Is there an upside to global warming?

[macdoc]

Expanding desertification in the US southwest, storm force increases both coastal and inland, floods in the heartlands, long-term drought in the west. The migration of disease, decrease in viable croplands...the list is actually quite long, and this only goes to the natural impacts that will be being increasingly felt and amplified over the coming decades. Include in the economic and social impacts, and our children's children are inheriting a completely different (and molten) ball of wax.

and attempting to assess the pace of that change requires a range of scenarios to be presented.

Natural cycles may speed up or delay impacts.....the headache with wider excursions is it only takes one major excursion ( 1998 and reefs ) to do incredible damage even if bracketed by relatively stable climate years.

 

[DogB]

DogB


'splain

Sure. Note I said deeper not deep. I’m guessing the effect is basically the same as ENSO.

Equatorial surface waters warm till there’s a significant heat reservoir. Then Kelvin waves carry this water somewhere and cap a normally cool upwelling. This warm surface water significantly effects local temps and to some extent the global average until they’re finally mixed in. Then the heat reservoir begins to recharge.

The ENSO does this with a cycle length of a few years. PDO and IPO perhaps do the same with a period of a few decades.

Bikini covered with sun block for the rest

You have a problem with rubbing sun block on a bikini body? Guess it takes all kinds.

 

[macdoc]

ah yeah okay - deep = 4 degrees or so - no hot water there

Wonder if there is an identifiable lag between a hot pool in the Indian ocean and a peak later.


I'm very interested to see how things change as that Arctic passage opens and warm Pacific starts to move more freely.
There are already N Pacific species showing up in the North Atlantic.

Interesting times.

••

Point on bikini....turn over dear let me do your front...

 

[Highly Selassie]

I'm very interested to see how things change as that Arctic passage opens and warm Pacific starts to move more freely.
There are already N Pacific species showing up in the North Atlantic.

If what you say is true, that could devastate Pacific salmon fishing, which has already taken huge beatings in the last 20 years. Oh well, all those fisherman can just get into the shipping industry

 

[DogB]

ah yeah okay - deep = 4 degrees or so - no hot water there

Yeah sorry, I realised too late this could be misleading.

Wonder if there is an identifiable lag between a hot pool in the Indian ocean and a peak later.

Good question. The long cycles are definitely less well defined than ENSO so the reservoirs might be geographically less distinct. I’ll do some reading and see what I can find.

I'm very interested to see how things change as that Arctic passage opens and warm Pacific starts to move more freely.
There are already N Pacific species showing up in the North Atlantic.

I’m still waiting for some definitive data about this. Do you have a paper you can reference? Paywalls are OK, I can usually get stuff from my university library.

Interesting times.

••

Point on bikini....turn over dear let me do your front...

Exactly. See warm isn’t always bad!

 

[macdoc]

I could use warm....late Oct sucks in Canada...

Muskie hunting on Friday tho and it's 16....

This article came up

Pacific species set to invade warmer Arctic, Atlantic waters

A new United States study says Canada should brace for an invasion of Pacific Ocean species along its Arctic and Atlantic coasts as warmer waters and ice-free conditions continue to transform the polar region and reopen a migration route for sea creatures that has been closed for more than three million years.

continues

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cb795111-5788-4190-9a96-34587faeb6c6

Likely based on this

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8728

Not quite OT but this might be interesting to read
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5936/77

Decent on topic article here
This was the one that alerted me to the potential.....

Nature Reports Climate Change
Published online: 18 October 2007 | doi:10.1038/climate.2007.61
Atlantic invaders
Zoë Corbyn

The melting of Arctic sea ice is blurring the biological boundaries between Pacific and Atlantic.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2007/0711/full/climate.2007.61.html

hell it's like letting a blowtorch across the top.....

Look at Greenland West coast - that's way high anomaly

Y'know that flow is going to affect Europe as it must interact with the North Atlantic drift somewhere - might extend warmth to the Baltic.

I always got a kick out this graphic showing the heat transport to Europe by the Gulf Stream

That Labrador cold current that come south is vital for fishing and Greenland funnels the warm Pacific flow into the same region....maybe the cod is not coming back for reasons other than criminal mismanagement.

