Climate change

[Daniel1960]

Compare the two spectra for incoming solar and outgoing terrestrial radiation:

 

http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/solar-radiation-incropera-2007.png

 

http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html

 

Compare them on a similar axis:

 

http://robbservations.blogspot.com/2009/12/answering-question-of-co2.html

 

Now compare the incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation at the four main absorbance bands for CO2: 1.8, 2.5, 4.2, and 16 microns.

 

Incoming solar radiation: 150 W/m2, 50 W/m2, ~1 W/m2, and 0 W/m2

 

Outgoing terrestrial radiations: 0, 0, 2 W/m2, and 17 W/m2.

 

The incoming solar radiation in the lower CO2 IR absorption areas is ~100 x higher than in tghe outgoing terrestrial area, and about three times higher in the , such that the smaller IR absorption by CO2 at the lower wavelengths are not insignificant.

[phil_20686]

So the graphs there didnt seem that helpful:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png/595px-Atmospheric_Transmission.png

 

 

So I am not totally sure what your point is, so i will just repeat those I made above:

(1) The atmosphere is much more transparent at visible wavelengths than it is in the far infra-red where the earth radiates. By about a factor of 4.

(2) Yes H20 is the most important green house gas, accounting for 70% of the greenhouse effect. But that isn't too important, as the quantity of water vapour basically depends on the temperature, it is never a driver of climate change.

(3) All effects of atmospheric composition are easily modelled. I repeat my earlier assertion: if you know the atmospheric composition you know the temperature.

(4) The most important unknown is the precise relationship between the temperature and the density of water vapour, but it is almost certainly well captured by ensemble models. To disbelieve that is to believe that the relationship between water vapour and temperature has some kind of discontinuity. While it is impossible to rule out such things, it does not seem likely that in a small range of temperature change (we are talking 2-5 degrees out of an absolute range of 300k), the behaviour should change dramatically.

(5) There are also uncertainties about albedo and biological feedback, but these are generally assumed to be small. Given that biological feedback is almost wholly controlled by humans, (cutting down rainforest far outweighs any small increase in their metabolic rate), it does not seem plausible to believe that it will change soon. :)

 

I believe that the biggest risk of a tipping point is almost certainly in the albedo. The Hadley cycle is fundamentally unstable, at the moment it runs with five channels and generates the trade winds. If it moved to a different number of channels it would significantly alter the distribution of temperature across the globe. In particular it is not impossible that by making the polar cells smaller (in terms of lattitude) there would be a significant drop in polar temperature, with a corresponding rise in tropical temperatures. This could affect the albedo, but such considerations are pure speculation. We have no reason to suppose that a 2- 5 degree warming is enough to cause such a change.

[Al_U_Card]

A self-referential comment by Steve McIntyre concerning the "Hockey Stick" and the IPCC methods and manners.

 

Posted May 27, 2012 at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Reply

 

In 2005 before ar4, I wrote the following response at Roger Pielke’s to the question about whether the Hockey Stick “mattered”. I didn’t get interested in it because it seemed like a vulnerable topic but because it was presented to the public, at least in Canada, not as an incidental argument, but as one of the major arguments, particularly for action right that instant.

 

Stefan Rahmsdorf and others (including Roger Pielke, the proprietor of this site) have taken the position that the Hockey Stick is irrelevant to the great issue of the impact of 2xCO2 on global climate. Even the originator of the Hockey Stick, Michael Mann, who received many awards and honors for its construction, ironically has taken the position that it doesn’t “matter”. (I do not believe that he has not returned any of the honors.) I’m inclined to agree that, for the most part, the Hockey Stick does not matter to the great issue of the impact of 2xCO2. However, I believe that it matters (or should matter) to IPCC, to governments that relied on IPCC and to climate scientists who contributed to and supported IPCC and to people who may wish to rely on IPCC in the future.

