another kick at the climate change cat ... 34

[rb1957]

i think the problems with burning fossil fuels are that we're returning carbon to the atmosphere at an unnatural rate, and that there was a very long interval between when the carbon was deposited from the atmosphere and when it's getting returned to it.

the second problem is meant to say that bio-fuels, which take from and return to the atmosphere over a short timescale, probably won't have the same effect on the global climate as compared to fossil fuels. Though, of course, once we start doing this on a global scale and derive meaningfull amounts of energy this way then there'll be unforeseen side effects.

i think it's reasonable to say that the global climate is changing; and that this would be happening even without mankind's contributions.

i think it's reasonable to say that atmospheric CO2 levels change with climate. i think the record shows that previously (say before the 20th century) that CO2 increased sometime after the global temperature increased.

i think it's reasonable to say that the amount of carbon we putting into the atmosphere has the potential to affect global climate. this is i think too wishy-washy "for the masses" so we're being told carbon is changing the climate ... maybe a simple message but one that has divided those wanting more explanation.

once you say that then i think it's reasonable to ask is this a bad thing, ie do we want to change ? We have to acknowledge that energy is the means to developing our economies. adding hydro, geo-thermal, wind and solar power aren't bad things ... there's a cost and a benefit associated. clearly there are some places that can really benefit for these (because of sustained sunlight or wind or water resources or etc). becoming more efficient in our energy consumption is clearly a good thing, though i suspect that won't gain us significant relief. i worry that developing economies are progressing along the same energy path that the developed countries have used, and that maybe there are "better" choices today.

we can't (won't) stop burning fossil fuels, we need the cheap energy. we can be a little smarter and make power stations more efficient but essentially we're dependent on fossil fuels. we're reluctant to persue the nuclear option, though i wish more research money was being directed at fusion power which i see as the only truly long term option.

it is IMHO nonsense to talk about reducing CO2 production to 1990 (or 2000 or whatever) levels principally because developing economies (China in particular, and probably India as well) are going to be burning more and more fossil fuels. carbon sequestration is also IMHO a nonsense technology unless you're talking about growing trees (and biomass). it is also IMHO nonsense to talk about sustainability ... truly sustainable energy would mean using energy resources at the same rate as they're being created (ie no fossil fuels or nukes) or available (solar, wind, hydro, geo-thermal). but then maybe that's one answer to the question, and we'll make truly huge investments in these "green" energies so that we'll increase the fraction of energy we derive from these sources, maybe enough to significantly reduce the carbon output.

if we're going to pay taxes on carbon (through whichever scheme you choose) ... where's the money going ? what's it doing to fix the "problem" ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[rb1957]

the boxer, eh?

not sure of your point about progress,
nor horses, governments, and holding pens ...

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[GregLocock]

Not really cranky, I have to skim 20 or so technical articles every day. That encourages a rather brutal way of reading. If they lead with a good abstract of what they are going to discuss, and it makes sense, then I'll probably carry on reading. If instead they lead with a silly argument, I turn to the next one. I do the same with posts.


Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rb1957]

greg, you must be brutal going through resumes !
(much like myself)

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[rconnor]

Straw man. Didn't bother reading the rest.

Just perfect...

The skeptics main issue is does anthropogenic CO2 affect global temperatures significantly

Like this?
[image

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png

]

Also, I have addressed TGS4's point in detail at his new thread. It doesn't matter what metric you choose to look at, they all show signs of increased energy in our climate and are all consistent with the anthropogenic climate change theory.

I'm willing to bend on the whole "air temperature pause invalidates the models" meme if you can tell me what time scale would be necessary to validate them? What timescale is necessary to remove the supposedly-stochastic ENSO effects?

I've already answered this. It's not about durations, it's about having a complete understanding of the temperatures in that period.

