Climate Change skeptics? [ot]

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Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Aug 21, 2014 - 08:15am PT

Considering the storms I saw here this week I'd say Mother Nature always has the last word.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 22, 2014 - 08:12am PT

Sounds like the lack of warming over the last fifteen years was due to non-anthropogenic forcings.

actually the warming was not lacking, it was just going someplace other than the atmosphere... the total energy balance at the Earth's surface was still caused by increases in atmospheric CO2 due to anthropogenic activities. The question has been: where did the energy go?

The oceans' heat capacity far exceeds the atmosphere's and it has been the place to look. The interesting result has to do with the dynamical interplay between the atmosphere and the oceans.

Sounds like progress to me...

You might notice the last time a "hiatus" occurred also corresponds to the heating of the ocean. Look at the graphic and remember what the temperature anomaly looks like....

k-man

Gym climber

SCruz

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2014 - 08:29am PT

Sketch, with you harping on how media over-sensationalizes climate change, I'm surprised that you didn't jump all over this statement (taken from the first line in your quote above):

Observations show that the heat absent from the Earth's surface for more than a decade ...

Hmmm, Really? How much heat is "absent?" Did the thermometer plunge, as would be necessary for this to be true? Did we have years where the average temperature was colder than "average?" How cold was the last decade?

Does this look like the heat is "absent?"

You science deniers eat up the blogs that support your beliefs without a smidgin of critical thinking. Don't you find that embarrassing?

monolith

climber

SF bay area

Aug 22, 2014 - 08:43am PT

So this is flatlining since 1999. Interesting.

rick sumner

Trad climber

reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska

Aug 22, 2014 - 09:13am PT

Energy balance smenergy balance. That the earth, and its biosphere, have active mechanisms regulating temps and climatic conditions within a range conducive to tolerances of the biota, including us, is another thing you alarmists fail to recognize. There is nothing unusual about the extent or rapidity of the recent warming, all well within old Gaia's ability to handle. Get with the program you overly concerned old hippies.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 22, 2014 - 10:56am PT

the oceans "ate" less "global warming" than occurred during the 30 year increase from the 70's to the 00's

if there is an oscillation towards a cooling Atlantic, then we might surmise that we'd see a period of increased surface temperatures again. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the modeling.

Interestingly, if you look at the fits that Chiloe did reproducing the Foster & Ramsdorf 2011 paper result

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=970221&msg=2294610#msg2294610

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=970221&msg=2294641#msg2294641

and the hypothesis of that paper was that the oceans were a sink for the energy, the observations of the Atlantic posted above certainly seem to be consistent with that hypothesis. Explaining both of the periods of relatively flat global mean surface temperature periods.

It is the energy imbalance which is the issue, that the added CO2 increases (and only very slightly) the amount of thermal radiation that leaves the Earth for outer space. The total amount of energy represented by that imbalance is quite large, and doesn't have to go into heating the atmosphere alone.

Explaining how the ocean and the atmosphere are coupled in terms of this energy transport seems to be the focus of research.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 22, 2014 - 11:08am PT

from the paper:

Science 22 August 2014:
Vol. 345 no. 6199 pp. 897-903
DOI: 10.1126/science.1254937

Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration
Xianyao Chen, Ka-Kit Tung

Discussion

Many different explanations for the recent global-warming slowdown have been proposed, but they fall mainly into two categories. The first involves a reduction in TOA radiative forcing: by a decrease in stratospheric water vapor (33), an increase in background stratospheric volcanic aerosols (34), by 17 small volcano eruptions since 1999 (35), increasing coal-burning in China (36), the indirect effect of time-varying anthropogenic aerosols (37), a low solar minimum (38), or a combination of these (39). Response to solar cycle changes was found to be small (40, 41). The aerosol cooling should have a signature in subsurface ocean (42), and yet it is not seen, perhaps suggesting that the proposed radiative effects may be too small. The second involves ocean heat sequestration: The present work follows the original proposal of Meehl et al. (5, 24) regarding global deep-ocean heat sequestration. However, our observational result does not support their Pacific-centric view. The duration of the cooling periods in the CCSM4 model they used is typically 10 years, with one rare 15-year hiatus in 375 years and none over 15 years. The current hiatus already lasted over 15 years using their definition of hiatus as periods with zero trend. Comparing that model with observation, we found that model’s Atlantic has too little variability with too high frequency (fig. S7 versus Fig. 6). This artifact appears to be attributable to a new overflow parameterization scheme in CCSM4 in the Denmark Strait and Faroe Bank Channel (31).

From another perspective, Wu et al. (43) showed that the instrumental global-mean surface temperature record since 1850 contains two and a half cycles of a multidecadal variation. Each cycle lasted on average 65 years, consisting of an accelerated warming plus a slowdown period. They showed that the primary location of the multidecadal variability is in the North Atlantic and only secondarily in the Pacific. If this multidecadal variability is indeed related to the variations of the AMOC, then we can infer that the time scale of the latter was also 30 years between regime shifts historically. Tung and Zhou (41) showed that these multidecadal cycles exist in the Central England Temperature for the past 353 years, with an average period of 70 years (but could be as short as 40 years), consistent with an earlier study using multiproxy data by Delworth and Mann (44). They and Zhang et al. (42) argued that this oscillation is due to an internal variability and not to anthropogenic aerosol forcing (37).

