The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate 11

[Maui]

These "small" volcanic eruptions are being viewed by some scientists as potentially having a greater influence on earth's climate than was previously believed:

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/01/s...?et_cid=4359172&et_rid=407330416&location=top

Please do not allow the vitriolic verbal pyrotechnics of your fellow contributors overshadow the points that you are attempting to make in your replies.

Maui

 

[rconnor]

You’re confusing long-term and short-term.

It wasn’t really until 2008, during a strong La Nina, that observations dropped near the bottom (cold) end of model runs. Since 2008, we’ve had 4 La Nina years and 1 El Nino year (2010, which is the hottest year on record*). So the period we are talking about is very short-term and highly influence by La Nina events. If we extend back a little further, to 2000, we’ve had 7 La Nina’s and 1 El Nino. Still a short-term period in climatic sense and an even stronger influence of La Nina events.

ENSO is stochastic. Some model runs predict an El Nino state, others predict a La Nina state. The “average” model run predicts close to an ENSO neutral state (it’s not 50/50 though). So, if the past 5 to 10 years have been dominated by La Nina events (negative PDO), then observations will sit below the “average”. And they do. However, as long as they are accurate in other metrics (i.e. sensitivity, forcings, etc.), models that did, by chance, accurately predict the correct ENSO state, should match with the observations. And they do.

So, yes, of course models that match the ENSO state with the observed state will be more accurate in the short-term than models that don’t match ENSO states. However, in the long-term, ENSO states oscillate between El Nino dominated periods (positive PDO) and La Nina dominated periods (negative PDO) and so the long-term impact is negligible.

As I’ve said before, the ENSO state has a very large impact on temperature in a given year. As ENSO states flop between La Nina (storage of heat in the oceans) and El Nino (release of heat from the oceans), temperature trends will be pulled down and pushed up temporarily. However, there is no known mechanism within ENSO events that can lead to long-term impacts. That remains true and is not contradicted by anything I said here.

Does this address your concern?

(* - I’m not going into whether 2014 was the hottest year or not. It matters very little.)

 

[GTTofAK]

I think you are confusing models with reality. Models treat the ENSO as stochastic. That does not make it stochastic in the real word. Modeling it as a stochastic event is a simply way to get around something you dont fully understand.

 

[GTTofAK]

The fact that the ENSO has to be modeled as a stochastic shows the logical fallacy in your "However, there is no known mechanism within ENSO events that can lead to long-term impacts." Argumentum ad ignorantiam since we don't know enough about it to model it as anything but a stochastic event then the statement of no known mechanism is meaningless, it would only have some meaning if we had a much greater understanding of the ENSO than we presently do.

 

[rconnor]

Perhaps stochastic isn't the best word to use in the real-world context. You are correct. However, we do understand what ENSO is and what is does. ENSO is about the temporary release or storage of heat from the oceans resulting from the temporary changing in trade winds. It has a large impact on the temperatures that year. It doesn't have a long-term impact. It doesn't impact the long-term energy balance of the planet. What we don't understand is what causes it. This appears to be a mute point when we're concerned about the long-term global climate change because we understand that ENSO has a very short-term impact.

Furthermore, if you compare El Nino years with El Nino years, ENSO neutral years with ENSO neutral years, and La Nina years with La Nina years, they all warm at about the same rate. This further suggests that ENSO is short-term noise amidst a long-term signal. Beyond that, even if magically we went into a perpetual La Nina state, the planet would still continue to warm.

ENSO is simply not important to the long-term climate trend. It is, however, very useful if you want to cherry pick a short-term period to falsely conclude the planet hasn't been warming.

 

[GTTofAK]

Those are some pretty absolute statements for such a poorly understood system.

"However, we do understand what ENSO is and what is does."

"ENSO is"

"It has"

"It doesn't"

"ENSO has"

I hope you can see the contradiction.

 

[rconnor]

ENSO is like volcanoes. We don’t know when they’ll occur but we know quite well what happens after they occur.

 

[GTTofAK]

"ENSO is like volcanoes. We don’t know when they’ll occur but we know quite well what happens after they occur. "

Isn't this thread about us not being able to model what happens after volcanic eruptions occur?