 

The Hockey Stick was not, as sometimes portrayed, an incidental graphic, buried in IPCC TAR. Nor was it an icon resurrected by sceptics purely to torment poor Michael Mann. It could almost characterized as the logo for IPCC TAR. Figure 1 below shows Sir John Houghton, at the press conference releasing IPCC TAR, standing in front of the Hockey Stick. The graphic was used repeatedly in IPCC TAR and was one of the most prominent graphics in the Summary for Policymakers. Some governments (and, the Canadian government in particular) relied upon it in their promotion of Kyoto policy even more than IPCC. In the lead-up to adopting Kyoto policy, Canadians were told by their Minister of the Environment that “1998 was the warmest year of the millennium and 1990s the warmest decade”. So even if the Hockey Stick did not “matter” to the scientific case, it mattered to the promotion of the scientific case. Scientists may want to “move on”, but institutions cannot, if they want to maintain any credibility. If the Hockey Stick was wrong, it would be as embarrassing as the failure to find WMD in Iraq. In both cases, the policy might well be justified on alternative grounds, but the existence of the alternative grounds does not mean that responsible agencies should not try to isolate the causes of intelligence failure and try to avoid similar failures in the future.

 

The issues surrounding the MBH Hockey Stick are complicated by IPCC TAR statements and decisions, which, in retrospect, seem misguided, although there is little to suggest that IPCC AR4 is taking to steps to avoid similar potential problems. The most questionable IPCC statement about the Hockey Stick is that the MBH98 reconstruction had “significant skill in independent cross-validation tests”. I added bold to highlight the plural—a second level to the misrepresentation contained in this claim. The statement appears to have been written by Michael Mann about his own work. It is now known that the MBH98 reconstruction in the controversial 15th century portion failed the majority of cross-validation tests, including the standard R2 test [McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005a]; the source code provided to the Barton Committee shows that the adverse cross-validation R2 statistics were calculated, but not reported. It is also now known that the MBH98 reconstruction does not live up to its warranty that it is robust to the presence/absence of all dendroclimatic indicators, as the reconstruction depends on the inclusion of bristlecones, a series known to be potentially contaminated as a temperature proxy. Again, this adverse information was known to the authors and not reported.

 

If I were in Houghton’s shoes, I would be mad as a boil about all this. Since Houghton has a sincere belief that the impact of 2xCO2 is the great issue of our times, then, if I were Houghton, I would be particularly angry at being placed in a position where I used this logo and wasn’t fully informed about adverse information pertaining to it. I also wouldn’t be leaving it up to some probably adversarial committee like the Barton Committee to sort this out. I’d be all over the problem so that my community, the community of climate scientists, was not further embarrassed and so that government institutions would be able to rely confidently on the opinions of IPCC.

 

If I were Houghton, one line of argument that I would not accept is that the other “independent” studies all say similar things. It was the Mann study that I stood in front of. If there are serious problems in it, which were known ahead of time and I didn’t know about them, I would carve everyone involved a new you-know-what. Now for public purposes, I’d feel a lot happier if I could at least retreat to the safe haven of other studies that showed something at least similar to the Mann study. But I’d be pretty worried about them on a couple of counts and I’d want them torn through from top to bottom. The first thing that would worry me is that the studies were not really “independent”. The coauthors all seem to swap places: you see Mann, Jones, Briffa, Bradley, Cook, Schweingruber – all well-known scientists, but all having coauthored together. I’d be worried about a monoculture and want a fresh set of eyes. The second thing that would worry me is that the same proxies are used over and over – the bristlecones, the Polar Urals etc. I’d be worried about systemic problems. I’d be worried that no one seemed to have gone through these other studies like M&M had gone through the MBH studies. Maybe there are more time-bombs. I wouldn’t just passively wait for them to go off.

