Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

High-altitude salt lake elevation changes and glacial ablation in Central Tibet, 2000–2010
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v6k0855338x784w7/fulltext.pdf

This research quantifies lake level variations in the Siling Co, Co’e and Bangor Co salt lakes in Central Tibet from 1976 to 2010, and most notably for the 2000–2010 periods. In particular, the effects of different water replenishment modes on the lakes have been analyzed. Here we have provided new evidences for climate warming and accelerated glacial ablation on the Central Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2010. Based on fieldwork involving Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) surveying and Remote
Sensing (RS) interpretations of the lake area, we have drawn the following conclusions. (1) From 1976 to 2010, the process of lake level variation in Siling Co can be divided into two stages. From 1976 to 2000, the lake level rose 4.3 m in a steady fashion (from 4530 to 4534.3 m); the rise rate was 0.18 m/a. From 2000 to 2010, the lake level rapidly rose 8.2 m (from 4534.3 to 4542.5 m), with a dramatically higher rise rate of 0.82 m/a. Compared with the rapidly increasing lake level of Siling Co from 2000 to 2010, the fluctuations observed at Co’e and Bangor Co were smooth and inconspicuous. (2) From 1976 to 2009, the lake area of Siling Co experienced a steady-rapid-steady expansion pattern. The lake area of Siling Co increased 656.64 km2 in the 34 years to 2010, a proportional growth of 39.4%. This was particularly significant in the 2000–2010 period, when the lake area of Siling Co increased by 549.77 km2, a proportional growth of 30.6%. (3) According to correlation analysis, the rise in regional temperatures, which has led to the ablation of glaciers, is the main reason for the rapid rise in Siling Co lake levels in the 10 years to 2010. During this period, Siling Co rose approximately 8 m as the direct result of glacial melting. An increase in precipitation in the Siling Co catchment area is the secondary factor. This contrasts with Bangor Co, where the dominant factor in lake level change is the long-term increase in precipitation; here, the increasing temperature is the secondary factor...

 

[Trakar]

"Climatic changes in the Twenty-four Solar Terms during 1960–2008"
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g0264r7102x18844/fulltext.pdf

...Changes in the mean temperature and timing of the climatic solar terms are illustrated. The results show that in terms of the mean situation over China, the number of cold days such as those of Slight Cold and Great Cold has decreased, especially by 56.8% for Great Cold in the last 10 years (1998–2007) compared with in the 1960s. The number of hot days like those of Great Heat has increased by 81.4% in the last 10 years compared with in the 1960s. The timings of the climatic Solar Terms during the warming period (around spring) in the seasonal cycle have advanced significantly by more than 6 d, especially by 15 d for Rain Water, while those during the cooling period (around autumn) have delayed significantly by 5–6 d. These characteristics are mainly due to a warming shift of the whole seasonal cycle under global warming...In terms of the timings of season beginnings, the present results agree with previous studies in many ways if the Beginning of Spring, the Beginning of Summer, the Beginning of Autumn, and the Beginning of Winter are considered as the timings of transitions between seasons, or if 5C is used as the threshold temperature for winter/spring and autumn/ winter transitions and 22C is used as the threshold temperature for spring/summer and summer/autumn transitions. For example, the present study agrees with the finding of Dong et al. [15], Ye et al. [16], and Yan et al. [17] that trends in the timing of season beginnings, for the mean situation over China, are an earlier onset of spring and summer and a later onset of autumn and winter, resulting in lengthening of the summer season and shortening of the winter season. Another agreement is that the advancing trend in the timing of the spring onset is larger than the delaying trend in the timing of the autumn onset. However, when 5C and 22C are used as threshold temperatures, the present study finds that the summer (winter) has lengthened (shortened) about 14–15 d in the period 1961–2007, more than in the estimation of Dong et al. [15]...In terms of the China mean, the number of cold days such as those of Slight Cold and Great Cold has decreased; in particular, there has been a 56.8% reduction in the number of cold days of Great Cold in the last 10 a (1998–2007; 14.0 d/a) relative to the number in the 1960s (32.4 d/a). In 2007, all days were above the threshold temperature of Great Cold. Meanwhile, hot days like those of Great Heat have increased in number, by 81.4% in the last 10 years (36.1 d/a) relative to the 1960s (20.0 d/a). The timings of climatic Solar Terms during the warming period in the seasonal cycle have advanced significantly by more than 6 d, especially 15 d for Rain Water, while those during the cooling period have delayed significantly by 5–6 d. (2) All Twenty-four Solar Terms for the China mean temperature have warmed significantly under global warming, resulting in a warm shift of the whole seasonal cycle. However, the warming trends for the warming part of the seasonal cycle are more prominent than those for the cooling part. The warming tendencies for Rain Water, the Beginning of Spring and the Waking of Insects are the largest for the period 1961–2007: 2.43C, 2.37C and 2.21C, respectively...

