Global warming discussion III

[Trakar]

What do they estimate for atmospheric methane levels?

It appears to have increased from 1600 to over 1800 ppb in the last 20 years.

Atmospheric CH4 levels are difficult to project a century out as much depends upon how environmental reservoirs respond to the human driven warming over that time frame, and this is a pretty large unknown as we don't have any real good geological models for the current warming rates.

 

[lomiller]

The primary problem I have with </= 3°C sensitivity is that it is extremely out of whack with most (if not all) of the geologic evidence. Certainly there are many acknowledged differences between the geologic periods of interest and the present, but it is difficult for me understand what processes would account for the degree of differences that would result in this much difference.

IPCC sensitivity numbers only include “fast” feedbacks. Slow feedback like more CO2 being released from oceans/permafrost are not included and there play the biggest role in geological time scales. These feedbacks (particularly release of CO2 from the ocean) may very well differ under a CO2 induced warming, so the geological record may not be the right model.

 

[Tolls]

It'll be a chilly day in Hell when The Express concedes that AGW is real and undesirable. One day they'll just stop mentioning the subject at all. Well, that's how they handled their over-hasty endorsement of Herr Hitler before that unpleasantness. Now let's never speak of it again ...

That was the Mail.

The Express doesn't even rank as a newspaper. It's a complete rag. More so than the Mail, which is some feat.

 

[CapelDodger]

That was the Mail.

The Mail was worse but the Express was far from blameless. At least Beaverbrook didn't advocate National Socialism for Britain as the Mail did, and he certainly got on board in a big way when things kicked off.

The Express doesn't even rank as a newspaper. It's a complete rag. More so than the Mail, which is some feat.

Can't argue with that.

 

[Tolls]

The Mail was worse but the Express was far from blameless. At least Beaverbrook didn't advocate National Socialism for Britain as the Mail did, and he certainly got on board in a big way when things kicked off.

No, good point.
I forgot about the Judea Declares War headline.

 

[Arnold Martin]

I'm currently enjoying a few days of weather anomaly riding in West Virginia, likely due to an incipient El Nino but regardless of source- high teens to mid 20s this time of year is a very welcome anomaly.

Enjoy Coal Country ... nice people there ... what is your carbon footprint so far ?

 

[macdoc]

A new study shows that the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributed to the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago did not occur gradually, but was characterized by three "pulses" in which C02 rose abruptly.
Scientists are not sure what caused these abrupt increases, during which C02 levels rose about 10-15 parts per million – or about 5 percent per episode – over a period of 1-2 centuries. It likely was a combination of factors, they say, including ocean circulation, changing wind patterns, and terrestrial processes.
The finding is important, however, because it casts new light on the mechanisms that take the Earth in and out of ice age regimes. Results of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, appear this week in the journal Nature.
"We used to think that naturally occurring changes in carbon dioxide took place relatively slowly over the 10,000 years it took to move out of the last ice age," said Shaun Marcott, lead author on the article who conducted his study as a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University. "This abrupt, centennial-scale variability of CO2 appears to be a fundamental part of the global carbon cycle."

http://phys.org/news/2014-10-abrupt-pulse-carbon-dioxide-deglaciation.html

sort of implies a trigger system - hopefully only at the already relatively low C02 levels during an ice age exit.

A methane/C02 pulse just now - even if 10-15 ppm would just speed the process of warming up.

 

[greybeard]

Ozone thinning and greenhouse gas build up are causing changes in wind patterns that will accelerate sea level rise.

An Ill Wind Blows in Antarctica, Threatens Global Flooding
Fiercer winds from the Southern Ocean means a faster meltdown of ice.

The scientists were blown away by the vicious climate change feedback that they unearthed.

The researchers reported that the shifting winds “produce an intense warming” just below the surface of the ocean. The wind changes were found to be heaving warm currents from deeper waters up into a zone where the Antarctic ice sheet is vulnerable to melt and crumble from beneath — the area where towers of ice sit atop submerged ground.

“It’s a very simple mechanism that we’re identifying,” said Stephen Griffies, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who contributed to the modeling research, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters. “You raise the warm water to the depth of the ice shelves through the wind changes.”

