Study Links Pacific Coastal Warming To Changing Winds

tranquilidad writes: In a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two authors ascribe the majority of northeast pacific coastal warming to natural atmospheric circulation and not to anthropogenic forcing. In AP's reporting, Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist with the Carnegie Institution for Science, says the paper's authors, "...have not established the causes of these atmospheric pressure variations. Thus, claims that the observed temperature increases are due primarily to 'natural' processes are suspect and premature, at best." The paper's authors, on the other hand, state, "...clearly, there are other factors stronger than the greenhouse forcing that is affecting...temperatures," and that there is a "surprising degree to which the winds can explain all the wiggles in the temperature curve."

Comments

Most rational people never believe in AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just confirmation of what most people knew all along - that human beings don't have anywhere near the kind of impact that the climate nutters claim we do. To think that people could have any measureable affect on a natural system as large as the entire earth is ludicrous. Now we just need to figure out a way to stop pissing away money with study after study showing the affects are random. The gravy train must end.

Re:Most rational people never believe in AGW

[bunratty]

That's an interesting thought process... "some warming is natural" means "no warming is artificial." It's like claiming at your murder trial that someone's death was natural, so therefore humans can't cause other humans to die. Talk about grasping at straws!

Re:Most rational people never believe in AGW

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're aware that changing wind patterns still don't mean squat for the global thermal energy balance? The winds are just moving the heat around a bit.

Re:Most rational people never believe in AGW

[radtea]

It's like claiming at your murder trial that someone's death was natural, so therefore humans can't cause other humans to die.

While this isn't a bad way to put the Denialist reaction to this paper, it is worth pointing out that these guys have done more than produce one number: they have also produced predictions for regional variation that a) match the data and b) can't be replicated by a global forcing model. Since a critical component of the evidence for ACC is the regional variation of the predicted warming, this should at least give one pause.

Of course, letting it give one pause would be a disaster for members of the Warmist religion, whose mantra "The Science Is Settled" implies that any modification to the conclusion "almost all warming observed everywhere is the result of ACC" is equivalent to "the Denialists were right after all!"

This is nonsense, of course: the Denialists are wrong. Doubling the CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere are almost certainly increasing the effective insolation by about 1.6 W/m^2, which will likely have appreciable consequences on the climate.

However, how those consequences work themselves out is an extremely uncertain business, and no competent computational physicist puts nearly the trust in our unphysical climate models that Warmists do. This paper is a good example of how science (as opposed to politics and religion, which is what most of the public debate about ACC amounts to) works: they have squeezed a plausible hypothesis (that regional changes around the Pacific are explicable by global forcing) and found it questionable.

I expect we'll see a lot of work in the next decade on the interaction of natural variations and anthropogenic forcings, with Warmists continually playing a game of catch-up and Denialists continually repeating that the manifest uncertainty in our conclusions proves that "humans can't possibly have doubled the CO2 level" (or something like that... why Denialists believe humans can't have a global impact is beyond me.)

This is the damage to science done by Warmists: by claiming something that is not just false but actively anti-science ("the science is settled") they have encouraged their equally ignorant opponents to disbelieve science when it is working exactly as one would like it to.

Re:Most rational people never believe in AGW

[Hussman32]

One of the main problems is quantifying the energy in the ocean. The boundary conditions are poorly define, a detailed thermal profile is non-existent, and small changes in water temperature resolve to large changes in air temperature.

Re:Most rational people never believe in AGW

[Truth_Quark]

Since a critical component of the evidence for ACC is the regional variation of the predicted warming, this should at least give one pause.

Really?

When I looked at it, my understanding was that models reproduce the global mean surface temperature very well, but regional climate change is expected to be more affected by systems that originate on scales smaller than the cells of current climate models.

Where do you get this claim that the regional variation is a critical component of the evidence for ACC?

if the winds explains the wiggles

[Anonymous Coward]

then what explains the winds? Effect of AGW on ocean temperatures is well established by now.

"Belief" is not part of the scientific method

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting thought process... "some warming is natural" means "no warming is artificial."

You're right of course, it's terribly flawed logic. Just as flawed as the logic in "The greenhouse effect is demonstrable in a test tube, therefore it is the primary factor directly controlling the temperature of Earth."

Real scientists don't make such simplistic and unjustified steps in their logic. Unfortunately, because real scientists remain silent when they don't have verifiable mathematics and experiment to back a theory, we only get to hear the charlatans for whom contributory data is equivalent to understanding the whole thing.

Re: "Belief" is not part of the scientific method

[O('_')O_Bush]

Test tube being our own planet (we KNOW why our planet is not similar in temperatures to the moon) and other planets we observe (Venus).

There is hardly a disconnect between theory, lab experimentation, and reality.

We know the greenhouse effect exists... if it didn't, we wouldn't be here.

Re:"Belief" is not part of the scientific method

[bunratty]

That's not the reasoning behind the statement that the greenhouse effect warms the Earth. There are calculations and predictions behind it. If you predict the temperature of the Earth without the greenhouse effect, you get far colder temperatures than we observe. When you add in the greenhouse effect, you do get the observed temperatures. That's the scientific method -- hypothesis, prediction, and observation. Arrhenius even used this reasoning to predict in the 1800s that burning fossil fuels would cause warming. Hypothesis, prediction, and observation. You know, actual science.

Re:"Belief" is not part of the scientific method

[MightyMartian]

Except, of course, what you just wrote has nothing to do with AGW models or theories.

Par for the course for science deniers of all kinds; create strawmen of theories they're too emotionally retarded to accept, strike down strawmen and declare victory.