 

[lomiller]

From the abstract:

Moreover, cold intervals corresponded to sunspot minimums. The prediction indicated that the temperature will decrease in the future until to 2068 AD and then increase again.​

Indeed. And the researchers have seemingly identified a sunspot cycle that could well be accurate. And, under normal conditions of natural variability, the sunspot cycles likely do drive down temperature. But to extrapolate that result to predict a "cooling" over the next 60 years, when we have seen some of the warmest years on record despite being in the midst of the deepest solar minimum since Maunder, then I think it is safe to say that the unnatural forcings will far outweigh any natural variability of this sort and temperatures will continue to rise. The bad news is that come 2068, the warming will get progressively worse as the natural variability adding to the positive side of temperature rise.

The amount of change in solar energy hitting the earth over a sunspot cycle is really small compared to the amount of energy required to warm the atmosphere and top of the oceans.

While a regional or local signal isn’t out of the question caused by changes in wind patterns or something like that I worked it out a few years ago and the energy changes over a sunspot cycle are sufficient to warm/cool the earth by less than 0.01 deg C which is well below the error in measurement.

If that same change was in place over the course of decades, would still be measurable if we factor in some positive feedback amplification from water vapour but it would still be small compared to the current rate of global warming unless you assumed a really high value for climate sensitivity and water vapour feedback

 

[lomiller]

Interesting article
One thing people sometimes forget about climate sensitivity is that it’s not a single fixed value, but changes with both initial and final conditions. In this study they’ve found a way to track climate sensitivity over the last million years and find that it’s normally slightly above the middle of the range currently expected from CO2 emissions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111206082754.htm

The researchers infer that Earth's climate sensitivity over the last half million years most likely amounted to a 3.1 to 3.9 °C temperature increase for the radiative equivalent of a modern doubling of atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations (with a total range of 1.7 to 5.7 °C).

 

[CapelDodger]

And, seeing as though this is supposed to be a 'denier' paper, I wanted to understand why the deniers are claiming it as their own. The other thing I thought was striking about the abstract was this:

The results showed that extreme climatic events on the Plateau, such as the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th Century Warming appeared synchronously with those in other places worldwide.
​

At first glance this is significant. After all, didn't Team Hockey Stick tell us that the MWP was insignificant and not a global event, localised instead to the north Atlantic, and as such would that mean that THS has actually been deceiving us and it was a significant global event?

It's actually the Little Ice Age which is thought to be a North Atlantic phaenomenon (possibly caused by circulation changes plus a solar component). The Medieval Warm Period is thought to be associated with a period of low volcanic activity, much like the 20thCE. That would have a global effect, and it is produced in temperature reconstructions. I see this as a sort of default state of the climate.

From the evidence of the early 20thCE the relaxation time from a period of active vulcanism, which the 19thCE was, is on the order of thirty years. That, with a solar contribution, seems to explain the warming from 1908 to 1939-40.

The Little Ice Age is a poorly defined time-period and provides a moveable feast to deniers. It includes the Maunder and Dalton Minima and very active vulcanism from 1783 (the Laki eruption). Lecture over .

By the way, my prediction was correct - the threads were merged long before 2068.

 

[CapelDodger]

The Chinese Science Bulletin is an open-source document much of their archive is available for review from Springerlink

http://www.springerlink.com/content/1001-6538/preprint/?sort=p_OnlineDate&sortorder=desc&o=20

The latest edition includes several interesting papers:

"Trend in the atmospheric heat source over the central and eastern
Tibetan Plateau during recent decades: Comparison of observations
and reanalysis data" - http://www.springerlink.com/content/3323660211170784/fulltext.pdf

Interesting stuff and a great many other papers worth looking through.

With the Arctic Sea-Ice game pretty much decided, the Tibetan Plateau is the next region to watch. It plays a huge role in the monsoons, which in turn play a huge role in the human story. Most humans still live with monsoons, and it's probably been that way for five thousand years at least. Amusing as it is to watch the dessication of Denier Central (Texas), that's where the real plot will unfold.