 

[macdoc]

I wonder what the "intense warming" just below the surface of the ocean means...is it just the upwell or is there some friction component???

 

[macdoc]

Fox in the Arctic henhouse...

November 3, 2014
Berkeley Lab scientists identify new driver behind Arctic warming
5 hours ago

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-berkeley-lab-scientists-driver-arctic.html

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Fox in the Arctic henhouse...



http://phys.org/news/2014-11-berkeley-lab-scientists-driver-arctic.html

And on a related front, tropical fish are swimming in Alaska waters! Bizarre sea-life visitors arrive with North Pacific’s historic warmth

"Portions of the North Pacific haven’t seen sea temperatures this high in at least a century of record-keeping. In some areas, waters are more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above average."

 

[macdoc]

Consequences....

http://www.cbc.ca/day6/blog/2014/11/06/miami-climate-secession/

snip....from the Mayor of South Miami who is also a biology prof

Mayor of South Miami on how climate change could force it to secede
Thursday, November 6, 2014

If you actually have to secede, do you think you'll need an army?

If we have to secede we're going to need a lifeboat. South Florida would be a very short-lived 51st state. In 200 years, South Florida won't be here.

 

[DennyT]

what would they do if they seceded? I'm assuming they would then use tax money to build some sort of dike system? how would that work? South Florida is not exactly the Netherlands, you know.

 

[uke2se]

So, I hear James Inhofe is going to be the chairman of the Senate Environmental committee. That's a bit like putting a mob boss in charge of the DA's office.

 

[ehcks]

So, I hear James Inhofe is going to be the chairman of the Senate Environmental committee. That's a bit like putting a mob boss in charge of the DA's office.

Foxes who were put in charge of hen houses are offended at being compared to this event.

 

[CapelDodger]

what would they do if they seceded? I'm assuming they would then use tax money to build some sort of dike system? how would that work? South Florida is not exactly the Netherlands, you know.

The land is porous so barriers won't help. They could jack up buildings, I suppose. Mostly, of course, they're just trying to make a



point. "Econometric models" dreamed up by the likes of Richard Tol, "proving" that all's for the best in the big picture if we do nothing now, are of no comfort to South Floridians.

 

[CapelDodger]

So, I hear James Inhofe is going to be the chairman of the Senate Environmental committee. That's a bit like putting a mob boss in charge of the DA's office.

Che Guavara was made head of the Cuban Central Bank. Che Guavara didn't believe in money. I see this in much the same category of bizarre.

 

[bit_pattern]

On the disparity between surface and satellite records:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/new...acy-atmospheric-temperature-measurements.html

In fact, for the time period 1987–2006, the temperatures among the four groups that collect satellite data ranges from 0.086°C per decade to 0.22°C per decade. In more recent years, the trend is much reduced, and for two of the leading satellite groups (University of Alabama at Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems), temperatures are basically flat.

The recent flatness in satellite temperatures as surface temperatures continue to rise has presented a quandary for scientists. Are both results real? Is there some reason they diverge? Is one measurement more accurate than the other? This is one of the areas of very active research.

A contribution to this question appeared last week by researcher Fuzhong Weng and his colleagues. The paper, published in Climate Dynamics, claimed to find the reason for much of that difference – the authors report that the satellite trends could be off (too cold) by perhaps 30%. If true, this work would go a long way toward reconciling the differences between surface and satellite measurements.

While this paper is getting a lot of attention, I am suggesting a more cautious approach. There are a number of issues and questions which must be answered before we can close the books on this issue and the paper has received some critical attention from other scientists. Before we get into that, let’s talk about what the study found and how they made their discovery.

 

[macdoc]

I wonder if evaporative cooling just at the surface is playing a role. Wind strengths are up I understand.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I wonder if evaporative cooling just at the surface is playing a role. Wind strengths are up I understand.

It is also a prediction of observed desertification. Higher evaporation rates. Less water in the soil and more in the air. Of course that means other areas get more flooding at the same time desertified areas dry out.

Keep in mind this is a different sort of desertification than the type caused by drought. This is the type where rain does fall, but instead of absorbing into the soil, immediately evaporates.

I have no clue how that would potentially effect satellite data, if at all. But it certainly has an effect on climate when over a large enough area.