders require the insurance to eliminate default risk in the case that the asset itself is damaged or destroyed. Where the analogy does fail (all analogies do at some point) is that insurance typically does nothing to protect the actual asset from damage/destruction in the first place.
Regardless, AGW is a classic risk management problem writ on a global scale. Emissions reduction is a classic risk management proposal. Problem is, there are no classic risk management solutions of the scope and scale involved.
The falling emissions for most of the world didn’t come because of policy they came because of secular factors: slowing, aging, and more efficient economies.
Policy is not only ineffectual, it is unnecessary.
Turbulent Eddie,
Rhetorical question: what policies?
I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but this is what I’m looking at: http://www.nature.com/news/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2015-1.18965
The projection was 0.6% reduction in CO2 emissions from 2014, mainly due to a 3.9% projected decrease in China’s emissions … something which is not expected to continue. And then there’s this:
A final accounting of this year’s emissions could differ from these projections; the preliminary analysis suggests that emissions might drop by as much as 1.6% this year, but could actually rise by as much as 0.5%.
Saying policy is unnecessary by extrapolating a one year dip with those kind of error bars is … silly.
Most nations have falling emissions rates already.
Global emissions have been flat for three years.
If they fall in 2016, can we please stop panicking?
More CO2 has caused a greening of earth and more food is available for every creature on earth that depends on green stuff that grows. and green stuff produces O2 that we animals need. When CO2 decreases, that will harm all the green stuff that grows. That is the time to start panicking.
I watched the Tim Palmer video yesterday.
He had an interesting suggestion to improve GCM performance by encoding more (small-scale) Navier-Stokes equations into the increased space within 64-bit words which is freed up due to fewer variables required at the smaller scales.
He had some nice examples of increased forcing, chaotic changes and the resulting general increase in probability of warming.
Palmer was impressive as usual, but unconvincing wrt to fitness of GCMs to inform both benefit and risk potential on a regional basis and therefore for determining appropriate action, if any.
“Palmer was impressive as usual, but unconvincing wrt to fitness of GCMs to inform both benefit and risk potential on a regional basis and therefore for determining appropriate action, if any.”
you missed the end of his presentation
he never argued that GCMs were fit for the purpose of risk assesment.
he left that question open.
This is the hilarious thing about skeptics. they are so single minded in their drive to always say no, that they miss the openings that science gives them.
I had to go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-IHJbzRVVU to get it to work.
The risk analysis was weak, just drawing on a simple insurance analogy. While he issued a general disclaimer about theoretical physicists moving into the what-to-do about it, I’d have thought he’d have a better understanding of what the physics needs to help elucidate. This particularly since he was arguing for more research on this basis, and this pretty quickly leads to the consideration of the value of that information, including real options analysis. The argument isn’t about responding to the warming, the public policy debate is (or should be) about what and when.
Finally why ruin a good presentation by talking about RCP8.5 as BAU and likely?
Mosher “This is the hilarious thing about skeptics. they are so single minded in their drive to always say no, that they miss the openings that science gives them.”
I find it disappointing, not hilarious. And I suppose it must also be true of lukewarmers, such as myself, because it is becoming more often true of you – that you miss opportunities to discuss and clarify science, and instead emit cringeworthy oversimplifications.
“The risk analysis was weak, just drawing on a simple insurance analogy. While he issued a general disclaimer about theoretical physicists moving into the what-to-do about it, I’d have thought he’d have a better understanding of what the physics needs to help elucidate. This particularly since he was arguing for more research on this basis, and this pretty quickly leads to the consideration of the value of that information, including real options analysis. The argument isn’t about responding to the warming, the public policy debate is (or should be) about what and when.
Finally why ruin a good presentation by talking about RCP8.5 as BAU and likely?”
yet another skeptic that doesnt get it.
The easiest thing to do is to ACCEPT the insurance analogy.
Then its easier to talk about “what and when”
basically, one of the top ,modelers just stepped back and gave you
the stage..
A smart skeptic ( is there one? I dont think so ) would applaud Palmer.
Would thank him for his reluctance to “settle” the risk question
and would take the ball and run.
But this is the internet where every trained seal… HAS to start with some objection or critique however minor.
A really smart skeptic would just cite Palmer, accept what he has to say about the limits of the science, thank him, pick up the ball and run.
And answer the questions?
What will emissions look like BAU?
What options do we have?
But no… I guess I will continue the search for unicorns and savy skeptics.
I’ll have more luck with the former
Nobody knows.
Well, I’d classify them into four groups:
•         Take advantage of the coming cheap solar (and, perhaps, wind) and focus on energy storage, especially hydrogen
•         Take advantage of the coming cheap solar (and, perhaps, wind) and focus on power→gas/liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
•         Use the “climate emergency” as an excuse to destroy capitalism worldwide.
•         Essentially nothing.
The costs and benefits of these options (actually option classes) will vary depending on ideology.
OOps!
Nobody knows.
Well, I’d classify them into four groups:
• Take advantage of the coming cheap solar (and, perhaps, wind) and focus on energy storage, especially hydrogen
• Take advantage of the coming cheap solar (and, perhaps, wind) and focus on power→gas/liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
• Use the “climate emergency” as an excuse to destroy capitalism worldwide.