 

[Trakar]

Interesting article
One thing people sometimes forget about climate sensitivity is that it’s not a single fixed value, but changes with both initial and final conditions. In this study they’ve found a way to track climate sensitivity over the last million years and find that it’s normally slightly above the middle of the range currently expected from CO2 emissions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111206082754.htm

It will be interesting to compare and contrast methodologies and findings with several paleoclimate sensitivity studies that have been done over the last few years.

 

[Westwall]

I am still unable to link directly but the study below published in Science, shows a time lag of 400 to 1,000 years from the time warming has occured and the concurent rise in atmospheric CO2. There is also a 15,000-year time period where distinct cooling elicits no cange in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 concentration gradually drops over the next 20,000 years, air temperatures either increase or remain relatively constant.

Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.

 

[CapelDodger]

CapelDodger - This is for you. A short essay by one of Australia's leading intellectuals on the ideological divide that separates deniers from reality.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog-how-can-climate-change-denialism-be-explained-robert-manne-4386

It is interesting (and the comments are very predictable, including reference to the Liu paper which is apparently not being publicised, according to someone who heard about it anyway. Frankly, I'm sick off hearing people go on about how they can't get heard : somebody should shut 'em up, in my opinion.)

Denier influence seems to be fading in the US, according to the Yale Project on Communicating Climate Change http://environment.yale.edu/climate/. According to this poll 50% of US Americans accept that human activity is causing warming, but much more surprising is that only 14% appear to have ever heard of the IPCC. I find that hard to credit, but perhaps it's an example of American Exceptionalism?

 

[bit_pattern]

It is interesting (and the comments are very predictable, including reference to the Liu paper which is apparently not being publicised, according to someone who heard about it anyway. Frankly, I'm sick off hearing people go on about how they can't get heard : somebody should shut 'em up, in my opinion.)

Denier influence seems to be fading in the US, according to the Yale Project on Communicating Climate Change http://environment.yale.edu/climate/. According to this poll 50% of US Americans accept that human activity is causing warming, but much more surprising is that only 14% appear to have ever heard of the IPCC. I find that hard to credit, but perhaps it's an example of American Exceptionalism?

I did see that briefly yesterday, in the form of the following graphic:http://thinkprogress.org/romm/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Yale.gif

Heartening to say the least.

 

[Pixel42]

I am still unable to link directly but the study below published in Science, shows a time lag of 400 to 1,000 years from the time warming has occured and the concurent rise in atmospheric CO2. There is also a 15,000-year time period where distinct cooling elicits no cange in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 concentration gradually drops over the next 20,000 years, air temperatures either increase or remain relatively constant.

Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.

Yes it's fascinating stuff, the CO2 feedback and how it responds to and interacts with other forcings and feedbacks. Hardly news of course. It's been discussed many times on this thread, most recently on the previous page (raised in post #4006 and responded to by several posters).

Do you have a point you wish to make about it, or a question to ask that isn't answered in the links already helpfully provided?

 

[Gwynpaine]

Lord Monckton's expert

There are those who can follow the science and there are those, like me, who can only follow scientific opinion. A huge slice of English-speaking populations, frighteningly, say they not believe in manmade climate change. But they also say they do not believe that there is an overwhelming consensus in its favour. So they do believe in the authority of science, unlike people who believe in the authority of Genesis. In that sense they are not anti-scientific. Nigel Lawson could have little influence on ordinary British punters unless he could also persuade them that a significant minority of kosher experts stood behind him. It is those experts who should be scrutinised. Ditto for Lord Monkton. Lord Monkton’s expert is NilsAxel Moerner, who will be of particular interest to the RANDI forum.

George Monbiot, writing in the Spectator:

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone maintains that he has overturned the entire canon of knowledge about global sea levels, derived from a massive database of readings from tidal gauges and satellites, he’d better have some powerful evidence for it, and he’d better publish it in the peer-reviewed scientific journals, where claims are assessed by people who know what they’re looking at.

But Nils-Axel Mörner’s evidence is close to nonexistent. He did publish a peer-reviewed article maintaining that sea levels in the Maldives are falling, back in 2004. But the ‘evidence’ it contained was anecdotal — a skeleton found on a reef, accounts of fishermen sailing over shallow rocks — and it was comprehensively debunked by two later articles in the same journal. They explained that his paper ‘contains a number of unqualified and unreferenced assertions’ and ignored a vast body of hard data — from tide gauges and satellites — in favour of unsubstantiated accounts. They found ‘no evidence for the fall in sea level at the Maldives as postulated by Mörner’.