I think you need to chose a story and stick with it. It doesn't help you cause when you contradict the original premiss to rebut a side issue.

 

[IRstuff]

You continue to confuse or conflate trying to predict transient, unpredictable events in a long term model with not being able to model the transient events at all. They're not equivalent. This is why transient effects ENSO can be modeled the complete climate, IF, and only IF, you add a special routine to initiate the ENSO in the climate model. There's no contradiction here.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[GTTofAK]

"You continue to confuse or conflate trying to predict transient, unpredictable events in a long term model with not being able to model the transient events at all."

Don't speak in absolutes. I'm not questioning if they can model them at all. I'm questioning if they model them well. This thread is about clay models not being able to model volcanoes well. So don't try and argue that we understand the ENSO which was discovered in the early 80s better than we understand volcanoes.

 

[GTTofAK]

My mistake. Walker winds which are a major driving force were discovered in the early 20th century. A more complete understanding came about in the early 80s.

 

[rconnor]

Isn't this thread about us not being able to model what happens after volcanic eruptions occur?

This thread is about the short-term impact of small volcanic eruptions having a slightly stronger cooling effect than previously thought. When you correct for this, it becomes even more clear that the short-term discrepancy between models and observations is more to do with short-term internal variability than overestimating sensitivity or underestimating negative feedbacks. This research does not impact long-term trends.

Your attempt to use a minor improvement in our understanding of short-term volcanic impacts as evidence that we know nothing about ENSO (and to use that as evidence that we don't know anything about long-term climate trends) is a nothing more than sophism.

 

[cranky108]

So if you use an estimation of random events in a model, should you have a result with a limited random distribution, such as a high and low event estimation (margin of error). And to that there should be a confidence factor.

This is a sort of probibility based result of future events. But I haven't seen that as of yet. Just this is what the model states results.

If we take this to an extreem, what odds should we give to warming, and to cooling, and to the same? Call these bets as future weather contracts.

These already exist, but are mainly short term rain contracts.

 

[beej67]

Anybody posted this one yet?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...icked-with-flawed-data-on-global-warming.html

And a followup article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

The article(s) focus on an argument I don't often bother myself with - that the temperature records are in error and the globe may not be warming. I don't typically bother defending that point of view, but I also would much prefer the science to be based on good data.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[rb1957]

your pix miss the important point that the first is the "adjusted data" and the second is "raw" data (placment of quotes is intentional).

i agree that this is a bit of a side show, but many people are convinced by "look at the data" and that i think makes it important. i find it interesting that the "adjusted data" also fills in some years when there was no "raw" data recorded ??

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[rconnor]

Beej67, unbelievable. Let’s look at your posts in this thread:
- Maui opens a thread on volcanoes
- You post about population and ground cover changes (completely random and totally off topic)
- You post about aerosol-cloud dynamics (slightly on topic but misses the point)
- You post about cloud cover change (…now completely off topic)
- You post on the climate sensitivity change in AR5 (completely off topic AND with zero response to/defense of your last argument)
- You post about models accuracy (accidently slightly back on topic but, again, misses the point)
- Now you post on temperature data (completely random and totally off topic AND with zero response to/defense of your last argument)

If you want to post unrelated nonsense, open a new thread. Actually, don’t. Instead, apply the slightly ounce of (actual) skepticism to the nonsense you gobble up, understand that it’s actually nonsense and, rightly, decide not to post such nonsense.

Cranky, I really think there’s a lot of good talking points in your post (that builds slightly on what rb1957 and I were discussing). I’ll get to it soon.

 

[GTTofAK]

"Your attempt to use a minor improvement in our understanding of short-term volcanic impacts as evidence that we know nothing about ENSO (and to use that as evidence that we don't know anything about long-term climate trends) is a nothing more than sophism."

Since we are at 18 years of model diversion how long until the short term becomes long term. I know that alarmists like to call the "climate normal" 30 years.

As for "sophism" the one arguing with logical fallacies here is you. One way you can tell a sophist is that they get irate when objectivists like myself poke holes in their logic. They also refuse to stick to any first principles such as models your in and out on the reliability of models based on nothing more than your desire conclusion.