 

If I were Houghton, I would be enraged at the public refusal by IPCC authors to show their data and methods. When I read in the Wall Street Journal that Mann had said that he would not be “intimidated” into showing his algorithm, I’d have taken immediate action; I’d have told Mann to stop acting like a prima donna, to archive every line of code and data used in MBH98 and stop fighting a pointless battle that simply embarrassed IPCC and the entire field of climate science. I’d have done more than that. I’d have notified everyone contributing to IPCC that we did not expect the same kind of nonsense any more, that anyone contributing to IPCC would have to ensure that their archives of data and methodology were complete or else we couldn’t use their articles. I’d have done so before I heard from some redneck Republicans.

 

I would also review how we were checking studies in IPCC AR4. If our very logo for IPCC TAR blew up on us, then something was wrong with our procedures for review. I wouldn’t go around patting ourselves on the back and telling everyone that this was the most “rigorous” review procedure in the history of science, since we’d goofed on such a prominent issue. I’d want to know why we goofed and how to avoid it in the future, or at least, how to minimize the chances of a recurrence. So when some redneck tried to use the Hockey Stick fiasco against IPCC, I’d at least have an answer.

 

A final thing that I’d ask myself: if this damn chart is “irrelevant” to the great issue of 2xCO2, why did we use it at all? And why did we rely on it so much in our sales presentations? Why didn’t we just talk about the issues that were important and stay away from little irrelevant stuff? Maybe I’d find out, when I investigated, that someone had decided that this was merely for sales promotion – the climate equivalent of a sexy girl sitting on a car. If that were the case, I wouldn’t necessarily be happy about it, but at least I’d understand it. Then I’d want to make sure that we were also selling steak as well as sizzle. I’d sure want to make sure that we’d really done a good job on the issue which Ramsdorff and others now say was the “real” issue: climate sensitivity to 2xCO2.

 

Here I’d be bothered by how little guidance we actually gave to policymakers interested in an intermediate-complexity analysis of whether 2xC02 will lead to a temperature increase of 0.6 deg C or 2.6 deg C or 5.6 deg C. When I re-examined the TAR, I’d notice that we’d virtually skipped over these matters. I’d think: it’s not enough just to list all the results of different models; let’s try to figure out why one model differs from another, what are the circumstances under which a model gives a low sensitivity and what are the circumstances that a model has high sensitivity – if that’s the “real issue”. When I saw that we’d barely touched this sort of analysis in IPCC TAR, I’d be pretty embarrassed. I would certainly vow that in AR4, we would not repeat the mistake of ignoring the “real issues” in favor of hood ornaments.

 

The other thing that I wouldn’t do is simply ignore the problem and hope that it goes away of its own accord. I wouldn’t rely on the assurances of Mann and similar protagonists that the various alleged defects do not “matter”. No corporation would do so in similar circumstances and IPCC shouldn’t either. I would long ago have got some independent statistician to see if there really was a problem that I should be worried about. I wouldn’t have stood still for this water torture. I’d tell Mann to co-operate with the investigator and request McIntyre to cooperate. I’d try to get the parties to sign off on an exact statement of points and issues that everyone agreed on and ones that were in dispute. Once I saw what was in dispute, I’d ask for what would be involved to determine once and for all who was right on specific issues. I would long ago have gotten tired of barrages from both sides, where I couldn’t be sure that they were not at cross-purposes.

 

So does the Hockey Stick matter? Yes, if you’re a climate scientist that believes that the IPCC is an important institution whose opinions should be valued. Mann now thinks that the Hockey Stick does not matter. As so often, life is full of ironies.

 

At the time, I sharply criticized the use of conflicted scientists to carry out controversial assessments – Keith Briffa was about the worst possible choice. This caveat proved out, as one of the worst revelations of the Climategate dossier was Briffa’s surreptitiously allowing Eugene Wahl, a party to the dispute, to insert assessment language in the report that varied from that sent out to external reviewers, to an assessment that more or less endorsed Wahl and Mann’s side of the dispute from the more agnostic assessment that had been sent out to reviewers.

