Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Trakar]

Just curious...so i can go back to eating my popcorn during this show, lol.....but why does it have to be its EITHER the sun OR AGW? (Like that funny car commercial on tv right now, where they say it`s like asking if it is nuts OR bolts....as the swimming pool bursts open at the seams)
What if both events are happening at the same time? We cant control the sun, but we CAN try to control AGW.

Well, there is another issue as well, AGW, is actually fairly painless for us to deal with, if we attack the problem seriously within the next couple of decades. If, however, we ignore it much beyond this, we run the serious risk of triggering natural feedback responses that would dramatically exacerbate the problem and leave us with little or no options as far as controlling or limiting the problem. Once the natural feedbacks engage (which tend to lag the initial temperature changes) the climate change moves well beyond AGW.

 

[Reality Check]

The "If you can't explain the 'pause', you can't explain the cause..." was pinched from the banner on the THS site.

We can explain the pause, Haig - it does not really exist !
Does the global warming 'pause' mean what you think it means?

Global warming is unpaused and stuck on fast forward, new research shows

New research by Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo of the National Center for Atmospheric Research investigates how the warming of the Earth's climate has behaved over the past 15 years compared with the previous few decades. They conclude that while the rate of increase of average global surface temperatures has slowed since 1998, melting of Arctic ice, rising sea levels, and warming oceans have continued apace.

So there has been no "pausing" of global surface temperatures (a small fraction of global warming) - there has been a slowing.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by Yerushalmi View Post
If there is one, great. But I find it difficult to believe that the Earth is in this "sweet spot" sort of stasis in which both an increase in temperature and a decrease in temperature not only leads to catastrophic weather events but the same catastrophic weather events. It strains credulity.

You are using the terms poorly....temperature notably.

Do you understand how the earth stays habitable?
It's due to the radiative balance - without GHG then the earth would be like the moon - alternating between 250+ and 250 minus.

GHG traps IR. The OUTGOING radiation from earth not the incoming solar radiation.

More trapped IR raises the global temperature and that results in a more energetic and unstable weather systems. That's a very complex topic but fundamentally there is more energy inside the "box" - the earth's geophysical systems including atmosphere but also hydro and cryo spheres.

A cold snap like we just saw does not mean colder global temperature, it means an incursion of unusually cold air farther south than normal.

When that incursion occurred it was wamer in Greenland and Alaske much further north than in the prairies of the US and Canada.

This bitterly cold air usually stays in the polar vortex...in this case a wavering jet stream and high pressure system stalled over the continents produced conditions that led to violent storms, ( in 24 hours the temperature in Kentucky dropped 61 degrees F ), bitter cold, ice and in Britain record winds and flooding. This is what is meant by weather extremes and those extremes can be both extended periods of record heatwaves or even an entire year as Australia just finished - heat to the point where they had to add two categories to their maps....54 and 56c and 54 was hit recently.

When you string together years and decades of record weather that's a climate change indicator and the records in those cases are for increased warmth.
This is for winter in Canada over time

http://www.ec.gc.ca/adsc-cmda/8C03D32A-4B97-487A-A03C-F46F91A12F37/winter_temp_graph.gif

Breach of rule 5 removed. Do not hotlink images from other sites without permission.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

http://www.ec.gc.ca/adsc-cmda/default.asp?lang=En&n=8C03D32A-1

That is climate change and driving that is the use of fossil fuels which increased the C02 levels in the atmosphere.

This does not preclude stretches of deep cold that are regional in nature for a short period of time.

Here is a good tho very nerdy explanation of the jet stream meandering and wreaking havoc in the northern hemisphere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nzwJg4Ebzo

 

[Reality Check]

Just try and grasp the big picture.

Just try to grasp the climate situation here on Earth (the subject of this thread), Haig, and how humans are significantly affecting the climate: Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Just curious...so i can go back to eating my popcorn during this show, lol.....but why does it have to be its EITHER the sun OR AGW? (Like that funny car commercial on tv right now, where they say it`s like asking if it is nuts OR bolts....as the swimming pool bursts open at the seams)
What if both events are happening at the same time? We cant control the sun, but we CAN try to control AGW.

