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Climate News from the science press

Play with fire - expect to get burned....one way or another...

Ocean greenery under warming stress

A century of phytoplankton decline suggests that ocean ecosystems are in peril.
Quirin Schiermeier
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100728/images/news.2010.phytoplankton_3.jpg

Since 1950, phytoplankton in the world's oceans have declined by 40%.Karl Bruun, Nostoca Algae Laboratory. Courtesy of Nikon Small WorldMarine phytoplankton — the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth's total photosynthetic biomass — have declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century, researchers report in Nature1 this week. The findings add to concerns that climate change is dangerously altering marine ecosystems.
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continues
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/280710/full/news.2010.379.html
 
NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger

NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger

From the article:

"Our study concludes the long-term warming trend seen in the central Pacific is primarily due to more intense El Niños, rather than a general rise of background temperatures," said Lee.

Of course, the article is behind a paywall, but from the abstract:

"Satellite observations suggest that the intensity of El Niño events in the central equatorial Pacific (CP) has almost doubled in the past three decades, with the strongest warming occurring in 2009–10. This is related to the increasing intensity as well as occurrence frequency of the so-called CP El Niño events since the 1990s. While sea surface temperature (SST) in the CP region during El Niño years has been increasing, those during neutral and La Niña years have not. Therefore, the well-documented warming trend of the warm pool in the CP region is primarily a result of more intense El Niño events rather than a general rise of background SST."
 
Since the early 1990s, however, scientists have noted a new type of El Niño that has been occurring with greater frequency. Known variously as "central-Pacific El Niño," "warm-pool El Niño," "dateline El Niño" or "El Niño Modoki" (Japanese for "similar but different"), the maximum ocean warming from such El Niños is found in the central-equatorial, rather than eastern, Pacific. Such central Pacific El Niño events were observed in 1991-92, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2004-05 and 2009-10. A recent study found many climate models predict such events will become much more frequent under projected global warming scenarios.
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Nice try tho :rolleyes:
 
Reading further:

Lee said further research is needed to evaluate the impacts of these increasingly intense El Niños and determine why these changes are occurring. "It is important to know if the increasing intensity and frequency of these central Pacific El Niños are due to natural variations in climate or to climate change caused by human-produced greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
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Agreed.
 
You still don't get it do you?.:rolleyes:

El Nino is NOT a forcing...it is a regional pooling of heat.
They are asking if the change in frequency is part of a natural cycle or a response to AGW -

as I said....nice try.

If you want to try and argue the paper in any way negates AGW then take to the moderated thread instead of slipping in the quote mined editorial. :garfield:
 
Melting Rate of Icecaps in Greenland and Western Antarctica Lower Than Expected

A revision to the models of melting using GRACE data has reduced the expected melting:

One of the researchers, Dr Bert Vermeersen of TU Delft, explains: "The corrections for deformations of the Earth's crust have a considerable effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each year. We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted." The average rise in sea levels as a result of the melting ice caps is also lower
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Science Daily post is here.
 
lomiller said:
This is a revision to current ice loss not expected melting.
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Lomiller, that is correct; sorry my post was worded incorrectly.

This is a correction to the currently observed ice loss, showing that the icecaps are melting slower than has been predicted.

The finding does not speak to future ice loss.
 
Wangler said:
Lomiller, that is correct; sorry my post was worded incorrectly.
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I don't think it's your fault, the first report I saw on Science Daily about the work contained the same error, but it may be fixed now
 
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Wangler said:
A revision to the models of melting using GRACE data has reduced the expected melting:



Science Daily post is here.
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I find the last paragraph more revealing and informative, don't you?

(...)"The innovative aspect of our method is that we simultaneously matched the current changes in the ice mass and glacial isostatic adjustment to the observations, instead of assuming that a particular glacial isostatic adjustment model is correct," says Dr Vermeersen. "For Greenland in particular, we have found a glacial isostatic adjustment model that deviates rather sharply from general assumptions. But at present there are too few data available to verify this independently. A more extensive network of GPS readings in combination with geological indicators for the local and regional changes in sea level changes around Greenland over the last 10,000 years, will possibly be able to provide conclusive evidence on this matter in the years to come."
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lomiller said:
I don't think it's your fault, the first report I saw on Science Daily about the work contained the same error, but it may be fixed now
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Well, when I looked again at the Science Daily post, it's wording was pretty unambiguous.......

...I think I just goofed up in wording my original post.
 
TShaitanaku said:
I find the last paragraph more revealing and informative, don't you?
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How is this more revealing and informative than the rest of the writeup?

So they would really like to have more data before they have any really definitive verification of their revised model.

Okay, that is good.
 
Wangler said:
How is this more revealing and informative than the rest of the writeup?

So they would really like to have more data before they have any really definitive verification of their revised model.

Okay, that is good.
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And that is your interpretation of statements in the section I quoted? Seriously?!
 
I guess I still don't see your point.

They worked on a revision to a model, which seems to be well founded in principle.

This revised model gave a result that differed somewhat from the existing model.

Being careful and deliberate scientists, they stop short of yelling "look at this, everyone else is wrong", and instead present their results which seem reasonable, and state that additional data is needed before they can be 100% sure that their model is the best.

Like I said, sounds good.
 
Irrigation's Cooling Effects May Mask Warming in Some Regions -- For Now

Very interesting, as shown on Science Daily.


Is it possible that the increase in irrigation could be responsible for a sort of "reset" or "regression" in the temperature trend, as shown here? The rate of temperature increase seems about the same, but there is that step-wise decrease in temperature in the decade of the 50's.

I know, my idea is too simplistic. But, all that water being sprinkled on billions of hectares must have some transient effect.
 
Wangler said:
Well, when I looked again at the Science Daily post, it's wording was pretty unambiguous.......

...I think I just goofed up in wording my original post.
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I think Sciencedaily updated the article, I had considered posting it here when I first saw it but reconsidered precisely because it said it reduced the melting that was being predicted.
 
Wangler said:
Very interesting, as shown on Science Daily.


Is it possible that the increase in irrigation could be responsible for a sort of "reset" or "regression" in the temperature trend, as shown here? The rate of temperature increase seems about the same, but there is that step-wise decrease in temperature in the decade of the 50's.

I know, my idea is too simplistic. But, all that water being sprinkled on billions of hectares must have some transient effect.
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I guess we will find out soon enough, but this is still speculative IMO. With all the talk about urban heat islands, it would be ironic if the real problem in the US weather station data were rural cool islands created by irrigation.

In any case it would explain why the US isn’t warming as rapidly as other places in the world. They don’t mention the central planes but tapping the Ogallala Aquifer in the 50’s resulted in a massive increase in irrigated farmland from Texas to North Dakota. In places it’s already running dry and won’t be able to support this amount of irrigation for much longer (20ish years)
 
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