 

The destruction of emails that Jones later instigated pertained to these review comments. And rather than coming clean, the University has fought disclosure of Wahl’s edits tooth and nail. All of this leaves a very unsavory impression of the people.

 

The people who should care about policy action of some sort, such as Allen, are the ones who should have been most concerned about getting to the bottom of what Mann, Briffa etc had done and whether there stuff constituted real “science” or was little better than paleophrenology. And should have been the ones that were most resolute in ensuring transparent and thorough inquiries.

 

The wider climate community took a great risk to their own credibility by idly standing by. The price has been that the credibility of the entire community has been tarnished at a time when their advice is important. That’s too bad.

 

But instead of blaming others, they should look in the mirror.

[Daniel1960]

Phil,

 

I agree that the atmosphere is much more transparent in the visible than the far IR. However, the atmosphere does absorb at several bands in the near IR, where the incoming solar energy greatly exceeds the outgoing terrestrial energy; the outgoing energy varies from 14 - 20 W/m^2/micron in the major CO2 absorption region, while the incoming solar radiation is ~150-200 and ~50 W/m^2 in the two CO2 absorption regions. The energy of the incoming solar radiation is up to 100x greater than the outgoing terrestrial, such that even a small increase in absorption of the incoming IR radiation is significant compared to the large (realtive) absorption of the outgoing IR radiation.

 

I disagree that water vapor is not important. Large quantities of heat are transported through evaporation and precipitation, not to mentioned the previosuly discussed IR absorption.

 

I disagree that all effects are easily modelled, but then I may just be old school when data reigned and models were just theoretical.

 

I would be surprised if density changes have any measureable affect.

 

I am not sure about your last contention, except that we humans have a large control of the biological systems. I feel that both the albedo and biological effects are large, though not as large as atmospheric and oceanic effects, and changes in the land can have profound effects. I fail to see how the drop in polar temps could greatly increase tropical temps, especially since tropical temps appear to be the most stable longterm.

[phil_20686]

Phil,

 

I agree that the atmosphere is much more transparent in the visible than the far IR. However, the atmosphere does absorb at several bands in the near IR, where the incoming solar energy greatly exceeds the outgoing terrestrial energy; the outgoing energy varies from 14 - 20 W/m^2/micron in the major CO2 absorption region, while the incoming solar radiation is ~150-200 and ~50 W/m^2 in the two CO2 absorption regions. The energy of the incoming solar radiation is up to 100x greater than the outgoing terrestrial, such that even a small increase in absorption of the incoming IR radiation is significant compared to the large (realtive) absorption of the outgoing IR radiation.

 

I fail to see how the drop in polar temps could greatly increase tropical temps, especially since tropical temps appear to be the most stable longterm.

 

Its not really a good way to think in terms of "absorption" and "transmission" when you are talking about the global temperature. Let me put it to you this way, there are three types of atmospheric process. Absorption, emission, and scattering. In a scattering process, a photon hits a molecule, and is (essentially instantly) remitted at the same wavelength, but in a new (basically random) direction. In an emission process, two molecules bang together, and some of the energy excites one of their internal degrees of freedom and it emits a photon. Absorption is the opposite of emission, a photon is absorbed and the energy is transferred to some internal degree of freedom. Normally vibrational or rotational, but also sometimes kinetic. Sometimes (often) absorption results in the emission of a new photon at a lower energy (longer wavelength).

 

 

Absorption is the same process that heats the ground. Extra absorption heats the atmosphere whether the light is going in or out. If this doesn't convince you, consider that if there was no absorption, then the only heating would come from conduction, and since hot air rises the temperature of the atmosphere would fall monotonically with height: instead

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter1/graphics/vert_temp.gif

 

 

so you can infer that only in the troposphere is the energy transfer dominated by conduction/convection. In the rest of the atmosphere it is dominated by radiative balance.