Since then, he has chosen less conventional outlets for his claims, such as21st Century Science and Technology, a magazine published by the convicted fraudster and conspiracy theorist Lyndon Larouche, and an online pamphlet co-authored with Lord Monckton. In this pamphlet, Monckton and Mörner engage in one of the most blatant distortions of evidence I’ve ever seen. They take a graph published by the University of Colorado, which shows a clear trend of global sea level rise, then they tilt it by 45 degrees until the line is flat, whereupon they announce that there’s ‘no trend’. For sheer, transparent chutzpah that takes some beating.
Mörner’s article in The Spectator demonstrates a similar carelessness with the facts. He suggests, for example, that the International Union for Quaternary Reseach (INQUA) supports his claim that ‘sea levels have been oscillating close to the present level for the last three centuries’. This has forced INQUA — not for the first time — to speak out. Its spokesman explained that ‘99 per cent of INQUA scientists don’t subscribe to this view, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is the only one who believes this’. The evidence from -satellites and tide gauges shows that mean ¬global sea levels are now rising by 3mm a year.

Mörner has also made groundless claims in other fields. He says he possesses paranormal powers to find metal and water with his dowsing rods (but has consistently refused James Randi’s invitations to test them) and that he has discovered ‘the Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks’ in Sweden.

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/08/a-levelling/

 

[CapelDodger]

There are those who can follow the science and there are those, like me, who can only follow scientific opinion. A huge slice of English-speaking populations, frighteningly, say they not believe in manmade climate change. But they also say they do not believe that there is an overwhelming consensus in its favour. So they do believe in the authority of science, unlike people who believe in the authority of Genesis. In that sense they are not anti-scientific.

It's a constant denier theme that "there is no consensus", and to those who only follow FoxNews or the denier echo-chamber this no doubt appears to be true. After all, they must have almost a dozen scientists on their side, and the other side only has Mann and Phil Jones .

Nigel Lawson could have little influence on ordinary British punters unless he could also persuade them that a significant minority of kosher experts stood behind him.

"Lord" Lawson was getting no attention at all before he became a denier icon (the US American Right do love "nobility", and mostly don't understand what a Life Peer is). He reveals complete ignorance of any form of science and accepts whatever's fed to him by Monckton (a Third Viscount, because his grandfather was ennobled after years of service as a bag-carrier for George VI). Not coincidentally, they are related by marriage, and it was Lawson who got Monckton a job in Downing Street when he really needed the money after yet another grandiose business failure left him effectively bankrupt.

It is those experts who should be scrutinised. Ditto for Lord Monkton. Lord Monkton’s expert is NilsAxel Moerner, who will be of particular interest to the RANDI forum.

Monckton, of course, is mentally unwell. He's a narcissistic fantasist, which explains his apparently compulsive lying about matters which are easily checked. Grandiosity (he's invented a cure for AIDS, as you may well have heard) is a symptom of the same disease which gives him that swivel-eyed look.

It speaks volumes for the sad state of denial that he's such a star player on the team, and that Lawson is the only one the BBC's Radio Times could find to "balance" Sir David Attenborough (may his tribe increase).

 

[bit_pattern]

I am still unable to link directly but the study below published in Science, shows a time lag of 400 to 1,000 years from the time warming has occured and the concurent rise in atmospheric CO2. There is also a 15,000-year time period where distinct cooling elicits no cange in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 concentration gradually drops over the next 20,000 years, air temperatures either increase or remain relatively constant.

Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.

The lag/lead issue is often misinterpreted. I read this article yesterday, I think it explains ice ages and the relationship between CO2 and the ice ages very well:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ppm451.html

The basic formula behind a glacial termination is that something (orbital forcings) starts the increase in temperature. Actually, what really starts it is a change in the length and severity of northern hemisphere summers, without changing the overall amount of radiation reaching the planet at all. That stays fairly constant.

These seasonal changes in turn cause the ice sheets covering the northern hemisphere land masses to begin to melt. This reflects less sunlight back into space, and that really does change the amount of energy that the planet receives from the sun, which leads to warming. It also results in the release of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, which warms the planet even further.

Then CO2 kicks in. The oceans warm. Warmer water cannot hold as much dissolved carbon dioxide and so the oceans release some CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming. The increased warming causes the ice sheets to retreat further, and the oceans to warm further, and more CO2 to be released.

This continues, but with limits. There is (or had been) only so much CO2 that could make its way into the atmosphere. The system only pushes this cycle so far. The many previous glacial terminations in the past 2.5 million years (a period known as the Pleistocene Epoch) have seen lows of about 180 ppm of CO2, and highs between 250 ppm and 300 ppm.