• Essentially nothing.
The costs and benefits of these options (actually option classes) will vary depending on ideology.
Steven Mosher, happy to help you understand some of this stuff better, if you’re agreeable to stop abusing me.
As we have learned here a lot, there are three ways to deal with risk: (i) insure against it, (ii) take action to mitigate it, and (iii) deny that it exists.
“As we have learned here a lot, there are three ways to deal with risk…”
Self insure. There will be sea level rise. Build a sea wall. The problem with insurance is there’s often a middle man. We could say the problem is too big for individuals. I’d say, some individuals. But not owners of expensive ocean side real estate.
“Steven Mosher, happy to help you understand some of this stuff better, if you’re agreeable to stop abusing me.”
Sure. My apologies.
“What will emissions look like BAU?”
A most likely very unimportant question.
A much more important question- how is the local or regional climate forecasted to change in regards to rainfall over the next 50 years.
Insurance is a form of gambling, and as any gambler can tell you the odds always favor the house.
You want to understand CAGW? Figure out who it really is trying to sell you this Climate ‘insurance’.
Insurance is opposite to gambling, because rather than trying to win, you prevent yourself from losing.
==> A really smart skeptic would just cite Palmer, accept what he has to say about the limits of the science, thank him, pick up the ball and run.
Consider that this is not about having a discussion for mutual benefit, but it is about identity validation. In that case, there is no point to picking up the ball and running. If one’s objective is to affirm their sense of identity, to a large degree by demeaning or degrading or insulting or dismissing an “other” then there is no reason to pick up the ball and run.
What you’re suggesting would be like stakeholder dialogue. It would be like moving past opposing “positions” to focusing on synchronistic “interests.” Approaching risk in the manner that Palmer suggests, would be a part of such a process.
“Insurance is opposite to gambling, because rather than trying to win, you prevent yourself from losing.”
The legal definition of gambling consists of three elements; prize, chance, and consideration. Morbidly gambling against your own best interest doesn’t change the definition. Insurance comes with prize, chance and consideration, it is just morbid. The insured are betting against the house that their life will end before the house thinks so, or their car will be totaled before the house thinks so, or their house will be destroyed before the house thinks so.
I meant to add that it has nothing to with being smart.
==> The insured are betting against the house that their life will end before the house thinks so, or their car will be totaled before the house thinks so, or their house will be destroyed before the house thinks so.
Lol!
Or they’re hedging against risk, perhaps low probability high damage risk, often for the sake of others, such as their children.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Under that twisted interpretation, your house burning is the “prize”. Not a normal definition of the word for sure.
Got a few minutes to bash out some further thoughts in this.
It is curious for someone this close to the modelling to mischaracterise the IPCC scenarios in what is otherwise a carefully crafted, balanced talk. It either reflects just how deeply this misunderstanding is embedded in the community, or perhaps just that it isn’t theoretical physics and therefore not something Palmer has focused on. The latter would be consistent with the throw away lines about insurance, and no mention of other major sources of uncertainty eg data availability and adequacy.
Risk (e.g. consequences times likelihood) is a complex beast. It isn’t a neat little calculation because not only does the event creating the risk have a probability distribution function (pdf) both factors themselves have pdfs. Further, risk management action is the business of multiple actors, each of whom potentially perceives these various factors and their pdfs differently. Finally, the whole thing changes in time, as time passes we know more – which may make things more certain or less certain.
Understanding this structure as best we can is critical to an appropriate public policy response.
I’ll give just three examples relevant to comments:
First, temperature increase from climate change is a progressive process that impacts on us all. It is a systemic risk not therefore really suited to insurance as we commonly view it. Insurance works to pool risks across a population where the individual incident is roughly random. Insurance companies tend to contract out of systemic risk e.g. premiums are a function of known causes – high value properties and properties located in seismically active zones both attract higher premiums. Because people have different perceptions of the risk there may be a market for intermediation between these, but his is more like picking horses as someone has noted.
Second, different risk managers will not only perceive the risk differently they will value the alternatives differently. A coastal dweller who is the primary one at risk from sea level rise is likely to be both less concerned about the consequence (perhaps knowing more) and value the experience of coastal living much more highly (less inclined to move). Proposed public interventions need to work within this reality. In democracies there needs to be broad support for management actions, and this means the population needs to be well informed of the risks, and that includes the pdfs.
Third, time is important. It clouds our judgement (e.g. far off events are perceived differently from those near to hand) and in situations like this, where potentially the perception of risk is increasing in time but its uncertainty decreasing, timing can become everything. As I noted “what to do when?”.
There can, for example, be value in doing nothing because delay mightn’t be very costly but avoiding unnecessary action may be very valuable.
The point of all this is that to get good public policy we need to understand the uncertainties. The problem in the debate is those that deny the uncertainty (on both sides). A good appreciation of the uncertainty (and the different perceptions of it) allows actions to take that into account. For example it gives a more sophisticated view of the portfolio of actions that can be taken.
Palmer’s plea for resources to look at higher resolution lower accuracy modelling in a bid to reduce the uncertainty that comes from the behaviour of the clouds is a case in point. As part of our portfolio we may decide to fund this and wait 4-5 years before rushing off and doing things that are predicated on the existing modelling. Similarly we may decide to wait to see what happens post El Nino. Limited actions for 4 or 5 years will probably be neither here no there.