 

Now scattering is not wholly independent of absorption, it depends on what fraction of the energy gets re-emitted on average etc. It is certainly not correct to say that increases in the absorption in the visible bands automatically leads to enough extra scattering back into space to offset the warming effect of absorption.

 

My favourite way to think about it is to say that what matters is how long a given quanta will stay in the atmosphere. Scattering/reflection can make the path shorter or longer (shorter if its reflected straight out, longer if it scatters a few times before reaching the surface anyway), but absorption always makes it take longer, so it always warming.

 

Re the poles. The warming of the surface depends on the sin of the angle it makes with a surface perpendicular to the sun's radiation. So the warming is much higher at the equator. The atmosphere, aswell as its blanket statues, also shifts heat from the equator to the poles. This temperature difference is what drives the ocean circulations and most of the atmospheric circulations. However, it does not to so linearly, for the atmosphere the primary mechanism is the hadley cells:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Earth_Global_Circulation.jpg/400px-Earth_Global_Circulation.jpg

 

 

and circulation within a hadley cell is much more efficient than from one cell to another. If the number of hadely cells were to change from 6 to 8, it would significantly decrease the efficiency of the this mechanism, and so the poles would not have as much energy transferred to them. Conversely, the equatorial cells would be hotter. Ocean circulation is similar, but complication by the geography of the ocean floors.

[Daniel1960]

Phil,

 

I have no disagreement with your last post, and understand fully. I would like to add that increased absorption of IR by the atmosphere will increase warming of the atmosphere (from both soalr and terrestrial radiation). This will lead to a decrease in the surface absorption, due to a reduction in incoming solar radiation. Indeed, the increase in atmospheric sulphates has been postulated as a cause of the cooling trends in the 1960s-1970s and the past decade. The Earth's surface will heat/cool based on the total of the incoming solar radiation and reflected terrestrial radiation. Interestingly a recent paper about the ozone reduction of the 1980s and 1990s has been postulated as another cause of surface heating by reduction of incoming solar radiation.

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612000867

 

An increase in Hadley cells from 6 to 8 should results in less heat flow. I have read about movement of the Hadley cells affecting local weather patterns, but not about an increase in their number. By what mechanism could this occur, and how likely is it?

[phil_20686]

An increase in Hadley cells from 6 to 8 should results in less heat flow. I have read about movement of the Hadley cells affecting local weather patterns, but not about an increase in their number. By what mechanism could this occur, and how likely is it?

 

I know that more intense heating normally leads to more. Its not an effect that can be analytically modelled, because it depends on turbulence. In the first instance it depends on the fact that you are heating the fluid, and so it rises, but there is a limit on how high it can rise, so eventually it has to move sideways, and it is cooling while it does that, then it falls down. It falls down basically due to energy considerations, when it falling (as its cooler and denser) has a high enough energy gradient to overcome the fact that it is pushing on a column of rising air. So how fair it goes aught to depend only on the temperature gradient at the surface. On the earth the temperature decreases away from the centre, and since the pressur relation is fairly linear it will depend on the absolute temperature change not the erlative temperature change. Warming will increase the absolute temperature gradient, so it will eventually increase the number of cells.

 

You can see this in a pan of liquid (try adding some die), on a very low heat it will not form cells, on a higher heat it will form only one cell, but if you heat it more fiercely it will form several cells. The process is an example of emergence of order, and of symmetry breaking, as for a pan heated evenly there is no reason why it should form a cell in one place rather than another. The exact criteria are difficult to understand, and exhibits hysteresis. It depends non trivially on how smoothly the liquids flow and that kind of thing.

[Daniel1960]

Thanks Phil,

 

I believe that the hysteresis may be the key here. Overriding the current system may be more difficult than imagined. On the other hand, I feel that if a change in the number of Hadley cells occurred, the effects would be sudden and dramatic. Agreed?

[phil_20686]

Thanks Phil,

 

I believe that the hysteresis may be the key here. Overriding the current system may be more difficult than imagined. On the other hand, I feel that if a change in the number of Hadley cells occurred, the effects would be sudden and dramatic. Agreed?