Because the atmosphere and the upper ocean in the equatorial Pacific are intimately coupled, the strong trade winds go hand in hand with the east-west SST gradient generated by the La Niña pattern, known as the Bjerknes feedback. Kosaka and Xie (16) proposed that the cold eastern Pacific was key to understanding the current warming hiatus. England et al. (23) attributed the cold eastern equatorial Pacific to the stronger trade winds for the past 20 years, and the trade wind intensification to the multidecadal negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). The IPO, defined using the SST in the Pacific Basin including the ENSO region, describes but does not explain the cold eastern Pacific status. How could the Pacific SST cool when the heat sink was located in other ocean basins? Why didn't the Atlantic SST simply cool as heat was being subducted in its basin? The Atlantic SST and its upper layers did start to cool (Fig. 1B) after its subpolar salinity peaked and then started to decrease after 2006 (Fig. 6A). Before 2006, our warm salt subduction mechanism does not allow the Atlantic to cool when its subpolar salinity was increasing, because poleward transport of warm salty water and increasing subpolar subduction are parts of the same mechanism of enhanced AMOC upper-ocean transport. During this first part of the hiatus period, the heat deficit must be transferred to other ocean basins, mostly to the Pacific because it is the only other major ocean basin in the Northern Hemisphere, likely through the atmosphere. Zhang and Delworth (45) and Zhang et al. (46) showed by using models that, as the northward heat transport by the AMOC is increased, the atmospheric heat transport decreases in compensation (and vice versa), providing a multidecadal component to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The concept behind the flexible atmospheric heat transport is known as nonlinear baroclinic adjustment (47). Thus, almost-“synchronized” hemisphere-wide atmospheric changes are possible (30). On climate time scales and from an energy perspective, the amount of radiative energy available to heat the global SST, including the Pacific, is what remains after accounting for the energy sink; it does not matter if the latter is located outside the Pacific.

Conclusion

The fact that the global-mean temperature, along with that of every major ocean basin, has not increased for the past 15 years, as they should in the presence of continuing radiative forcing, requires a planetary sink for the excess heat. Although the tropical Pacific is the source of large interannual fluctuations caused by the exchange of heat in its shallow tropical layer (3), the current slowdown is in addition associated with larger decadal changes in the deeper layers of the Atlantic and the Southern oceans. The next El Niño, when it occurs in a year or so, may temporarily interrupt the hiatus, but, because the planetary heat sinks in the Atlantic and the Southern Oceans remain intact, the hiatus should continue on a decadal time scale. When the internal variability that is responsible for the current hiatus switches sign, as it inevitably will, another episode of accelerated global warming should ensue.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 22, 2014 - 11:16am PT

in that same issue:
Published Online August 14 2014
Science 22 August 2014:
Vol. 345 no. 6199 pp. 919-921
DOI: 10.1126/science.1254702

Attribution of global glacier mass loss to anthropogenic and natural causes
Ben Marzeion, J. Graham Cogley, Kristin Richter, David Parkes

The ongoing global glacier retreat is affecting human societies by causing sea-level rise, changing seasonal water availability, and increasing geohazards. Melting glaciers are an icon of anthropogenic climate change. However, glacier response times are typically decades or longer, which implies that the present-day glacier retreat is a mixed response to past and current natural climate variability and current anthropogenic forcing. Here we show that only 25 ± 35% of the global glacier mass loss during the period from 1851 to 2010 is attributable to anthropogenic causes. Nevertheless, the anthropogenic signal is detectable with high confidence in glacier mass balance observations during 1991 to 2010, and the anthropogenic fraction of global glacier mass loss during that period has increased to 69 ± 24%.

(A) Global mean specific MB time series (thin lines are the ensemble means, shading indicates one ensemble standard deviation) and pentadal means (thick lines are the ensemble means, shading indicates 1 SE; see the supplementary materials for the derivation of the error) are shown. Green, NAT results; red, FULL results; black, observations. (B) Confidence level of the difference between interpolated observations (OBS) updated from Cogley (2009) (23) and model results for the NAT and FULL models for each pentad. (C) Anthropogenic fraction of total glacier mass loss, annual values (gray), and running mean over 20-year periods (blue); the solid line is the ensemble mean; shading indicates one ensemble standard deviation. (D) Glacier contribution to global mean sea-level rise, relative to the mean of 1991 to 2010. Modeled results include modeled glacier area change; observations assume constant glacier area, as in the RGI (19) (the solid lines are the ensemble means; shading indicates one ensemble standard deviation).