It is not an either or. It's both. Both are drivers.
The sun changes tho are a magnitude ( you understand that is 10x ) lower than the GHG signal.
That can be seen in the 11 year solar cycles reflected in the global temps....but the effect is small and as stated earlier....is actually going the opposite direction to GHG yet the earth continues to warm especially the oceans.

Vocanoes are a driver ...they change the climate for a couple of years.
Orbital position is a driver - but over tens of thousands of years ( Milankovich )
Changes in solar output are a driver but right now they are stable to drifting to cooler....opposite of where the earth's temps are going.
Milankovich cycle position indicates we SHOULD see a slow drift to colder and it was....then we arrived with industrial civilization.
You can see it here in the wiki image - out of the ice age..up to the Holocene Optimum ( warmest ) - drifting slowly back down then we arrived.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...png/300px-Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Breach of rule 5 removed. Do not hotlink images from other sites without permission.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

GHG are very unusual drivers as it's rare that they are not a feedback.
It is us digging up fossil carbon and burning it that is the primary driver of climate change....and we are doing it in a geological instant.....no time for the biome to cope as it did with the slow emergence out of the last ice over thousands of years.

 

[Reality Check]

On being asked how solar activity is driving these developments when there seems to be so little happening on the Sun Piers Corbyn said:

On being asked how solar activity is driving these developments when there seems to be so little happening on the Sun Piers Corbyn lied about:
* "CO2 has never driven, does not drive and never will drive weather or Climate"
* "Global warming is over"
* "and it never was anything to do with CO2"
* "CO2 is still rising but the world is now cooling and will continue to do so"

Piers Corbyn also confirmed his ignorance or denial of climate science:
* "Those who claim man's CO2 is driving weather or Climate must produce evidence."
Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

 

[Trakar]

Since sarcasm and humor doesn't do well on the internet, I will have to explain.

That is the line used when there is record cold and snow and somebody mentions weather as if it means anything in regards to global temperatures.

So if somebody says it's record cold In Chicago you will hear, "Nobody ever said it was going to get warm everywhere. Some places will get colder. That's why it's called global warming."

For those not humor impaired, I apologize for explaining a joke.

Jokes are primarily about conveying humor, mockery of issues you apparently do not comprehend lacks a humorous component.

 

[Laidbackracer]

There is a growing body of science that is dealing with the solar/climate links. Last year there were 71 papers at least dealing with this issue.

Over the solar cycle there is a small fluctuation in the TSI or heat output of the Sun, this is used by the IPCC to discredit any solar influence in our climate but they omit any reference to other solar factors that vary considerably more. The latest IPCC report is beginning to recognize there might be a solar factor included and they also admit their models have been wrong over the past 17 years, and have no real answer for the lack of warming over this period.

EUV can vary by over 100% depending on the spectrum over a typical solar cycle and the downstream effect of EUV on ozone in the Mesosphere and Stratosphere and ultimately the Troposphere are a serious area of research that needs to be considered in any debate.

Some of the authors working in this field include Lockwood, Haige, Baldwin to name a few.

 

[Reality Check]

Scientists reject claims of record cold being caused by ‘global warming’

Haig once again does not understand that personal opinions by non-experts is not reliable!
William Happer

William Happer (born July 27, 1939 [1]) is an American physicist who has specialised in the study of atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy.[2] He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett [3] Professor of Physics at Princeton University,[2] and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group,[1] where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics. From 1991-93, Happer served as director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Happer is a vocal skeptic of certain claims regarding global warming.

The interview emphasizes his denial of climate science - he thinks that CO2 has "almost" nothing to do with polar vortexes!
The physics is simple: polar vortexes are persistent cyclones. Cyclones are driven by heat. Increasing CO2 increases temperatures. Thus increasing CO2 significantly affects polar vortexes.

Followed by the opinion of a meteorologist and a Time magazine article!

 

[Trakar]

This video is good too, may help you understand DC, best to see it in HD

How To Watch The Sun

Please explain the relevance of this video to the current episode of global warming that is the topic of this thread's discussions.

 

[macdoc]

There is a growing body of science that is dealing with the solar/climate links. Last year there were 71 papers at least dealing with this issue.