If in the next 15 years or so, with a few El Nino’s, maybe one La Nina and a few neutral years, we still see steady temperatures THEN climate models have a problem

To conclude, although there has been a slowing of global temperatures as of late, the “pause” does not invalidate the anthropogenic climate change theory. In fact, with our current understanding of global climate, you’d expect a temporary halt to surface temperature warming if studying a period that starts with a strong El Nino event and ends with a double-dip La Nina. You’d also expect that deep oceans appear to be warming faster than the upper ocean during La Nina events. And that is what we are seeing. No shifting the goal posts, no shell game, no reliance on evil climate models – just surface temperatures, OHC and ENSO.

Or furthermore, if my analysis of the different ENSO years showed a decrease in the temperature of Neutral Years over a significant period of time, that would also have caused problems for the models. I really didn't know what was going to come of that analysis but the data and analysis showed it not only isn't a problem but further strengthens the theory.

[image

http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_FigSPM-6.jpg

]

Quarendo Invenietis.

 

[GregLocock]

Well I don't want to bore you, but you may have heard the old saw correlation does not imply causation. I'm sure you have seen the equally amusing plot of the number of pirates vs global average temperature.

More seriously, at a lab scale one can predict the effect of CO2 on a greenhouse effect, but for the GCM programs that were championed, but that have recently been ignored, by the IPCC, it is necessary to multiply the effect of of CO2 by a rather large scaling factor to get things to work. One might assume that the recent increasingly large disparities between the temperature gradient and the CO2 concentration might cause a bit of a rethink, and to some extent it has. The EU has just dropped its regulations concerning CO2 quite significantly, whilst Germany is building 12-30 new coal fired plants and the UK is going to reduce its windpower subsidies to a mere token.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rb1957]

you have to admit, rconnor puts a lot into his posts.

we've seen the "temperature, CO2, sunspots" graph many times. to me it seems extremely unlikely that CO2 deposited into the atmosphere in 1990 changed the global climate in 1990. sure they are highly correlated in the short term, but surely the time lag of the overall system of global climate would take some time to respond ? Further we are talking about a small portion of the C budget when we look at CO2 produced by man (from FF and wood) .... the rest of the biosphere is happily adding and removing C from the atmosphere, you'd think that the population increase over the years and the change in land use would have a significant effect.

i think (as i said starting this thread) that it is unreasonable that propose that CO2 being added now is affecting the climate now. As i understand the ice core record, there is a repeatably observed 800 year lag between temperature increase and CO2 increases. this (why the lag?) i think is an excellent topic from climate science to investigate and to show the mechanism of global climate.

i think it is more reasonable to ask will today's CO2 impact the future climate (since we adding CO2 into the atmosphere in an "unnatural" way) ? if we understood the answer to the previous question we might be better positioned to answer this one.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[btrueblood]

..."the population increase over the years and the change in land use would have a significant effect"...

Maybe a huge portion of observed temperature rises over recent decades is due to increased deforestation. I had this thought when reading about the island of Niihau (whose rainfall levels have increased in concert with reforestation efforst) and some other tropical islands (typically displaying the same correlation but in the opposite direction) and desert/near-desert areas. We know clouds moderate global temperatures, and if the best source of continental moisture evaporation and cloud formation is trees...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=news-scan-briefs-jul-09

 

[rb1957]

from drroyspencer ... attached pic.

sure it shows "only" 50 years, but ... "where's the warming ?". if today's CO2 output is heating today's atmosphere, what's happening to reverse the awful warming ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[TGS4]

rb1957 - I can discern some amount of warming over the 35 years demonstrated in that graph. Lots of ups and downs that speak well to non-trivial amounts of "natural variability". The only anthropogenic fingerprint I see, though, is in the ingenuity of the people who developed and maintain such remote sensing systems. (I still maintain my objection to this temperature-averaging scheme, as with all temperature-averaging schemes that don't include for humidity effects).

 

[GregLocock]

Here's the issue. Over the past 16+ years according to hadcrut3 data, the average temperature gradient is zero. If we ignore 1998 for some reason that sounds a bit non scientific to me, then the pause is 12 years.