 

Yes. This type of dramatic change is impossible to capture in modelling essentially, as we won't really know the criteria for a change until we see one. :)

[Al_U_Card]

As an amusing aside, I gave a class on statistical methods at Lawrence Livermore a couple years back...

 

I would be interested in technical commentary on the statistical methods used in paleo-reconstructions using proxies.

Principle component analysis and selection criteria that produce hockey stick graphs from red noise seem to be the major complaint about the data analysis of past temperatures. It seems that "Team" climatologists are not only reluctant to divulge the data used, they don't want to provide what data was excluded or why.

My stats experience was limited to experimental design in a production environment. The maths were daunting but I did catch on that methods etc. were critically dependent on not being subjected to selection criteria, if biased by response expectations rather than technical considerations.

Are the current methods used by alarmists viable and valuable?

Should they be more rigorous given the stakes?

[Zelandakh]

but I did catch on that methods etc. were critically dependent on not being subjected to selection criteria, if biased by response expectations rather than technical considerations.

A selection criteria is completely standard in PCA because the method is often sensitive to the effects of outliers. The difficulty is in selecting which data points represent outliers. Expectation bias can certainly have an effect here and therefore I personally think it is necessary for peer reviewers to have access to the (original) data sets to be able to do their job thoroughly. This is usually not the case at present.

 

 

Are the current methods used by alarmistsscientists viable and valuable?

Should they be more rigorous given the stakes?

Yes and (imho) yes.

[PassedOut]

Human-induced global ocean warming on multidecadal timescales

 

Recent identification of systematic instrumental biases in expendable bathythermograph data has led to improved estimates of ocean temperature variability and trends and provide motivation to revisit earlier detection and attribution studies. We examine the causes of ocean warming using these improved observational estimates, together with results from a large multimodel archive of externally forced and unforced simulations. The time evolution of upper ocean temperature changes in the newer observational estimates is similar to that of the multimodel average of simulations that include the effects of volcanic eruptions. Our detection and attribution analysis systematically examines the sensitivity of results to a variety of model and data-processing choices. When global mean changes are included, we consistently obtain a positive identification (at the 1% significance level) of an anthropogenic fingerprint in observed upper-ocean temperature changes, thereby substantially strengthening existing detection and attribution evidence.

And in other news, cigarette smoking does cause cancer. And George Bush did not demolish the WTC.

[luke warm]

i believe some of you are gonna be still hollering about agw even in the midst of the coming ice age... :)

[Al_U_Card]

Human-induced global ocean warming on multidecadal timescales

 

 

And in other news, cigarette smoking does cause cancer. And George Bush did not demolish the WTC.

 

From that same paper:

 

 

Although there are no significant differences between the ΔT trends (which range from 0.022 to 0.028 °C per decade) in the three improved observational data sets, Fig. 1a illustrates that substantial structural uncertainties remain.

 

Bob Tisdale has quite the body of work concerning ocean temps and the lack of "skill" that the various climate models have regarding this subject. Once again, most of the anthropogenic expectation is generated by:

 

together with results from a large multimodel archive of externally forced and unforced simulations. The time evolution of upper ocean temperature changes in the newer observational estimates is similar to that of the multimodel average of simulations that include the effects of volcanic eruptions.

 

With the latest hullaballoo concerning the Gergis paper about SHHS (Southern Hemisphere Hockey Sticks) being withdrawn for yet again using bogus statistical analysis to generate the desired conclusion, our climate science friends are just the gift that keeps on giving. The whole mess is nicely described at Climate Audit, WUWT, Bishop Hill and JoNova.

 

Statistical malfeasance, the climate crime of the century?