Meanwhile we might focus on lower cost things that otherwise prepared the groundwork for future actions, should the worst be confirmed, and/or the lowest cost actions that have the highest potential payoff. I see Australia is being successful in buying tree planting, and we would all do well to think about the next investment in large scale generation (rather than think about sunk cost) and look at the potential to improve the efficiency of the use of our transport fleet (enable Uber through deregulation) and encourage the developing substitutes for it (VR and 3D printing), all just by way of examples.
Most likely 4-5 years from now solar panels will cost half what they do today. Support structures even less. With perhaps 10x today’s deployment.
Storage (super-caps, flow batteries, perhaps electrolytic hydrogen fuel cells) will be cheap enough, and widely enough deployed, to handle the trade-off between solar (and perhaps wind) and CCGT with little or no loss of efficiency.
Solar (and wind) together will represent more capacity than fossil fuels, with perhaps 15-25% penetration by total WHrs. The road to full penetration will probably be wide open.
This is why the alarmists are so urgent about doing it now! Once the problem is solved they won’t be able to use it as a stalking horse for their real agenda(s).
“Under that twisted interpretation, your house burning is the “prize”. Not a normal definition of the word for sure.”
No matter how you slice it, insurance remains, under law, an aleatory contract.
Judith Curry,
The uncertain climate sensitivity, on basis of which political actions to cut anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been planned, in order to prevent global warming, indicates that influence of increased CO2 content in atmosphere on global warming is not known well enough; look for instance at https://judithcurry.com/2016/04/19/the-exxon-climate-papers :
”As Professor Judith Curry has often said there is an uncertainty monster at the science-policy interface. – – – Exxon has worked hard to define the uncertainty and they have even succeeded in reducing the uncertainty in some areas, especially in the carbon cycle. But still, the remaining uncertainty is huge and it covers the range from zero anthropogenic effect to perhaps 4° or 5°C – – – .”
Further Anthony Watts writes https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/01/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-224 :
”Lindzen notes that the two groups of knowledgeable scientists who disagree on the effects of burning of fossil fuels largely agree on a surprising number of points.
· The climate is always changing.
· CO2 is a greenhouse gas, without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming.
· Atmospheric levels of CO2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century.
· Over the past two centuries, the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or one degree Celsius.
· Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made.
Some may find the last point surprising. But, the IPCC fourth assessment report (AR-4, 2007) stated that: “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Here we see a major problem between what the groups 1 & 2 scientists have articulated and what members of group 3, the politicians, environmentalists, and the media, have claimed. Unfortunately, the clamor created by group 3 has virtually drowned out the clear agreements between groups 1 & 2, and the sharp distinctions between them. According to Lindzen, group 3 have their own reasons –money, power, and ideology – to promote a catastrophic scenario. The impact of group 3 is making pure scientific research into the actual influence of carbon dioxide on the climate very difficult.”
On the basis of observations in reality instead of climate model results adopted by IPCC Judith Curry et al have assessed that the climate sensitivity is only about half of the value adopted by IPCC. As far as I am aware this already proves that planned cuts of CO2 emissions according to the Paris agreement are unnecessary.
As I have understood Lindzen and Scafetta have not yet determined any minimal value of climate sensitivity. So it can be even indistinguisable from zero like Jim Cripwell, David Wojick and Arno Arrak have expressed.
On the basis of my comment http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/#comment-198992 I can conclude:
In the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere the share 0f anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been only about 4 % at the most.
The recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere has followed warming and not vice versa.
There is no observation in reality according to which a total increase of CO2 content in atmosphere could cause any global warming.
Any cutting of anthropogenic CO2 emissions even as a precautionary measure cannot be regarded as necessary.
As to climate sensitivity it can not be distinguished from zero.
++++++++++++++
Hmmm…
From: “Yale students fight college censorship the right way”
You’d think that the right way to fight “censorship” might start with a little bit o’ fact-checking?
@Yusha…
She was disinvited from the ceremony where recipients of honorary degrees speak. Along with cancelling the degree itself…
Samantha Harris goes on to say:
[…]
The fact that she was offered the “consolation prize” of making a speech at another time hardly makes up for it, or changes then fact that she was disinvited.
AK:
==> She was disinvited from the ceremony where recipients of honorary degrees speak.
The decision to award her the degree was revoked. In not receiving the degree, there is no reason for her to speak at the commencement ceremony. She was, explicitly, invited to “dialogue” in a different context.
On the hand, I don’t agree with their ultimate decision or how they went about it. On the other hand, the University does have an obligation to address the objections from of a large segment of it’s community, to awarding an honorary degree to someone who levels a blanket condemnation of a religion.
But all of that aside, the alarmist whinging about how this is about the loss of “free speech,” or “censorship,” etc. is unfortunate “political correctness” and cynical exploitation of a serious issue (the actual limitation of freedom of speech and actual censorship).
Imagine that, “censoring” someone by inviting them to come and engage in dialogue. What alarmism.
Too funny.