I saw an article that the Barents sea ice pack has moved 200 miles north and there is a ton of wrangling about new fishing turf.

Coming up next....

Fishing Vacations at the North Pole.

 

[lomiller]

Sure



This is the crux of my question. To model the PDO with any degree of accuracy you need to understand what part of the phase it is in. The three definite PDO phase switches we’ve ‘seen’ were in 1905, 1946 and 1977. That puts the periods at 31 and 41 years. If we assume that the proposed 2008 shift is real then we have a third period of 31 years. That gives us an average of about 34 years and an SD of about 6 years.

Some things to keep in mind
- el nino/la nina are not cumulative, they warm or cool individual years PDO is a string of el/la and can warm an individual decade, but again isn’t cumulative.
- climate models are not attempt to predict individual years. This means they want to get PDO characteristics approximately and make sure a full cycle is included. (a full PDO cycle is ~30 year)

- it takes a very large el nino/la nina to warm or cool a year more then 0.2 deg C and the amount PDO can warm/cool a decade is smaller .
- at current warming rates we get more then 0.5 deg C warming in 3 decades. More then enough to swamp the effect of PDO

 

[CapelDodger]

This is the crux of my question. To model the PDO with any degree of accuracy you need to understand what part of the phase it is in. The three definite PDO phase switches we’ve ‘seen’ were in 1905, 1946 and 1977. That puts the periods at 31 and 41 years. If we assume that the proposed 2008 shift is real then we have a third period of 31 years. That gives us an average of about 34 years and an SD of about 6 years.

This is something I have a problem with. Given so little data how sure can we be that these periods are in any way typical? The PDO has been pretty unsettled this century; perhaps that's more typical.

The PDO actually involves a redistribution of heat so its global impact is little if any. The signal doesn't exactly leap out of the surface temperature record as El Nino/La Nina does. The "Cool" and "Warm" terms apply to the influence on the NW US, but there are opposite effects in the NW and West Pacific.

Long story short, I think the PDO has been blown up out of all proportion by the usual suspects in their relentess quest for alternative explanations of the global warming which isn't happening.

 

[DogB]

I could use warm....late Oct sucks in Canada...

Muskie hunting on Friday tho and it's 16....

What's a Muskie?

This article came up (snip)

Lots of articles warning of possibilities – not much actual data.

Not quite OT but this might be interesting to read
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5936/77

Interesting. Thanks.

Decent on topic article here
This was the one that alerted me to the potential.....

http://www.nature.com/climate/2007/0711/full/climate.2007.61.html

Yes, this is the only confirmed case I’ve seen. It was detected in 1999 and there’s been a lot of melting since with no obvious effect. But that might be simply due to a lack of research. Species invasion isn’t always a simple thing. The indigenous species have had a long time to fit and fill niches. For every eastern grey squirrel there’s a bunch of cases where the newcomer gets the snot kicked out of them by the locals.

 

[DogB]

(snip)...- at current warming rates we get more then 0.5 deg C warming in 3 decades. More then enough to swamp the effect of PDO

OK, that's logical.

 

[CapelDodger]

Y'know that flow is going to affect Europe as it must interact with the North Atlantic drift somewhere - might extend warmth to the Baltic.

Not much comes down into the North Sea let alone the Baltic, but they're warming of their own accord.

Arctic sea-ice is recovering unusually slowly, so maybe some of the heat is getting up there.

 

[macdoc]

Muskie,,,closest Canadian equivalent of croc
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/9/Images/fishing/fish/muskhand.jpg

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...mage_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CBAQ9QEwAA

••

THere is more evidence on the other side with Pacific species in the Arctic eco system or moving toward it.

http://bsierp.nprb.org/fieldwork/2008/pollock.html

http://blog.protectplanetocean.org/2009/08/good-news-for-arctic-fish.html

 

[DogB]

This is something I have a problem with. Given so little data how sure can we be that these periods are in any way typical? The PDO has been pretty unsettled this century; perhaps that's more typical.

Also I've seen reconstructions of earlier cycles which show periods of up to 70 years.