[Al_U_Card]

Along the same lines:

 

No anthropogenic fingerprint 1984-2006

 

The indirect inference is that diminished ocean cooling due to vertical ocean processes played an important role in sustaining the observed positive trend in global SST from 1984 through 2006, despite the decrease in global surface heat flux. A similar situation is found in the individual basins, though magnitudes differ. A conclusion is that natural variability, rather than long term climate change, dominates the SST and heat flux changes over this 23 year period. On shorter time scales the relationship between SST and heat flux exhibits a variety of behaviors.

 

Journal of Climate 2012 early online release

 

 

From Dr. Judith Curry's blog. Darn that settled science.

[PassedOut]

Obama accepts the science on climate change, but Romney is harder to read: Mitt Romney worked to combat climate change as governor

 

During his first 18 months as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney spent considerable time hammering out a sweeping climate change plan to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions.

 

As staff briefed him on possible measures and environmentalists pressed him to act, Romney frequently repeated a central thought, people at those meetings said: That climate change is occurring, that the United States has the resources to handle its vast impact but that low-lying poor countries like Bangladesh would suffer greatly.

 

"It was like a mantra with him," said a person who attended those meetings who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic. "His Cabinet members would look at him like, 'What?' He was the radical in the room."

 

Before doing an about-face toward the end of his term as he began to prepare for his first run for president, Romney pushed to close old coal-fired plants, encourage the development of renewable energy and contain sprawl — steps similar to some President Obama has taken.

 

Indeed, one of Romney's top environmental staffers, Gina McCarthy, now runs the air pollution unit of the Environmental Protection Agency under Obama. John Holdren, a scientist Romney turned to on at least one occasion to discuss climate change, is the White House senior advisor on science and technology issues.

 

Romney's gubernatorial record on energy and the environment has little in common with the positions he has staked out in the presidential race, those who knew him in Massachusetts say.

Perhaps if Romney wins the election he'll shake the etch-a-sketch again and regain his concern for our planet. We can hope...

[Al_U_Card]

And you may have noticed that CONEG (the North-Eastern Governors responsible for that legislation) have been dropping out of the carbon parts as they become aware of the farce that is CO2-based agenda-driven impoverishment of our society.

 

If there is hope for our planet, it is in real science and not the pseudo-science of crypto-phrenology known as climate "science". (As far as hockey stick generation is concerned.)

[Daniel1960]

Perhaps the politicians (i.e. Romney, et. al.) are simply following the trend set by some of the environmental scientists, such as James Lovelock.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/15/james-lovelock-interview-gaia-theory

[PassedOut]

US experts predict higher sea level rise: study

 

By 2100, the NRC estimates that global sea levels will rise between 20-55 inches (50 and 140 centimeters).

 

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's projection in 2007 had predicted a fraction of that, at seven to 23 inches (18-59 centimeters) worldwide.

 

Researchers said the wide range within each estimate is due to increasing uncertainty about sea level projections as they attempt to assess what may happen further and further into the future.

 

In the near term, the NRC predicted a global sea level rise of three to nine inches (eight to 23 centimeters) by 2030 (over the 2000 level) and seven to 19 inches (18 to 48 centimeters) by 2050.

 

...

 

The NRC study was jointly sponsored by the states of California, Washington and Oregon, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Geological Survey.

Polled individually, none of the authors blamed George Bush for the collapse of the WTC on 9/11. And none of them smoke cigarettes.

[Daniel1960]

Interesting, 9 inches by 2030 over 2000? Since 1993, the global trend has been ~3mm/yr, while that has tailed off to less than half that since 2003. Even at the highest rate, sea level rise by 2030 would only be 1.2 inches(30mm). In order to reach that projection, sea level would need to rise 175mm in the next 18 years, or an annual rate of ~10mm/yr. This appears unsustainable based on the data. Sea level would need to accelerate to even greater rates to reach some of the mroe extreme predicted levels of 3-5 feet.