BTW –
Eric Lander and Malcolm Sherman were awarded honorary degrees in 2014 at Brandeis. Did they speak at the commencement ceremony?
It appears, she was going to address the students at a different awards’ ceremony…given that she wasn’t being awarded a diploma, that, again, wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense – and it would make sense to invite her to address the students on a different occasion. That invitation was made, and she declined.
“The study used observations and new climate model experiments to show that the warming effect of sea-ice loss is dependent on the PDO’s phase: the same amount of sea-ice loss leads to greater Arctic warming in the ‘negative’ phase of the PDO compared the ‘positive’ phase.”
I assume the North Pacific gyre speeds up in the negative phase. More warm water goes North and more cool water goes South. I assume increased meridional wind flow in the North Pacific accompanies this. Francis was part of this study. Her prior plot from another study showed decreased zonal flow coinciding with the pause suggesting increased meridional flow.
https://robertscribbler.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/francis_amplification.png
Increased meridional flows is assumed to increase mixing of warm and cool air masses helping to cool the Earth. Call this a wavy jet stream. A rigid jet with zonal flows segregates air masses, helping to warm the planet. This segregation would build sea ice. When the PDO originated, less was known about Arctic temperatures. New warmth has been found there with some controversy. The cool phase of the PDO could be argued to not be so cool when the new Arctic temperatures are included. Warmth was there on its way out through the TOA. Cool was mixing and heading South to show up in what we did measure. The cool phase of the PDO is not so cool after all, but cooling happens at a greater rate in response to more warmth.
You lose sea ice when oceans are warmer to promote snowfall to replace the ice on land that caused cooling. You gain sea ice when oceans are colder to promote less snowfall to allow ice on land that causes cooling to deplete. That is why temperature does change in a fairly regular cycle.
This cycle is normal, natural and necessary.
Feds Quietly Admit Polar Bears Doing Fine, Abandon Efforts To Ban Fur Trade
Translation:
If global warming doesn’t kill off the polar bears, we’ll bloody well shot ’em, to keep the show on the road.
The Sun’s control of Earth’s climate is explained in a 24 March 2016 article, “Observational evidence for enhanced magnetic activity of superflare stars,” Nature Communications 7, doi: 10.1038/ncomms11058; http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160324/ncomms11058/full/ncomms11058.html and a 25 April 2016 news report on the low sunspot number in current solar cycle #24: http://notrickszone.com/2016/04/25/current-solar- cycle-continues-to-be-the-weakest-in-almost-200-years-planet-at-the-mercy- of-the-sun/#sthash.mUwvdPnc.oQ6uWYAe.dpbs
Palmer gave a good lecture. He came right out and said clouds are uncertain. For a moment I entertained the thought he’d heard of Eisenbach. He explained about the 100 km model grid cells. He had his Russian doll example spanning 10000 km to 1mm I believe. Taught me that Navier-Stokes equations appear to operate and matter along the whole scale. He used a 52 box ensemble forecast and binaraly interpreted it. Which I’d like to call chaos. There was a 30% chance of the bad short term regime.
“While the focus in this paper has been principally on hemispheric-mean climate change, the perspective is probably of more fundamental relevance to regional climate change. This is because most of the current evidence points toward the nonlinear regimes being fundamentally
sectorial in nature, though with partial synchronization.”
A Nonlinear Dynamical Perspective on Climate Prediction
Palmer seems to have reviewed some of the papers Tsonis worked on.
Milanovic has mentioned Palmer on this blog.
Mosher’s statement. “Chaos doesn’t have anything to do with what we are trying to predict…” Things may not be sufficiently understood at this point. His magnetic pendulum represented static attractors. I’d guess attractors are more likely to be variable and evolving than not. More models may be needed.
Steven, knows full well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
Chaos was the goal of this model set into motion in the mid sixties and from the data we have before us today we have been able to verify the model they had (even though it was just running on a two-bit computer), almost always worked when they went out fifty years into our future. The Pit And The… remember it swings both ways now…Steven.
Chaos is what you use to explain what you do not understand.
Pope:
Your theory has helped me develop an understanding of climate. I too think it’s the water. I think your theories have some overlap with chaos theory. Albedo from snow and humidity influenced by sea ice are what I consider binary states. These binary switches control the temperature range. These switches are compared to attractors as in the Lorenz butterfly.
Death Toll Rises As India’s Heat Wave Breaks Records [link]
There was a time in India when there were good famines (lots of people died) and bad famines where (not so many people died). This was before, of course, the Green Revolution such that now India, at times in its recent past, has been a net exported of grain. Wow. In 1/2 a century, a lot of people have stuck around to have to endure heat waves.
Maybe I missed it, I didn’t see any partitioning of people dying of famine and those dying of heat stress back when. Didn’t anyone die of heat stress before the Green Revolution?
I can only surmise that the present deaths from heat stress in India are…unprecedented. You can chose, insert, your favorite word if you wish. It seems to me the authors are a bit cavalier with the true circumstances.
Kentucky Derby: Nyquist 2:1 fav
Right frequency?