Over the solar cycle there is a small fluctuation in the TSI or heat output of the Sun, this is used by the IPCC to discredit any solar influence in our climate but they omit any reference to other solar factors that vary considerably more. The latest IPCC report is beginning to recognize there might be a solar factor included and they also admit their models have been wrong over the past 17 years, and have no real answer for the lack of warming over this period.

EUV can vary by over 100% depending on the spectrum over a typical solar cycle and the downstream affect of EUV on ozone in the Mesosphere and Stratosphere and ultimately the Troposphere are a serious area of research that needs to be considered in any debate.

Some of the authors working in this field include Lockwood, Haige, Baldwin to name a few.

There are hundreds of papers in hundreds of fields.....so what...no one denies solar influence....what you have not shown and others that there is any magnitude to that influence.

 

[Trakar]

...But NH winters, even with the entire NH included, don't show warming right now. In fact, it's cooling, even with the entire NH included...

Right now, it is winter, and until Feb. it will probably continue to cool. after that it will warm, until the peak of summer which generally hits in August. As you say none of this is the point, what is the point is that the trend for the annual temperature in the northern hemisphere is, and has been trending upward over the last 50 years or so.

 

[macdoc]

EUV can vary by over 100% depending on the spectrum over a typical solar cycle and the downstream affect of EUV on ozone in the Mesosphere and Stratosphere and ultimately the Troposphere are a serious area of research that needs to be considered in any debate.

Yup interesting stuff.....still no mechanism, no scale and most of all for there to be any magnitude you have displace C02 as the primary driver of change and ask yourself.....why no correlation??.

Saying it's a "serious area of research" just means it's interesting to a small body of solar physicists I doubt that any of them but a few cranks would even consider a challenge to AGW.

Your first candidate ...Lockwood...

A peculiar line-up of speakers assembled recently at the Conference on the Science and Economics of Climate Change in Cambridge: Phil Jones, Andrew Watson, John Mitchell, Michael Lockwood, Henrik Svensmark, Nils-Axel Morner, Ian Plimer, Vaclav Klaus and Nigel Lawson. Bishop Hill reports that

Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey tried valiantly to find a measure of agreement between the two sides.

This proved an interesting exercise and resulted in a useful list (also reproduced by Judith Curry) on what we can all agree on (perhaps excluding those too far out on the fringes; links added by me):

CO2 does absorb infrared radiation

The greenhouse effect (however badly named) does occur in practice: our planet and the others with an atmosphere are warmer than they would be because of the presence of water vapour and CO2.

The greenhouse effect does not saturate with increasing CO2

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen significantly over the last 200 years

This is because of anthropogenic emissions (fossil fuels, cement production, forest clearance). [Ian Plimer disagreed, but as Curry stated: "the anthropogenic contribution is (should be) undisputed"]

If we agree all these statements above, we must expect at least some warming. [Bishop Hill noted “broad agreement” with this point]

The climate has warmed over the last 50 years, [as is evident from] land atmospheric temperature, marine atmospheric temperature, sea surface temperature, and (from Prof Svensmark) ocean heat content, all with a rising trend.

We probably don’t agree on what has caused the warming up to now, but it seemed that Prof Lockwood and Svensmark actually agreed it was not due to solar changes,

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/tag/michael-lockwood/

So the most likely candidates for "it's the sun" - who are actually published solr physicists agree....

ITS NOT DUE TO SOLAR CHANGES.....

put it to bed FFS

 

[Laidbackracer]

Haig once again does not understand that personal opinions by non-experts is not reliable!


The interview emphasizes his denial of climate science - he thinks that CO2 has "almost" nothing to do with polar vortexes!
The physics is simple: are persistent cyclones. Cyclones are driven by heat. Increasing CO2 increases temperatures. Thus increasing CO2 significantly affects polar vortexes.

Followed by the opinion of a meteorologist and a Time magazine article!

The polar vortex influences the AO/NAO of the northern hemisphere which ultimately affects the jet stream which becomes more meridional which distributes Arctic air further south as experienced in the US recently.

This function is a result of a polar vortex that is broken up or not contained and is broken up from planetary waves that travel to the north pole. The QBO is a big player in this area along with the different ozone concentrations in the upper Stratosphere and Lower Mesosphere resulting from lower solar activity are thought be be a possible driver. These sudden Stratospheric Warming events (SSW) are not a product of C02 and as there has been no warming cannot be used as a polar vortex contributor.