If you look at the deviation of the average of the GCM models from the historical record


First chart here

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/

it is pretty clear that there is a strong divergence between the two starting in 2004. If we have a process P and a model of that process M, and randomly distributed noise N with a mean of zero, and P=M+N,then the probability of getting 7 consecutive results of either M>P or P>M in a row is 2^-6, so we are getting 98% confidence that there is a strong effect unaccounted for in the GCMs. I expect this is the ocean. However rather agin' that is the chart further down of Ocean Heat Content, which shows a decrease in gradient in the 2000s when according to the 'hiding in the ocean theory' the gradient should be INCREASING. Well there's a puzzle a real scientist could work on instead of endlessly recalibrating failed atmospheric models.








Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

Hmmmm, the oceans have warmed by 0.1 deg C since 1980. The atmosphere has warmed by 0.5. The heat capacity of the oceans is approximately 800 times that of the atmosphere. Perhaps more sensible models woud regard the atmosphere as a very thin layer of jam in a sandwich between the oceans and space.


Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rb1957]

wouldn't jam be a better conductor ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

So if; heat content + solar heat + heat generated on earth - heat lost = new heat content, so the solution is so simple, tax carbon. One would tend to think increase heat loss, but no one knows how to do that.

 

[rconnor]

rb1957 and GregLocock, I’ve answered this question about “where the warming went” aka the “pause” so many times already (in reverse chronological order):
1. 16 Jan 14 1:50 (second half)
2. 13 Jan 14 2:26 (“The “Pause” is About Models, Not Temperatures”)
3. 8 Jan 14 17:23 (directed to you, the majority of the post)
4. 7 Jan 14 18:08 (“Climate Model Accuracy and “The Pause””)
5. 23 Dec 13 18:23 (“”Shifting the Goal Posts”” and “Ocean Temperature Rise”)
6. 19 Dec 13 18:10 (the entire post)
7. 20 Nov 13 15:12 (“The Pause,…”)
8. 26 Sep 13 14:10 (on another thread)
9. 24 Sep 13 17:28 (on another thread)

Greg, since you’ve brought up a “new” point on 0-700m OHC not accelerating during the “pause”, I guess we can count the following as the 10th time…

Deep OHC (…again)
It’s not really new at all. I’ve already explicitly discussed how 0-2000m OHC has increased at a faster rate than near surface OHC during the “pause”. Palmer et al 2011 discusses the importance of deep ocean heat content when examining climate change. The graphs below shows this clearly.
From NOAA:
See above posts

From Abraham et al 2013:
[image

http://www.scilogs.de/wblogs/gallery/16/Abraham_2013.png

]

This is supported by other studies such as Balmaseda et al 2013, Meehl et al 2013 and Meehl et al 2011; they directly disprove GregLocock’s claim. They show that during “hiatus” periods, which are dominated by La Nina’s, that OHC increases more rapidly, especially in the deep ocean.

From Meehl et al 2011:
[image

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Hiatus.png

]

This matches, quite closely, what we know about ENSO. Namely, in La Nina events, which have dominated the “pause” period, warm water pools deeper in the ocean near Indonesia. So, we would expect a La Nina dominated period to (1) have cooler surface temperatures and (2) deep ocean OHC would continue to rise, likely faster than the upper ocean. That is exactly what we are seeing.

A study (Kosaka and Xie 2013), done after the article you referenced, does an excellent job at explaining the effect the La Nina dominated period has had on global temperatures. As the mechanism surrounding ENSO occurs in the Pacific Ocean, the paper looks at that area in particular. Kosaka and Xie have simulated how global temperatures would have responded to a consistent sea surface temperature in the Pacific (i.e. No ENSO), “HIST”. They ran the same simulation using actual temperature for the Pacific (i.e. what actually happened), “POGA-H”. They are examining what temperature trends would look like had there been no ENSO events (either El Nino or La Nina). This is what I was demonstrating with my analysis of separated ENSO years but just much more thorough and detailed.