+ 2:1
From the environment 360 story on abrupt sea level rise: “Today, we’re struggling with 3 millimeters [0.1 inch] per year [of sea level rise],” says Robert DeConto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, co-author of one of the more sobering new studies.” Struggling? Really? The story does talk about the rapid sea level change as the North American ice sheet melted, so there is acknowledgement that such behavior is normal and precedented. But then there’s this: “DeConto and Pollard project more than three feet of sea level rise from Antarctica alone by 2100 — assuming growing greenhouse gas emissions that boost the planet’s temperature by about 4 degrees C (7 degrees F).” Seems like adaptation is more in order if the dire prospects fractiionally occur. Assuming a ~meter rise projected by Deconto and Pollard, that works out on average to almost 12 mm/year (1000 mm/ 85 years), a 4 fold increase. That’s quite an acceleration; Does this seem possible/reasonable?
What do these anamolies tell us? Just curious.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
What caught my eye last week is the disoriented claim made by a guest
blogger at WUWT that the high r.m.s. discrepancy (0.5K) between sonic
measurements of air temperature and those of sheltered thermometers render global station records incapable of resolving actual climatic variations.
Furthermore, while acknowledging that the central limit theorem applies to
time averages, he insists that it doesn’t apply to aggregate station
(ensemble) averages, because of the peculiar, nongaussian form of the
distribution of said discrepancies.
Alas, there is no recognition that those discrepancies, caused by solar
heating and sporadic interruptions of ventilation of the shelter are a
decidedly high-frequency phenomenon, with a spectral signature peaked
around the diurnal cycle. Upon decimation of sheltered data into a monthly
average temperature, the discrepancy becomes fixed and much reduced. The upward bias relative to true environmental temperature is by no means a
measurement error per se, but a well-known characteristic of actual
temperatures in the shelter. And it proves of little consequence to
climatological analyses, which rely upon anomalies rather than absolute
temperatures.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
“Let us not fool ourselves that there is no connection between the unusual number of deaths from the ongoing heat wave and the certainty of another failed monsoon,” Harsh Vardhan said, according to Reuters. “It’s not just an unusually hot summer, it is climate change.”
Sadly, climate change can devastate even more. Between the 1780s and early 1800s climate change killed people in the tens of millions of Indians (but not just Indians) through multiple monsoon failures. The El Nino events of the early 1790s would have wiped out the new colony at Sydney if anyone had anywhere to go.
Mind you, as the Sahel emerged from a longish pluvial after 1895 there were many deaths through climate change there. But it was the Indian monsoon failures of 1895-6 and 1899-1900 (mirrored in Australia’s 1896 Big Heat and subsequent Federation Drought) that took the most lives in that period.
Yes, it’s climate change. It always is. But climate change is the least favourite subject of a climate change expert. Go figure.
Here is Cook on Kimmel on Climate Hustle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cook/jimmy-kimmel-expert-clima_b_9854384.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change
A psychologist writing about a comedian who mocked a movie he didn’t see?
Fascinating.
Did the movie really interview Palin on climate change, or was she just advertising it?
I have seen a petition signed by over thirty thousand people, many who are scientists and engineers, who do not agree with the alarmism. I have seen another signed by over three thousand who do not agree with the alarmism. That alarmists have no such list. The huge number that make up the 97% will not sign anything. The have Model output on their side, but no real data.
Just like the old days – McIntyre posts, and RealClimate responds
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/comparing-models-to-the-satellite-datasets/
They didn’t link to or discuss either of the Climate Audit posts, nor did they “respond” to the issues that I raised. For example, Schmidt did not contest my observation that distributions in his histogram diagram result in a joint distribution of models and observations in which a model run trend will be higher than an observed trend about 99.5% of the time. Instead, they simply re-iterated their original point, without acknowledging or rebutting the criticisms. As you say, “just like the old days”.
I read this stuff and I still see that Models predict junk that never has been right. If the right numbers are a little different than Christy has presented, there is not enough difference to make the Model output reasonable. I go with Christy, Climat Model Output is much hotter than what really happens.
We shouldn’t live in fear of an unleashed climate chaos. An unexpected smashing together of improbable events against natural synchronized oscillators gone wild – a bigger Eyjafjallajökull out of the land of fire and ice, just as Earth skitters through solid waves of cosmic radiation from busted galaxies – is not looming, just waiting to happen the instant humanity to turns the next page. Still, at least prepare for the inevitability of global cooling: our thousand years is up!
“We shouldn’t live in fear of an unleashed climate chaos.”
Couldn’t agree more.
We should just accept it’s a possibility and work weaning the world off burning fossil.
Tony Banton
There’s a ‘possibility’ that another Carrington event will wipe out our electronic civilisation. Also a probability that cyber crime/terrorism/war will do the same. IMHO both a much greater possibility or probability than CAGW.
Shouldn’t we put possible catastrophic events into a pecking order and deal with them accordingly?
Tonyb
You are right, tonyb
Chaos is what you use to explain what you do not understand. Climate Chaos come from using computer model output to make guesses, that is real Chaos. Natural Climate repeats in well bounded cycles. There can be some Chaos inside some of the cycles but there is no Chaos in the upper or lower bounds. Again, Chaos is what you use to explain what you do not understand. It snows more when it is warm and that limits the upper bound. It snows less when it is cold and that limits the lower bound. There is no Chaos in this.