 

[Laidbackracer]

There are hundreds of papers in hundreds of fields.....so what...no one denies solar influence....what you have not shown and others that there is any magnitude to that influence.

I think the solar proxy record via isotopes very nicely shows the magnitude of solar influence over the Holocene. There are many papers over many years on this topic.

 

[Trakar]

If that were the case, we wouldn't even be discussing it. But NH winters, even with the entire NH included, don't show warming right now. In fact, it's cooling, even with the entire NH included. But that isn't even the real issue, it is where the warming is supposed to happen that is important.

I don't blame you. The paper is Cohen, J. L., et al., 2012: Arctic warming, increasing snow cover and widespread boreal winter cooling. Environmental Research Letters, 7:014007. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/014007.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014007
full paper for free
http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_ERL12.pdf

How do you interpret this line from the paper's abstract:

"...For the last two decades, large-scale cooling trends have existed instead across large stretches of eastern North America and northern Eurasia..."

also, these lines from the paper's conclusion:

"...Trend analysis of annual land surface temperatures for the most recent two decades shows a continuation of the aforementioned warming trend (figure 1(a)). As shown in figure 1(b), for the same period over which annual-mean
NH temperatures have increased, boreal winter (December, January and February (DJF)) NH winter land surface temperatures exhibit no linear trend...
...To further demonstrate the robustness of snow cover variability as a predictor, in figure 6(c) we also present the anomaly correlation coefficient for cross-validated hindcasts of surface temperature anomalies (1973–2010) only
using October Siberian snow cover as a predictor. Such successful forecasts and robust hindcasts strongly support the argument that increasing snow cover has negated the background-warming signal and yielded a neutral boreal winter temperature trend for the last two decades or more....
...Though we cannot conclude definitively that warming in the summer and autumn is forcing winter regional cooling, analysis of the most recent observational and modeling data supports links between strong regional cooling trends in the winter and warming trends in the prior seasons."

 

[macdoc]

I think the solar proxy record via isotopes very nicely shows the magnitude of solar influence over the Holocene. There are many papers over many years on this topic.

yup ....and it's no where near the climate change driver that AGW is.....which is my point. Do you have a hard timing swallowing the reality that ITS NOT THE SUN that is driving climate change just now.

Even your widest swing....the LIA which is still in dispute as to the volcanic influence versus solar and to how regional it was, does not take us out of the Holocene +- range.

AGW does.

You still don't get that the sun is going one way and the temperature the other.
Sun influence is a magnitude below GHG.....no amount of waving of papers will change that.

Do you REALLY think the change in magnetic influence of the sun is driving this????!!!!!

are you that desperate to avoid responsibility for climate change??

 

[Trakar]

What he’s proving is that you can’t use anecdotal evidence to prove either warming or cooling because examples of both are always present someplace in the world.

The proof that the world is warming comes from datasets like this one from the GISS group at NASA.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

I strongly suspect that Yerushalmi's "outrage" is as faux as its "curious neutrality" in regards to this issue of discussion.

 

[Corsair 115]

Here is my question for those who wish to assert climate change/global warming is not being driven primarily by humanity's carbon emissions:

How do you explain away the great amount of scientific evidence (some of which has been directly cited in this thread)?

Are all the scientists and climatologists from around the world presenting evidence in favour of AGW simply wrong? Or are they deliberately presenting false evidence? If so, for what purpose?

Seems to me AGW naysayers have but two choices: (1) Claim all the decades of published evidence indicating AGW is simply wrong, in which case they have to explain how all those researchers got it wrong and continue to get it wrong; or (2) assert it is some sort of global organized conspiracy to present false or misleading evidence for the purposes of... well, doing something nefarious one presumes.

So which is it going to be?

 

[macdoc]

Wheeee.....extreme weather....shall we declare AGW started again..??

Toronto weather: A wild weather swing ahead for the city
Temperatures in Toronto are expected to hit 9C on Saturday, a dramatic shift from Monday's low of -24.2C at Pearson.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...a_wild_weather_swing_ahead_for_the_city.html#