Imagine being so infantile you cannot deal with reality.

The simple fact that we can't talk about this...

[Karmashock]

... Underscores the real problem here. This is far too politicized to be judged scientifically anymore. There are very few open minds left and those few that are open are not listened to by anyone.

Consider for the sake of argument if everything you know about this issue is wrong. Just for the sake of argument. Now reexamine these little niche issues one at a time to see if they have anything interesting to say WHILE in that frame of mind.

This is something I do every time I get new information. I take all my opinions, convictions, and beliefs... and I put them in neutral. Then I read it all IN that frame of mind. Often I will be reading something that contradicts my previous understanding. And unless I kept that frame of mind I would probably prejudge and discount it without properly considering it.

Everyone does this from time to time. The best scientists in the world have been caught doing this occasionally. You never stop being human.

What is so distressing about AGW for me is that we're all so polarized on the issue that we can't even talk about it anymore without breaking into our little factional camps can calling each other names.

Straw men aren't part of the scientific method

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right of course, it's terribly flawed logic. Just as flawed as the logic in "The greenhouse effect is demonstrable in a test tube, therefore it is the primary factor directly controlling the temperature of Earth."

No one says the greenhouse effect is the primary factor controlling the temperature of the Earth. It is, however, a significant factor. Have you ever done the black body radiation calculation for the temperature of the Earth given the radiation from the Sun? It significantly undershoots the actual mean temperature of the Earth even if you account for heat due to radioactive decay and residual primordial heat from the formation of the Earth. The greenhouse effect is necessary to explain the current surface temperature. It would be about 255 K without it.

Re:Two new deniers are born...

[Anonymous Coward]

Proven in that the increase of CO2 has not had a statictically significant increase in temperature.

So, its settled proven fact, unless you actual observe the actual data of no warming for 18 years. So other than the predictions of your hypothesis not matching expected results, it is fact.

Whats it called when you perform an experiment, don't get the expected result, and call anyone who points it out names instead of modifying your theory and experiment?

Re:The simple fact that we can't talk about this..

[hondo77]

You are wrong. I am not a climate scientist. Almost all the people here are not climate scientists. However, if 97% of climate scientists around the world agree on something, it tends to sway me into their favor. Arguments to the contrary are always welcome but, from what I've seen, they aren't credible (because they are so easily debunked in ways I can understand). When the community of climate scientists is swayed, those of us with open minds will be swayed, too. Same goes with relativity, evolution, and whatever else. I have an open mind but if the overwhelming majority of the experts in a field agree on something, it gets my attention. It seems that what gets the attention of deniers is only what they want to hear.

Re:What I want to know...

[St.Creed]

I can't find the reference right now, but if the average temperature of the planet increases by 4 degrees celsius, large swathes of this planet's real estate become uninhabitable. There's about 2 billion people living in that zone that have to get out, or die. Do you think an iron fence will stop them at the border? Not a chance.

And if the temperature rises enough to release the methane gas in the seas in the arctic, the whole process will accelerate beyond our power to control it.

Now, this may or may not happen. Chances are, if we do nothing it might not happen. The odds don't seem favorable though. In any case, gambling with the entire area of this solar system we can actually inhabit seems like a rather stupid proposition.

Re:The simple fact that we can't talk about this..

[radtea]

This is far too politicized to be judged scientifically anymore.

The problem is that Warmists have politicized the science almost from the word "go". You can tell this because prominent political organizations like Greenpeace say on the one hand that climate change could be a civilization-ending event, and on the other hand we must not ever even think about using nuclear power to solve it, even though nuclear is the only proven, sustainable, economic and practical alternative to coal (this is even more true since the Japanese demonstrated practical extraction of uranium from sea water.)

Greenpeace says the only acceptable solutions to the problem of ACC are reduced consumption, de-industrialization, and various command-economy initiatives of a kind that would represent a massive expansion of government control. This is not surprising, because Greenpeace is a far-left political organization with no interest in the environment whatsoever (it was founded as a science-based organization, but changed to politics after a few years when some of its leaders recognized that politics was a lot more lucrative.)

So having made "the solution equal to the problem" in the public discourse, Leftist political organizations are now upset that Rightwingnutjobs are denying there is a problem. The rightwingers aren't responding to the science, they are responding to the Left's insistence that if there is a problem, it only has far-left solutions. That's obviously stupid (what the Righties are doing) but hardly surprising. Politics has always been a game of power and opposition, and the Right is taking the role of opposition in this case.

Me, I care primarily about the science, and defending the integrity of science from both sides. I acknowledge ACC is a problem, and I've arranged my life so my carbon footprint is tiny. I work at home in a mild climate, don't drive, almost never fly, etc. I support carbon taxes because the data show pretty clearly they work and have some nice side benefits, like reducing CO2 emissions. By "they work" of course I mean "they work to reduce income taxes and corporate taxes", which surely anyone who isn't some socialist nut-job would be in support of. But I also support the development of nuclear power and research into geo-engineering, because it would be utterly evil to believe we are risking the end of industrial civilization and not be open to all possible solutions.

But because the issue has been politicized since the '80's, I get accused of being a Denialist by Warmist nutjobs. It isn't enough that I agree a) there is a problem and b) support some economically defensible solutions. I have to quack the mantra of "the science is settled" (which it isn't and never can be) and "97% of climate scientists agree!" (which they don't and it's irrelevant) or I'm the enemy.

If Warmists cared about science, they would discuss the science, and reasonable policy alternatives. Instead, they rally people against pipelines and oppose nuclear power and complain that the science has become politicized, to which I say: they have only themselves to blame.