While there have been localised climate catastrophes in the last century (eg flooding in China 1930s, Dust Bowl US 1930s, Sahel Drought 1980s) possible global cataclysms would be volcanism on the scale of Laki or Tambora (fairly likely) as mentioned by Wag, a Carrington Event (not unlikely) as mentioned by tonyb or a Bond Event (the 4k is about up, if you’re into theory).
Should any of these occur, fossil fuels might start looking less of a problem and more of a blessing. As we know from Mao’s Great Famine, potty policy making can do more killing than unaided nature if the potty try hard enough. Let’s hope the war on fossil fuels doesn’t turn out to be like Mao’s war on sparrows.
The Roman and Medieval Warm periods lasted a few hundred years. This warm period is still in the early part of the natural cycle. It does snow more when it is warm, and it already snowing more, but it takes a few hundred years of more snow to take us into the next little ice age.
Palmer shows IRIS effect starting at 43:15
https://youtu.be/w-IHJbzRVVU?t=2595
Motl still not satisfied
https://youtu.be/w-IHJbzRVVU?t=2595
All those Russian dolls trying to turn cloudiness to
clockwork. Though the models, averaging many
opinions, diverge from observations, satellites,
radiosonde, surface estimates, and have done
so for quite a while, not to worry. It’s complicated,
no need to bother about refutations, we expect
weather to wander all over the place, even cooling
sometimes. Even the cognoscenti don’t get it all yet,
clouds are a bother, but give us more computing
and lots of time …
Query, ‘is water vapor a blanket trapping heat?’ as
Palmer says? I thought it just slowed down energy
radiation to space. Heat can’t back transport while
energy can go four ways but will still find its way up
and out. Good discussion on back radiation at
Jeff Id’s Air Vent.
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/why-back-radiation-is-not-a-source-of-surface-heating/
It’s all a big semantic quibble. Or tangle of multiple quibbles.
It is perfectly correct (if not very rigorous) to describe “slow[ing] down energy radiation to space” as “trapping heat”. It would be reasonable to say that the heat came from the sun, although it would also be reasonable to say that part of the heat comes from downwelling IR from the overlying air. Depends on how you define your terms.
It’s also perfectly correct (although also not very rigorous) to say that more CO2 or H2O vapor makes the surface warmer. This carries the implication of all other things being equal, including the shortwave solar radiation where the energy originally comes from.
The whole tangle of argument is just a semantic bait-and-switch.
A ‘tangle of argument,’ AK, a ‘tactic,’ yer might say?
I’d say probably not. To really understand the effect of CO2, H2O vapor, or any other greenhouse gas you have to see it in terms of the differential equations that describe the radiative transfer, from every point (infinitesimal parcel) to every other point.
What I’m pretty sure is going on is that many different people who do understand are trying to describe it in non-rigorous terms, and different people do it in different ways. Then people who don’t realize how superficial those descriptions are start to nit-pick, using different ways of defining the terms used.
When I try to simplify things I usually start with the fact that the radiation coming from any parcel (solid or fluid) depends entirely on it’s own temperature, as well as things like it’s own albedo, transparency, and color (which applies to IR just like visible light: people who talk about the atmosphere being a “grey body” are entirely misusing the analogy, IMO).
So the emitted radiation coming up from the surface is independent of the radiation coming back down from the overlying atmosphere. The latter depends on that atmosphere’s own temperature, as well as the other things I listed. Most importantly, transparency.
In the IR spectrum, both CO2 and H2O are brightly colored: they absorb specific bands much better than others, which means their transparency for different wavelengths is different. It’s also roughly proportional to local concentration: the transparency of any specific infinitesimal parcel at any wavelength will depend on the its absorption spectrum and its concentration.
So more CO2 or H2O will make the atmosphere more brightly colored in the IR the way more chlorine in air will make the air more brightly colored. (Chlorine absorbs some visible light.)
http://www.amazingrust.com/Experiments/how_to/Images/Chlorine_gas.jpg
Since both emission and absorption are proportional to concentration, higher GHG concentrations shorten both the path of absorption of upwelling IR from the ground (for those wavelengths the GHG isn’t completely transparent) and the similar path representing the origin of downwelling IR:
Given that air close to the ground is often dry (i.e. not cloudy), and usually pretty well mixed, the lapse rate tends to be pretty high, which means that the average temperature of the air from with the IR originates tends to be higher with greater GHG concentrations. (Because the path is shorter and the air is lower and thus warmer.) Most of this IR is absorbed by the surface (which is usually pretty indistinguishable from a black body for those wavelengths).
Now, where the semantic tangle comes in is with phrases like “warm the surface”. A higher GHG concentration means more downwelling radiation (usually, and on average), which is mostly absorbed, but almost always less than the amount leaving the surface. So the net radiative transport is almost always upwards. But that net is the difference between the upwelling IR from the ground (which is independent of atmospheric GHG concentrations) and the downwelling IR from the overlying atmosphere, which will vary with varying GHG concentrations, both CO2 and H2O. (And remember that there’s some overlap in their absorption spectra, but not complete overlap.)
The above comparison is between two states that are identical except for varying GHG concentrations: same surface temp, same atmospheric temp and lapse rate, and no clouds, because clouds make it all much more complex.