The main point is that temperatures and CO2 are interlocked, or at least had been until now. Temperature changes had to get the ball rolling, so on a graph they will lead the way, but the two work in concert. One is not pulling a leash to drag the other along. They each push and pull the other, working their way from low to high, or high to low, as an integrated system.

CO2 does not "lag" temperature. That's a simplistic, inaccurate and indiscriminate view of a complex interaction.

There's a lot more very interesting stuff in there about the magnitude of change we have caused to the atmosphere in relation to the changes that take place in between ice ages, which we are very likely set to exceed, especially with the failure at Durban to act before 2020.

 

[Venom]

Can someone help? This guy keeps claiming methane is the more dangerous and immediate GHG and keeps ignoring my sources before 2010 on this basis:

About 300 years ago, methane levels began to rise and in the last 100 years has increased drastically. Today, the current rate of increase on methane is 1% - greater than CO2 (0.4%). The chief contributor to this rise has been the sea bed. Today, melting permafrost may be contributing to even more rapid acceleration.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
esrl [dot] noaa [dot] gov/gmd/infodata/lesson_plans/*Methane%20and%20Populations-Wh*at's%20the%20connection [dot] pdf

It had been hypothesized that CO2 would discharge from melting permafrost as part of feedback over the next 100 years. Since 2007 there's been a dramatic increase in atmospheric methane. There is no scientific consensus why methane concentration is increasing as radically as measured. Anything published prior to 2010 is already outdated.
"Climate change: High risk of permafrost thaw" Nature 480, 32-33 (1 Dec 2011)

He also says CRU destroyed it's source data, but he's been repeating that for the last thousand or so posts.

 

[bit_pattern]

Can someone help?

Link?

 

[lomiller]

Can someone help? This guy keeps claiming methane is the more dangerous and immediate GHG and keeps ignoring my sources before 2010 on this basis:





He also says CRU destroyed it's source data, but he's been repeating that for the last thousand or so posts.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas as far as radiative forcing is concerned, and is actually a stronger greenhouse gas on ppm basis. Like CO2 it’s increasing due to human activity, primarily land use changes. Overall CO2 is producing about 3X as much radiative forcing as increases in Methane.

Methane does break down into CO2 over time, but since it’s present in much smaller quantities this CO2 isn’t nearly as a big a deal as the CO2 we release directly. What iot does mean is that methane is gone in a few decades while some portion of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for up to 100 000 years.

There are some good resources and information in the following

http://www.skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming.htm
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/its-all-about-me-thane/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...-of-20th-century-climate-change-to-cosub2sub/

The CRU doesn’t produce source data; rather it receives it from a variety of national weather services. The idea that they somehow broke into countries weather services and destroyed their data is a laughable conspiracy theory. If the person you are discussing this with is willing to believe that then no amount of fact or science will change their mind unfortunately.

 

[CapelDodger]

Can someone help? This guy keeps claiming methane is the more dangerous and immediate GHG and keeps ignoring my sources before 2010 on this basis

What does this guy derive from this idea? He could be right, in that methane from melting permafrost (on land and undersea) has a disproportionate effect in the Arctic, where it's produced, and could initiate a runaway release entirely outside our control. There isn't nearly a consensus on this since the subject hasn't been studied closely and has pretty much been a hypothetical until quite recently.

He also says CRU destroyed it's source data, but he's been repeating that for the last thousand or so posts.

This is just weird, hence my question. Does he perhaps consider control of CO₂ emissions as pointless before CH₄ emissions are curbed? Or that permafost melting is the initial cause of recent warming? I've heard stranger arguments made since I've been following this story, so I have to ask.

 

[CapelDodger]

The CRU doesn’t produce source data; rather it receives it from a variety of national weather services. The idea that they somehow broke into countries weather services and destroyed their data is a laughable conspiracy theory.

You mean the CRU hacking into Russian databases? That would be so sweet I'm almost prepared to believe it .

If the person you are discussing this with is willing to believe that then no amount of fact or science will change their mind unfortunately.

Some tasks are indeed hopeless. Re-freezing the Arctic's permafrost would, I think, be one of them.

 

[metamars]

The evidence from -satellites and tide gauges shows that mean ¬global sea levels are now rising by 3mm a year.

This link of satellite evidence - specifically, Jason-1, Jason-2, Envisat, ERS2 - shows that sea levels have been declined from their peaks in 2009-2010. Envisat shows lower levels than the peak value in 2002.


Also, the web page claims that the Envisat is the "most sophisticated" sea level satellite.

I don't know why the other satellite data sets are not graphed past 2003-2006.