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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."
What really need are some big fans to increase coastal winds and cool off the world. I recommend them in large quantities. We'll call them fan farms. Maybe power them from those reverse fan farms that generate electricity and drain our global wind supply causing global warming!
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!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Surely they know better than to not yield before the awesome explanatory power of AGW; which succinctly explains every possible and conceivable observation. I am relieved that more learned people than them are quick to point out that those causes have in turn their own causes and those causes are almost certainly where AGW manifests.
This is apostasy and can only be punished by academic death. They will never get a grant in this town, again!
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
Ezekiel 23:20
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.
... 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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
no.
They have shown that a local effect, pacific northwest, might have had a bigger impact on local winds. The fact tat ther wind changes can be do yo e;levate GLOBAL energy trapping isn't addressed in any clear way.
The fact that they used global model and tried to apply them to a local event is suspect.
No matter, it's one study. Lets see follow up.
NOTHING in the study refutes the fact that the lower atmosphere of the earth is warming do to excess CO2 trapping energy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
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.
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?
I sense a teachable moment. Carbon dioxide molecules certainly absorb infrared radiation leaving our beautiful planet. They have been doing that for most of the 4 billion years that the Earth has existed and had an atmosphere of gases. Fortunately for the planet, though, those same co2 molecules do not 'hold on to' (or store) the IR but, instead, 'release' it via collisions with other, far more abundant molecules in the atmosphere (O2, N2, H2O) or re-radiate it. Someone has noticed that the carbon dioxide concentration has increased in the atmosphere by 84 ppm since 1958 to its present concentration of approximately 400 ppm and they are concerned that that increase will result in a net decrease in heat being radiated into space thereby leaving our planet warmer. They believe that the carbon dioxide concentration should be held to a constant value by limiting the combustion of fossil fuels. To support this belief, they have modeled the planetary climate with computer software and have determined that a continuing increase in carbon dioxide concentration will lead to a much warmer climate which will, in turn, lead to melting of the polar ice caps in antarctica and greenland resulting in a dramatically higher sea level that will inundate a large portion of the human population. However, the maximum atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration possible if we combust all of the known reserves of fossil fuels at our present rate of combustion is about 550 ppm and it appears likely that a re-tuning of the computer model will show that a concentration of 550 ppm will not result in a any of the catastrophes that the earlier computer runs predicted, as TFA is alluding to. The climate changes, is changing, and will change...yes. But...due to carbon dioxide concentration...no. Capiche?
The winds are just moving the heat around a bit.
"Moving heat around a bit" has a tremendous impact on global climate. This is why ENSO in the south Pacific is so important: by moving heat around it changes global circulation patterns, which changes the overall energy balance of the Earth. This is why the simple achievement of getting reasonable agreement that anthropogenic CO2 is adding about 1.6 W/m^2 to the Earth's heat budget is such a huge scientific achievement, and while that conclusion is still subject to significant uncertainty: because adding heat changes the winds and currents which themselves influence the radiative balance. There are even (very unlikely) models in which adding sufficient heat causes global cooling due to increased transport of energy to the poles, where it radiates back into space more efficiently.
Climate is a non-linear, strongly coupled system. Treating it as if one could draw simple conclusions dismisses the complexity and difficulty of climate modelling. It also results in underestimating the uncertainties in models.
Any competent computational physicist (me, for example, but other people a lot smarter than me as well: http://online.wsj.com/articles...) will tell you that climate models are far less certain than their public, political proponents are claiming. This does not mean that "global warming is a hoax" or any such Denialist gibberish. It means that models are uncertain, and we should not get bowled over when they are subject to correction, even significant correction.
In the meantime, we can do some pretty universally agreeable things, like shift income and corporate taxes toward carbon taxes. After all, income and corporate taxes apply to something that is basically good--making butt-loads of money--while carbon taxes apply to something basically bad: burning irreplaceable fossil fuels and dumping garbage into the atmosphere. I guess anti-capitalist crusaders might oppose carbon taxes, but I can't think of any other reason to do so. If anyone is really in favour of keeping income and corporate taxes high, do feel free to make your case, though.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
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.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
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.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
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.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
The paper does not imply that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Rather it implies that the estimates of the effects of CO2 may be overestimated. Since meteorologists tune their models based on past weather data, this would mean that the predictive models are tuned wrong and give too much weight to greenhouse gases in temperature predictions. The criticism of the paper also brings up valid points that should be investigated.
Thermal expansion, ocean currents, how the heat uptake/loss changes as the ice melts, salt concentrations, etc.
There are a LOT of variables here that we either have little to no data on or little to no understanding of how it will impact climate. The climate is very complicated. As with another poster I think the climate models are being a bit alarmist in their predictions but the fact is there is so much we don't understand about how it's going to be affected that we'd be remiss if they weren't alarmist because they could be vastly wrong, in the wrong direction! We could find out 20 years down the road that melting the north pole 50% dilutes the salt levels to the point that the ocean currents halt or speedup in some way that dramatically changes climate worldwide (what would happen if the desert band shifted 200 miles toward the poles?). We know almost nothing about the bottom of the ocean and these currents. And that's just one variable. There are dozens that there has been little to no research on.
Maybe it won't be a gradual warming, maybe it will hold for a period as the oceans suck up energy then it will be like a cork popping and within a decade temperatures will jump several degrees (which would be far far more catastrophic than the models are predicting right now). I find global climate change rather scary, adding 1.6watts per m^2 is a tremendous amount of energy and we probably won't know exactly what it does until after we've done it.
Daniel Dennett actually suggests that you should internally signal an alarm when someone uses the word "surely" in an argument. A statement prefixed by surely is quite often the weakest part of the argument, and if your surely alarm goes off automatically when you hear or read the word, you can know a good place to look for a flawed argument. I think that surely we can say the same for "clearly." Did your alarm go off just now with my use of "surely?"
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
No warming for 18 years? Then how could we have just had the warmest summer ever recorded with continued melting of ice worldwide and rising sea levels? I think this was all predicted by the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming, and is now being observed. If we see the warming stop, and the melting and sea level rise slow significantly, then we can talk about rethinking the hypothesis. Let me know when that happens.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Why must they be a factor in changing weather patterns? Do you have evidence that the numbers of them or the frequency or scale of their eruptions has changed over the past hundred or so years?
Nope. Antarctic ice is melting, at an accelerating rate no less. You are referring to the temporary sea ice that forms each winter. The ice melting off the land makes the ocean less salty, and fresher water freezes at a higher temperature than saltier water. But even though there is a bit more sea ice in the winter, the overall effect is that the ice is melting at an accelerating rate. Yeah, those pesky facts, huh?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
What happens when you shut the air conditioner off in your house?
I save the fucking planet, that's what. :)
That and a cursory glance at the main spokesmodels for the pro-AGW crowd ('Litigious' Mann and 'Often Wrong' Al) should be more than enough to at least warrant a consideration that the science and political ramifications are not settled.
There are about 600,000 hits on google scholar to the search phrase "Global Climate Change", excluding patents.
Are you suggesting that Mike wrote them all, and you only know about them because Al Gore has publicized his work?
There are tens of thousands of primarily climate science researchers on the planet. You'll need a *much* broader ad hominem that that.
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?
This is why ENSO in the south Pacific is so important: by moving heat around it changes global circulation patterns, which changes the overall energy balance of the Earth.
Not directly. To change the energy balance of the Earth you have to move energy on or off the planet. Not around the oceans.
Maryland's rain tax is a fine monument to, and classic symptom of its lefty/progressive entrenched government monoculture.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.