It’s also a comparison at a single point in time (t0). Assuming two such otherwise identical states, at night, the one with more GHG will see slower cooling of the surface, which means that at any time ti=t0+x the one with more GHG will be warmer. Even here, we aren’t accounting for conduction of heat to the (presumably cooler) overlying air. (When the overlying air isn’t cooler, the cooling ground tends to produce an inversion layer over it, which will often be insulated from local wind, and reduce conductive heat loss to much less than radiative.)
During the day, it gets more complex, because incoming solar radiation tends to add
heatenergy to the surface. Any particular parcel of surface will tend to get into local equilibrium (the only kind there is for a planet like ours), among incoming energy from radiation, outgoing energy via radiation, and conduction.In the comparison described above, the parcel in the case with higher GHG concentration will tend to equilibrate at a higher temperature. So, all other things being equal, GHG’s will “warm the surface”.
All of the above descriptions are only correct for the right definition of the terms I used, which is why it’s really much better to approach the whole thing using the differential equations that actually describe the situation. Any discussion in “plain Engerish” is going to be non-rigorous, and very open to nit-picking using slippery definitions.
Thx for comprehensive description, AK.
Yer welcome, Beth.
Professor Curry,
I admire your keen intellect and tenacity in this seemingly endless climate debate. It is not a scientific debate, but testimony to the political power promoting the AGW dogma.
“I admire your keen intellect and tenacity in this seemingly endless climate debate. It is not a scientific debate, but testimony to the political power promoting the AGW dogma.”
I’d put it differently.
It’s testimony to the political power promoting AGW denial.
“Dr Tsonis is an American atmospheric scientist and distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee”
testimony to the political power promoting the AGW denial.
Or as you would put it
“and another one bites the dust?”
“Marcel Nicolaus, a sea ice physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute also discussed the CryoSat data showing that much of the remaining [Arctic] thick, multiyear sea ice is positioned where it will be pushed southward and melt. Once those thicker slabs are gone, there’s nothing to prevent the remaining sheets of thinner ice from drifting south and melting, he said.”
–
So thick ice melts earlier than thin ice and the ice is thicker the further south one goes?
Lucky science never stands in the way of a good argument.
Will PIOMAS be able to be produced with the satellites down? Surely they contribute a small amount to the estimation.
Will it be acknowledged that the data base is different for this month.
You ask such piercing questions. It’s a wonder AGW, let alone cAGW and CAGW, has survived your interrogatives.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Global_seaice/hi_arctic_antarctic.gif
“The remaining [Arctic] thick, multiyear sea ice is positioned where it will be pushed southward and melt. So thick ice melts earlier than thin ice and the ice is thicker the further south one goes?”
You may have missed the added [Arctic] in brackets put in specifically so dunderheads like you and me would not go off to the other end of the world, but still you went?
Your other [old] graph shows ice blocked by land not a sea edge, you got me there!
Perhaps you could put a graph up of a glacier next.
Have fun but old Nicolaus’ comments are still funny and unscientific.
A time-line for the perplexed:
April 19th and May 5th: Steve McIntyre posts blog articles discussing Gavin Schmidt’s statistical failings regarding the descriptions of model ensembles that run hot.
May 7th 2:37 pm Steven Mosher lauds Mcintyre for being “The real skeptic.”
May 7th 4:47 pm Steven Mosher asserts that he finds it hilarious that so many skeptics “blather on about the statistics of ensembles” and that they also “blather on about models running hot”.
re: Steve McIntyre — I would think that after 10 years of getting their noses rubbed in their own excrement that Gavin and his friends would get a clue.
At the end of the day, can we all agree that the Sun’s internal dynamo determines both sunspots and Earth’s climate?
https://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/why-does-the-climate-debate-drag-on/
Melting ice is causing the Earth’s axis to shift direction [link]
The spin axis is suddenly changing because of man-made climate change.
WHAT? The spin axis has always been changing due to natural causes.
This is one more bit of alarmist garbage.
Here’s an interesting paper comparing ECHO-G model results with reconstructions of the AMOC over the last millennium.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-016-3111-x
“Could a strengthened AMOC have led to an enhanced Atlantic heat transport into the Arctic and thus contributed to the observed recent summer Arctic SIE decline?”
No because the heat transport is increased during negative North Atlantic Oscillation episodes, and the slow MOC events are during the negative NAO episodes, e.g. both ends of 2010, summer 2012, March 2013 etc.
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/
“Increased Arctic sea ice volume after anomalously low melting in 2013”
I had forecast that well in advance as I knew that summer 2013 would see positive NAO conditions.
“Effects of Arctic sea ice decline on weather and climate: a review”
The negative NAO/AO episodes driving the cold winter periods, and the simultaneous Arctic warming events, are down to short term solar effects and not internal variability. Rising greenhouse gases should increase positive NAO/AO, so rationally would tend to cool the Arctic by strengthening the polar vortex and reducing warm ocean transport into the Arctic. Which is probably the type of reason why Venus has polar regions at around -159°C, while on Saturn the polar regions are only around 10°C cooler than the mid latitudes.
Sorry I don’t buy Arctic Amplification.