 

http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sl_ns_global.png

[Al_U_Card]

Interesting, 9 inches by 2030 over 2000? Since 1993, the global trend has been ~3mm/yr, while that has tailed off to less than half that since 2003. Even at the highest rate, sea level rise by 2030 would only be 1.2 inches(30mm). In order to reach that projection, sea level would need to rise 175mm in the next 18 years, or an annual rate of ~10mm/yr. This appears unsustainable based on the data. Sea level would need to accelerate to even greater rates to reach some of the mroe extreme predicted levels of 3-5 feet.

 

http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sl_ns_global.png

 

Put another way:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/san-francisco-sea-level-alarmist1.jpg?w=640

 

If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.

 

When will they ever get tired of trotting out those climate-modeled projections with so much "uncertainty"? Oh, right, those ones ARE NOT CATASTROPHIC, just realistic.

[PassedOut]

Warmer seas rising faster on U.S. east coast than elsewhere

 

Sea levels are rising much faster along the U.S. east coast than they are around the globe, putting some of the world's most prized coastal properties in danger of flooding, government researchers report.

 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists call the 965-kilometre swath a "hot spot" for climbing sea levels caused by global warming.

 

Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

 

It's not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway "jamming on the accelerator," said the study's lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950 and noticed a change beginning in 1990.

 

Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 5 centimetres. But in Norfolk, Va., where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, the sea level has jumped a total of 12.19 centimetres, the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 9.4 centimetres, and in New York City, it was 7.11 centimetres.

 

Climate change pushes up sea levels because it causes ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica to melt and because warmer water expands.

 

Computer models long have projected higher levels along parts of the U.S. east coast because of changes in ocean currents from global warming, but this is the first study to show that's already happened.

Real estate investors are taking note.

[Zelandakh]

Surprised noone has mentioned Lake El'gygytgyn yet. The new research seems to give grist for the mill of both sides. Are the ice sheets imminently about to collapse causing massive positive feedbacks or is the melting part of the natural (~400000 year) cycle and therefore completely normal and unrelated to AGW? I daresay we will be seeing this data used to produce some more concrete results in due course. It would certainly be interesting to see a graph using the latest data from both poles as proxies and comparing this with the tree ring proxy graphs.

[Al_U_Card]

Surprised noone has mentioned Lake El'gygytgyn yet. The new research seems to give grist for the mill of both sides. Are the ice sheets imminently about to collapse causing massive positive feedbacks or is the melting part of the natural (~400000 year) cycle and therefore completely normal and unrelated to AGW? I daresay we will be seeing this data used to produce some more concrete results in due course. It would certainly be interesting to see a graph using the latest data from both poles as proxies and comparing this with the tree ring proxy graphs.

 

At least the ice cores have a basis in fact (chemically and physically) from which temperature signals can be separated out with a modicum of math. The tree-rings....there is the rub. They are so subject to other factors that dubious statistical methods are required to generate signals whose noise is so high and whose response is so subject to method that they should not be compared to the cores.

 

Sea levels are interesting in their own right because of the isostatic adjustments needed to keep the rate rising at previous levels (so something has slowed...)but at least tide gauges and coastal subsidence can be checked and show that some predictions are less valid than others.

 

Speaking of methods, yet again, a seminal study on climate sensitivity by Forest et al 2006 (the famous 3 degrees of warming per doubling of [CO2]) is being checked for veracity and...wait for it...the author refused to show his work and has now lost the data! When this one goes down and CS turns out to be low enough to explain the "difference" between modeled scenarios and reality...we may finally be able to leave the [CO2] monster in peace and get back to the government wasting our money on valid environmental pursuits. :unsure:

[Daniel1960]

Yes, tidal gauges are a good check on sea level predictions. Just as long as a representative sample is used, and not overrealiance on higher or lower values, not to mention other local factors which are completely independent of mean sea level rise. I do not know if the recent slowing of sea level rise is indicative of a larger decelleration, or simply a response to the cooling of late. There is always the recent Pokhrel paper claiming that the additional 1 mm/yr rise in mean sea level is due to groundwater use.

 

Nice graphic Al.