The following is a graph of their results. Again, “HIST” represents temperature trends if there were no ENSO effect, “POGA-H” represents the actual temperature trend.
[image

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/hist_pogah1.jpeg

]

“POGA-H” data should match the observed data, if the simulation is accurate. Here is the comparison:
[image

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/pogah_cru.jpeg

]

All three together:
[image

http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/files/2013/08/KX1.gif

]

Not only does their analysis matches observed trends extremely well (demonstrating the accuracy of their simulation) but it also, when the effects of ENSO are negated, shows continued warming throughout the “pause”. This is consistent with other similar studies, such as Foster and Rahmstorf 2011. My analysis of separated ENSO years and these studies all show the same conclusion– “neutral” ENSO conditions show steady, continued global warming both in the long term (30+ years) and in the short term (the “pause”).

Although ENSO cannot contribute to a long term climate trend (30+ years) because it has no mechanism to influence radiative imbalances, it has been the cause of the recent hiatus in warming. However, as the radiative imbalance still exists (which is evident on multiple independent lines of evidence from OHC, humidity, global ice, snow coverage, etc), when the La Nina dominated period ends (some may refer to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation), the warming will resume.

Lack of Arctic Coverage (…again)
Furthermore, the Arctic is one of the regions heating the most rapidly on the planet as of late. It is also the area with the very little coverage in most data sets. A new study (Cowton and Way 2013), done after the article you referenced, addresses the lack of coverage. The study determines that when accounting for the coverage gap in the Arctic, global temperature trend from 1998-2012 becomes 0.12 °C/decade – this exactly matches the trend from 1951-2012. More details on the paper and the method used, can be found here.

This demonstrates that the issue is actually a cool bias in the observations, not so much a warming bias in the models.

Low Solar Activity (…again)
Although not a major factor in changes in global climate trends, the sun is in period of low solar activity which would reduce the rate of warming. REMEMBER: I’ve already discussed that the sun is, of course, the main driver of our climate but changes in solar activity have been demonstrated to have only a small effect on changes in global temperature trends. The effect is also oscillatory and the short term cool trend soon becomes a short term warming trend.

Conclusions (…again)
This is the 10th time I’ve had to say this:

To conclude, although there has been a slowing of global temperatures as of late, the “pause” does not invalidate the anthropogenic climate change theory. In fact, with our current understanding of global climate, you’d expect a temporary halt to surface temperature warming if studying a period that starts with a strong El Nino event and ends with a double-dip La Nina. You’d also expect that deep oceans would continue to warm even during La Nina events. And that is what we are seeing. No shifting the goal posts, no shell game, no reliance on evil climate models – just surface temperatures, OHC and ENSO.

.

Again, as climate models cannot predict ENSO events (because they are inherently stochastic), a period dominated by El Nino’s will have climate models run cool and a period dominated by La Nina’s will have climate models run hot. As ENSO is about the temporary storage and release of energy from the oceans, it has no effect on long term climate imbalances. I’ve demonstrated this, quite clearly, with my analysis of the separate ENSO years and backed it up with various peer-reviewed studies - which all show a very consistent warming trend amongst ENSO neutral years that is consistent with long term observed trends and climate models.

10th time’s the charm?

 

[GregLocock]

Good, we agree, the oceans are likely to be far more important. I see no particular sign of a gradient change since 2000 but it is a little hard to get excited about 0-2000m data when the /average/ depth of oceanic water is 3700m.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rconnor]

Good, we agree, the oceans are likely to be far more important

...I’ve talked about OHC in pretty well all 10 of my arguments against the “pause”. You’ve ignored them up to this point and now act like you’ve made a novel point, which I’ve been forced to concede...

But ya, we agree the oceans are important. You can’t talk about global warming without discussing oceans. Once you factor in oceans, it becomes apparent the “pause” is not a valid argument. Thanks for reinforcing that point.