From the article:
…
Climate change strikes again. A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change, and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline. The Solomon Islands has a population of a little more than 500,000 people, many of whom have been adversely affected by rising sea levels in recent years. NASA scientist James Hansen estimated that seas could rise by seven meters within the next century. In 2014, Losing Ground issued a report that shows how large areas of the Louisiana coastline are being lost to rising sea levels.
…
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/05/09/2252209/five-solomon-islands-disappear-into-the-pacific-ocean-as-a-result-of-climate-change
From the article:
…
In 50 years, most of southeastern Louisiana not protected by levees will be part of the Gulf of Mexico. The state is losing a football field of land every 48 minutes — 16 square miles a year — due to climate change, drilling and dredging for oil and gas, and levees on the Mississippi River
…
http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana/#
Jim2: I hope natural rates and ranges of geologic subsidence are included in both of the above 2 articles/studies. Islands and delta fronts, and/or portions of them, are very commonly subsiding landforms.
Yes. I still think about Katrina, fodder at the time for Algore. Idi0ts build below sea level then blame everyone but themselves for the problem. But the articles about Louisiana and the Solomon islands are total bunk.
Sssshhh…! We have to hide the descent!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6623
The very first article is a good example of crap science. Inexact descriptions – cork and wine bottle – using big numbers without context because they sound impressive, based primarily on models and lots of hyperbole.
Interesting that Robert DeConto thinks we are not keeping up with 3 mm per year. Obviously not a Civil Engineer. What is with people who talk about feet and meters of slr, when the rate is 3 mm per year? Are they so besotted with their models that they can’t do simple airthmatic?
Coal Consequences
WV: Hillary loses 2/3 of support from 2008
Unbelievable.
Who ever needs to vote, hold a secret meeting and science will come.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/science/synthetic-human-genome.html?_r=0
If the pattern holds though it will matter those ‘created’ in the future.
More alarmism – BUSTED!
From the article:
…
Between 2010 and 2013 residents of the states surrounding the Great Lakes were told that climate change was permanently altering their environment and the record low water levels being recorded in the lakes may be the new normal. But now, only three years later, news reports are worried about beach erosion because the lakes have rebounded to record high levels of water.
This week, throughout the Chicago media landscape, as well as in reports in Michigan and Wisconsin, stories about a loss of swimming areas on public beaches are filling airwaves and newspaper pages. Residents and city officials are warning citizens that water levels in Lake Michigan and the other lakes are so high that the shallow swimming areas have been reduced as the water rises. Reports are also express worry over beach erosion and fears that the rising water is a danger to other infrastructure like roads.
…
But even as these news outlets are shocked and concerned about the record high levels of water filling the Great Lakes to overflowing today, only a few short years ago these same sort of news outlets were worried that the lakes were irreversibly shrinking and that climate change was desolating both commerce and the environment.
In 2013, for instance, Chicago’s Public Television WTTW bemoaned a “dramatic” change in the climate that was warming the lakes, lowering water levels, and threatening to destroy commerce and the environment.
The local PBS story also went national as the PBS Newshour ran stories on the environmental disaster the lakes were experiencing.
In 2012 National Geographic sonorously warned that the “climate-related trend” was on the verge of laying waste to the region.
Crain’s Detroit was also writing in 2013 that communities living on the edges of the region’s monumental bodies of water were going to have to “adapt” to the new normal of climate change.
Naturally, far left sources were absolutely sure that global warming was drying up the lakes. In 2013 far left website Think Progress worried its readers with claims that climate change was “damaging” the lakes and would present “implications for the environment and the economy.”
…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/10/great-lakes-go-from-climate-change-induced-low-water-levels-to-record-highs-in-3-years/
Climate scientist change – pushback against alarmism!!
From the article:
…
No the Pacific islands are not drowning because of climate change – and all the media outlets who insist on claiming otherwise really need to get a grip.
This is the highly unusual message in the normally eco-hysterical Guardian from a scientific researcher evidently disgusted by the way any new paper even remotely connected with climate change is seized on by the usual media suspects as further proof of imminent “man-made global warming” catastrophe.
Dr Simon Albert, a researcher at the School of Biological Sciences at University of Queensland, was speaking out in irritation at the way a paper he had published in Environmental Research Letters on the Solomon Islands had been misrepresented by alarmists.
Among the offending newspapers which had used it to generate hysterical headlines was – you guessed it – the Guardian. ‘Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits‘, it reported last week. The New York Times, the Washington Post and Think Progress covered the story in similarly apocalyptic terms.
…
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/12/scientist-to-liberal-media-no-climate-change-is-not-drowning-pacific-islands/
It was the Kimikaze Wind that done the dunes under:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/fileadmin/images/data/Products/indic/msl/MSL_Map_EN_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png
So now maybe they’re reemerging:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/fileadmin/images/data/Products/indic/msl/MSL_Map_J2_Global_IB_RWT_NoGIA_Adjust.png
Well, maybe not… La Nina.
There must have been a cause for The Telegraph to bring the downfall of their Earth tab since they changed their front page online. Science and then Earth,…? All seems quiet on the western front these days.
This speaks volumes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/05/10/ancient-bubbles-in-australian-rocks-show-early-earths-air-weighe/
Is it weather yet?