 

[jgailla]

http://xkcd.com/258/

I'll just leave this here.

 

[cranky108]

It's not that I agree, or disagree with the models. I just don't see the type of data that I would expect for the conclusions being drawn.
If I make a suggestion, and the only comment I get is it won't work, only our conclusion will work, I think I am being lied to.

I expect to see a range of possible results due to a reasonable allowance of random events. It looks like we haven't run enough model runs with the different numbers of random events.

I looks like the models are predicting what is being felt as right, and so no sensitivies are being run in the model runs.

And while it is true population drives energy consumption in communities, decreasing population in energy intencive communities would reduce energy consumption. Said another way, Central America uses less energy because it dosen't get as cold at night. So if carbon is the true problem, then political reform maybe one of the answers.

But back to the topic, isen't there a pattern of erruptions where there is a cycle of the number of erruptions over some time?

 

[rconnor]

Since we are at 18 years of model diversion

[image

http://s28.postimg.org/hvirsnjm5/Global.png

]
“18 years” is demonstrably false. Beyond that, in this context, divergence should not mean “away from the average” because the “average” model run is meaningless in the short-term when internal variability is the dominant factor. What divergence should mean is “away from models that accurately replicated the short-term internal variability”. This is exactly what Risbey et al 2014 looked at and they found that models that were in phase with the actual ENSO state matched observed temperatures extremely well. This demonstrates that there is little to no evidence to suggest models overestimate climate sensitivity. But even if you want to use the "average" as the gold standard, you're still wrong.

Furthermore, when you account for short-term internal variability (and keep forcings and feedbacks, the things that matter in the long-term, the same) here’s what you get:
[image

http://s23.postimg.org/vraz3r81n/Global_El_Nino_Solar.png

] (Schmidt et al 2014)

I used the term “sophism” to describe your posts because you make it seem like your making a point, when really you aren’t. You avoid the actual issue at hand and attempt to misdirect the reader to something unrelated.

An example of this is your first post discussing how “stochastic” is only appropriate in the context of models and not when describing ENSO is reality. While this is true, it is, on its own, pointless. You then attempt to sneak in a fallacious connection between us not being able to predict ENSO events to therefore ENSO could have a major long-term impact. While we are still unsure what causes ENSO, we understand quite well that any particular ENSO (1) merely moves energy around the system and has minimal impact on the energy balance and (2) only impacts surface temperatures for ~12 month period (La Nina’s can be a little longer). The frequency and intensity of ENSO events could change as a feedback to global warming. However, as stated before, even if we entered a perpetual La Nina state, the planet would still continue to warm. ENSO is about temporary fluctuations away from the “average” caused by moving energy out of/into the oceans. If the “average” continues to rise, then the long-term impact of ENSO is mute. Just because you don’t know that or choose to ignore that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

What’s more, you know what actually is an argument from ignorance? To say “the absence of evidence is evidence of the opposite”. For example, “I don’t know that ENSO has no long-term influence on climate (because I haven’t read the science on the matter), therefore it has a major long-term influence on climate”.

 

[GTTofAK]

"You then attempt to sneak in a fallacious connection between us not being able to predict ENSO events to therefore ENSO could have a major long-term impact. While we are still unsure what causes ENSO, we understand quite well that any particular ENSO (1) merely moves energy around the system and has minimal impact on the energy balance and (2) only impacts surface temperatures for ~12 month period (La Nina’s can be a little longer). "

I didn't say that we just cant predict them. We know so little about them that we cant accurately model them. The models absolutely failed to model this past ENSO. And those are dedicated ENSO models. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has formally said that they were done making predictions based on their models becasue 'they have been burned too many times.' Your claim that a GCM can accurately model the ENSO when dedicated ENSO models do a poor job is the fallacious.

As Bob Tisdale easily showed the 4 best models from your beloved Risbey paper did a horrible job simulating the ENSO.

Link

This is undeniable evidence. In no way do the models accurately simulate the ENSO. Many of the major hotspots in the data are cool in the models and vice versa. Risbey is a pure treck into the stupidity of averaging.