I did try to make it clear when I brought it up that I'm wary of medium term cycles. The ENSO and IOD seem fairly clear, the PDO and the IPO less so.

The PDO actually involves a redistribution of heat

As do all these cycles.

so its global impact is little if any.

The impact is on surface temperatures which influences the atmosphere. It’s significant in that regard.

The signal doesn't exactly leap out of the surface temperature record as El Nino/La Nina does.

I agree – and it’s noisy as hell to boot. To me the long term reconstructions just look like mush.

The "Cool" and "Warm" terms apply to the influence on the NW US, but there are opposite effects in the NW and West Pacific.

I don’t know about that. When warm ENSO waster shields the Humboldt current it pretty much heats up everywhere. The warm water spreads, it doesn’t just shift.

Long story short, I think the PDO has been blown up out of all proportion by the usual suspects in their relentess quest for alternative explanations of the global warming which isn't happening.

I think it may have contributed to the warming over the last thirty years. I wouldn’t however even presume to guess whether that contribution has been significant.

 

[DogB]

Muskie,,,closest Canadian equivalent of croc

I see - looks like fun.

When the monsoon gets started up north I’m going to try to make some time to get me a few of these.

 

[macdoc]

I think it may have contributed to the warming over the last thirty years. I wouldn’t however even presume to guess whether that contribution has been significant.

since it is patently NOT a forcing that is patently incorrect .

Originally Posted by CapelDodger
Long story short, I think the PDO has been blown up out of all proportion by the usual suspects in their relentess quest for alternative explanations of the global warming which isn't happening.

concur - they discovered the whole cyclic aspect about 18 months ago - prior to that the lacunae was the dark side of the moon category.

The physics don't change no matter how you shift the heat around inside Myriad's box.....

That ain't no PDO

It's more energy retained.

 

[CapelDodger]

I agree – and it’s noisy as hell to boot. To me the long term reconstructions just look like mush.

In which case it might as well be just a mushily represented in climate models.

I don’t know about that. When warm ENSO waster shields the Humboldt current it pretty much heats up everywhere. The warm water spreads, it doesn’t just shift.

ENSO presents a strong signal in surface temperature records. The fact that the PDO presents a weak signal (if any) suggests that it doesn't have these wider implications. The ENSO signal was a question in search of an answer. The PDO seems to be research papers in need of a subject.

I think it may have contributed to the warming over the last thirty years. I wouldn’t however even presume to guess whether that contribution has been significant.

I presume it hasn't been significant. A diversion, no more.

To pursue that diversion, it could be that the PDO phase is determined by climate change. The "Warm" phase could reflect a warming world (as in the early to mid-20thCE), the "Cool" phase a cooling world (40's to mid-70's) and warming thereafter. The "Mixed" phase of the 2000's could reflect relatively slow warming. Who can say? More data is required .

 

[macdoc]

I think it's simpler than that...IMNSHO it's a big slow eddy- or maybe two determined by the thermohaline and made unstable by continental shapes so that it slowly shifts back and forth in it's heat transport

Related to this and basically just a heat signature observed....maybe there is a heat exchange where the two big gyres meet in the tropics that varies in a vertical dimension

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

For AGW purposes - meaningless beyond damping or enhancing local impacts.

It appears quite significant in species distributions and populations however.

In this

More data is required .

I concur ...but it ain't primary driver.

 

[DogB]

That ain't no PDO

I love that graph. I know what it's trying to say but my god it's poorly labelled.

 

[CapelDodger]

concur - they discovered the whole cyclic aspect about 18 months ago - prior to that the lacunae was the dark side of the moon category.

It was mhaze who brought it to attention, which speaks volumes. The more I looked into it the less I found. A subject of some small interest to people in NW US but that's about it. The usual subjects grabbed onto it because of the coming Cool phase which they could expand into global cooling just round the corner. The PDO being one product of climate science which they have absolute faith in. No need for a Mcintyre audit of that one, no siree.

 

[DogB]

since it is patently NOT a forcing that is patently incorrect ..

Doesn't have to be a forcing. If there's an upslope due to a cycle then there must be a contribution.