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 25, 2014 - 07:10pm PT

an interesting article in the NYTimes today

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/science/methane-is-seeping-from-seafloor-off-east-coast-scientists-say.html

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2232.html

Widespread methane leakage from the sea floor on the northern US Atlantic margin

A. Skarke, C. Ruppel, M. Kodis, D. Brothers & E. Lobecker

Nature Geoscience (2014) doi:10.1038/ngeo2232
Received 03 March 2014 Accepted 21 July 2014 Published online 24 August 2014

Methane emissions from the sea floor affect methane inputs into the atmosphere1, ocean acidification and de-oxygenation2, 3, the distribution of chemosynthetic communities and energy resources. Global methane flux from seabed cold seeps has only been estimated for continental shelves4, at 8 to 65 Tg CH4 yr−1, yet other parts of marine continental margins are also emitting methane. The US Atlantic margin has not been considered an area of widespread seepage, with only three methane seeps recognized seaward of the shelf break. However, massive upper-slope seepage related to gas hydrate degradation has been predicted for the southern part of this margin5, even though this process has previously only been recognized in the Arctic2, 6, 7. Here we use multibeam water-column backscatter data that cover 94,000 km2 of sea floor to identify about 570 gas plumes at water depths between 50 and 1,700 m between Cape Hatteras and Georges Bank on the northern US Atlantic passive margin. About 440 seeps originate at water depths that bracket the updip limit for methane hydrate stability. Contemporary upper-slope seepage there may be triggered by ongoing warming of intermediate waters, but authigenic carbonates observed imply that emissions have continued for more than 1,000 years at some seeps. Extrapolating the upper-slope seep density on this margin to the global passive margin system, we suggest that tens of thousands of seeps could be discoverable.

rick sumner

Trad climber

reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska

Aug 25, 2014 - 08:04pm PT

Let's see. My guess Ed, is that your presenting this WUWT highlighted study partly as coroboration of the oceans are heating hypothesis of the missing heat gang. Some problems I see are; 1.) some of these vents (percentage unidentified) have been outgassing for over a thousand years 2.) The heat has only gone missing for 15+/- years and the global average ocean temp increase is modeled to only be in the hundreths of degrees which is insufficient to cause melt and release of new vents unless the global ocean heating is concentrated here. 3.) There is insufficient previous investigation of the quantity and dispersal of these vents to rule out whether this is venting business as usual.

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Aug 25, 2014 - 08:08pm PT

my understanding about Bermuda Triangle research discoveries is that large methane burps are responsible for ships that suddenly won't float and airplanes that suddenly won't fly

rick sumner

Trad climber

reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska

Aug 25, 2014 - 08:15pm PT

So Tom, are you suggesting the triangle has gone rectangular in an expansion to the north and it is only a matter of time before planes and ships disappear from the radar in this area? We should all be scared, real scared, enough to atone for our carbon sin by accepting hefty new taxation.

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Aug 25, 2014 - 08:16pm PT

Two rays of hope expressed by Gifford Pinchot III on the phone yesterday:

1. Large oil companies are currently 'self-regulating' with carbon taxes

2. Republican legislators have been directed by their big sponsors to stop saying, 'There is no global warming/climate change'...and instead just state, 'No comment, as we don't know enough to say what is happening'

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Aug 25, 2014 - 08:43pm PT

Sorry I don't recall the reference for the Bermuda Triangle hypothesis, but there was a TV documentary about divers looking for a famous missing flight of several Navy aircraft...they found such a flight, but the numbers didn't match...it was a different flight. Then they found a number of other similar flights on the bottom and correlated with Navy records verifying many missing aviators while training over the region. Testing showed the sandy bottom in the region is releasing a lot of methane, which if it came up in a large burp would cause engines to quit, and wings to stall, and ships to sink...sort of like how your life jacket doesn't work very well in the air-bubble saturated water of large river rapids...

...interesting concept...

If that hypothesis proves true, I have no idea whether other areas of the oceans demonstrate similar behavior...or what to do about it other than to fly high and/or keep your SCUBA rig handy...

Ships and planes designed for Titan would need to be designed differently for operating in a methane atmosphere and on methane oceans...

Wade Icey

Trad climber

www.alohashirtrescue.com

Aug 25, 2014 - 10:06pm PT

if this thread dies...so does Sketch. Rick Sumner. the Chef....

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 25, 2014 - 10:15pm PT

I believe you can read the material and think about what is happening...

if you think you already know everything, then there is really no need to post, you position is understood and your reaction to a post from a particular person will be predictable.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Aug 25, 2014 - 10:46pm PT

wow, right on cue...

dave729

Trad climber

Western America

Aug 26, 2014 - 01:20pm PT

Is The Evidence Irrefutable? Warmist Catastropharian Climbers are causing
the California drought with excessive CO2 spewing trips to Yosemite?
What Punishment Fits Their Crime?

And...How To Identify Secret Catastropharians: They complain about
everyone else's carbon footprint except their own!
Typical Case Of "Do As I Say Not As I DO"

Science starts by pushing the envelope with a new hypothesis :P