I see no particular sign of a gradient change since 2000

...look at the graph from Meehl et al 2011. Hiatus periods show increased warming in the ocean below 350m - exactly in line with what we would expect during La Nina dominated periods (heat storage). Non-hiatus periods show accelerated warming in the ocean surface (0-350m) - exactly in line with what we'd expect during El Nino or neutral periods (heat release). But regardless of the ENSO period, the oceans continue to warm at all depths - which means it's either MAGIC! or we have a continued radiative imbalance.

but it is a little hard to get excited about 0-2000m data when the /average/ depth of oceanic water is 3700m.

1) ...and my side gets accused of shifting the goal posts...your last post talked about the lack [sic] of accelerated warming in 0-700 m being a knockdown argument against my deconstructions of the “pause”. Then I explain you need to look deeper into the problem (pun). So you go, "well that’s not deep enough!"
2) It's also warming.

Purkey and Johnson 2010 concluded that global abyssal OHC is increasing at a rate of 0.027 ± 0.009 W/m2. Or a more complete tabulation of their results:
[image

http://i.imgur.com/2mWYfiQ.png

]
Kouketsu et al 2011 concluded that below 3000 m, oceans gained heat at a rate of +0.8x10^22 J/decade
Johnson et al 2007 concluded "The abyssal section-mean Δθ values range from 0.004° to 0.01°C"

As I said, it's also warming. Certainly not at the rate of the upper ocean, it's ~1/7th the rate, but that is expected. It is certainly not the case that the increase in upper OHC can be accounted for in a decrease in abyssal OHC - both are increasing in heat content. Again, this is either MAGIC! or a radiative imbalance.
Abyssal ocean coverage isn't as complete as 0-700m or 0-2000m coverage, so it isn't discussed as often. But it is warming and the warming is statistically significant. So, I'm assuming you're in support of spending more money on improving abyssal ocean coverage then? I agree because, as the studies also show warming, it would be important to get a better understanding of yet another aspect of climate that disproves the "pause" as a valid argument. Thanks for reinforcing that point.

Make it 11.

Give the "pause" a fitting end, bury it at sea.

 

[rb1957]

we've seen the attach global temp record going back millions of years.

i'll buy the end-of-glaciation story ( a small change, orbital?, initiates warming, which is then accelerated by natural CO2 and H2O).

but looking at the graph two other things leap out ...
1) there is certainly a hot steady state, consistently over millions of years, over serval glaciation events. what caused the warming to stop ? and
2) what initiated the glaciation events ? what triggered the cooling ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[rb1957]

attachment for the previous post ... sigh

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

The new theory is that the change in the earths magnitic field is the cause of warming. It goes on to say that the decline in the field allows more energy from the sun to cause additional warming of the earth.
This is thought to be part of the process of the earths pole reversal, which is over due. This decline is thought to be happening for the last 150 to 200 years, and would cause large holes in the ozone layers bigger than what has been seen to date.
This increase in high energy particals is also expected to increase cancer rates, and disrupt the power grid, and communications world wide.

So what are you going to do about it?

 

[Compositepro]

Here is some relevant news about corruption at the EPA.

Wall Street Journal excerpt:
Last month we told you about John Beale, the Environmental Protection Agency employee who bilked taxpayers out of almost $900,000 by pretending to be a secret agent. Telling EPA colleagues that he was a CIA operative, Beale was paid for long absences while on imaginary missions for "Langley." Now there is a disturbing new question about John Beale that goes to the heart of the EPA's mission. What was he doing when he actually showed up for work?

In September, Beale pleaded guilty to theft of government property and agreed to pay $886,186 in restitution and to forfeit another $507,207. On Wednesday he was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison.

The Beale affair is a classic story of government waste, fraud and mismanagement. But it is much more than that, because Beale was no low-level bureaucrat, unknown to senior officials and operating in the depths of the agency. He was among the EPA's most senior, most highly paid officials, one entrusted with formulating the agency's most controversial policies. Thus the consequences of his EPA tenure go far beyond the specific fraud for which he will now go to prison.

The whole article is here:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303773704579266022892025230