Modeling Summary and A Change in the Weather:
Modeling Summary and A Change in the Weather: Models, Water, and Temperature (9)
In this entry, I am doing a first summary of my modeling series, and exercising my habit of discussing a paper of special interest or importance. For those who came in late, here is the Introduction to the series, and the previous entry. All of entries in the series are linked at the end.
Doing Science with Models 1.6: I have tried to demystify the use of models in science and climate science in several ways. Here is the series of ideas that I have tried to line up.
1) Models are everywhere, and we use them all of the time. I introduced examples of commonly used models such as ledger sheets and building plans. In fact, whenever we are faced with a new problem, we naturally look to models for possible solutions. Most commonly that model is – do I have experience in a previous situation that helps me in this situation? That might be followed with - do I have friends who have relevant experience? Can I hire expertise? When we are faced with no experience of a situation; that is, we have no model, then we are thrown into a situation where we might have difficulty understanding impacts, risks, and what to do. Whether or not we explicitly recognize it, models are part of human thinking and problem solving. (Models are Everywhere, Ledgers, Graphics, and Carvings)
2) The arithmetic that we use to figure out how much money we have, the budget equation, is a model.
Today’s Money = Yesterday’s Money + Money Gained – Money Spent
Some of the models that we use are mathematical and provide us with a way to quantify things that are important to us. (Balancing the Budget)
3) We have become comfortable with coding models on computers. With the spread of computers in the past 20 years, we, for example, use computers to balance our checkbooks and plan our budgets. We enter numbers and words into forms and press some buttons, and seconds later, we have categorized accounting of our income and expenses. (Ledgers, Graphics, and Carvings)
4) The same form of the budget equation that we use to balance our checkbook can be used to make an accounting of the energy of the Earth.
Today’s Energy = Yesterday’s Energy + Energy Gained – Energy Lost.
Therefore, if we can measure energy, sources of energy, and loses of energy, we can make a quantitative accounting. (Balancing the Budget)
5) Point of view is important. The accounting of the Earth’s energy, hence a description of the climate, depends on your point of view. If you were sitting on Mars, then you might only be interested in the energy that comes to and leaves the Earth. If you are a person on the surface of the Earth, you need to know the energy in the atmosphere, the land, the ocean, and the ice. Therefore you need budget equations for each of these components of the Earth’s climate. This is like having several energy accounts. The transfers between accounts appear as exchanges: loses to one account and gains to others. (Point of View)
6) Complexity arises because there are many energy accounts and many ways to transfer energy from one account to another. Even though every energy exchange might be simple, when we put all of the exchanges together the total system is complex. Energy might collect in one place, for example evaporated water in the tropical atmosphere, and it might be lost and deposited some place else, for example ice sheets in Greenland. There is the possibility of transfer of large amounts of energy between these collections of energy. (Looking Under the Cloak of Complexity)
7) The Earth’s climate is constrained by the processes that govern the transfer of energy from one account to another. Well-known rules, or laws, govern the way that energy is transferred. They are strictly and precisely defined. The Earth’s climate can be quantified by accounting for the energy. Because of the laws that govern energy transfer, we can in principle make credible estimates of the Earth’s climate in the future. (The Free Market and the Climate Model)
8) It takes time for energy to move around to the different energy accounts. For example, a lot of energy can be stored in the ocean for long periods of time. Long? Compared to what? Long compared to the atmosphere and perhaps compared to the life times of humans. Ice sheets have had life times of hundreds of thousands of years, and they represent the accumulation of many years of energy transport. (Looking Under the Cloak of Complexity)
If we use this framework to think about climate, climate models, and climate change, then when we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere what are we changing? From the point of view of the human on the surface of the Earth, we are changing the amount of time that the energy from the Sun is stored near the surface of the Earth. Some of this energy shows up as an increase in temperature at the surface. Some warms the ocean. Some changes the water budget and the weather. Ultimately, some makes it way back to outer space, but not until after it causes a set of changes important to the person on the surface of the Earth.
Going forward, I will explore more deeply complexity and how we can manage this complexity to make and interpret predictions.
Interesting Research: A Change in the Weather ? - This past summer saw a record low in Arctic sea ice. (nice blog in Washington Post) The previous record low was in 2007. There are those who dismiss this as a record low of sea ice because it is from “satellite data,” which are only about 30 years of observations. But I would argue that we can make a pretty convincing argument that these are record lows for, well, thousands of years.
The paper I want to write about is “The Recent Shift in Early Summer Arctic Circulation,” by James Overland and co-authors. This paper documents a “shift” in the Arctic climate that has persisted through the past 6 years (2007 – 2012). This shift is in the atmospheric circulation, and it is described as an increase in atmospheric surface pressure on the North American side of the Arctic and a decrease in pressure on the Siberian side. (To get this perspective, look down on a map of the Earth from above.) This circulation pattern has been especially strong in June.
A consequence of this circulation pattern is that there is flow of air from the south along the date line in the Pacific Ocean, essentially through the Bering Strait into the Arctic. This pushes sea ice northward, and brings warm air towards the North Pole. This contributes to rapid melting of sea ice. To the point of complexity, this movement of warm air into the Arctic is not the only contributor to the melting ice. During years of extreme melting, there has been reduction in cloudiness, allowing more Sun to get to the surface. There has also been more heat transport by the ocean. Finally, ice melting has been accelerated by mixing of warm(ish) water from the MacKenzie River farther into the ocean. Rather than each of these processes being viewed as perhaps “the cause” of enhanced sea ice melting, all of these processes should be viewed as a system, where they all add up to more melting.
James Overland and co-authors label this a “shift.” It is unarguably a persistent pattern, and the authors present statistical evidence that such a pattern has not been present in more than 60 years of observations. The question of whether this is a shift to a new pattern that will persist going forward remains open. One way to study this is to study whether or not known changes to the surface might cause these patterns in the atmosphere. Of special interest, of course, have the changes in sea ice initiated a change in circulation that has accelerated the loss of sea ice? Overland and co-authors also point to the possibility that the large decrease of snow cover in late spring and early summer could potentially enhance the circulation pattern. Such persistent circulation patterns are one of the most difficult phenomena for climate and weather models to represent.
Figure 1: Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. Departure of Snow Cover in June 2012 from a 30 year, 1971-2000, average. The legend is percent difference, with oranges less than zero and blues greater than zero. Make your own maps here.
As a final remark I want to return to the idea of whether or not the melting of the sea ice might force an atmospheric circulation that then contributes to the melting of more sea ice. In my series on modeling and my discussion of complexity, I talked about how billions of simple transactions in millions of accounts can come together to represent a very complex system. One of the characteristics of complex systems is the presence of processes that once they occur, they amplify themselves. In this case, could a change in sea ice cause a change in the atmosphere that amplifies the change in sea ice? This type of reinforcing behavior, or positive feedback, contributes to complexity in a fundamentally different way than a damping or negative feedback. In a damped system, a change that decreased sea ice would cause a change that would increase sea ice to maintain a balance. It is important to recognize the difference between a damped system and a system in a state of balance. A balanced state, when perturbed, might find a new balance. Or, it might dance around all over the place until a new balance is found. Most of the evidence is that the Earth’s climate is not a damped system, but a balanced system. As we change it by increasing the temperature at the surface, we should expect it to bounce around looking for a new balance.
r
Series links:
Models, Water, and Temperature
Models are Not All Wet: Series Introduction
Models are Everywhere
Ledgers, Graphics, and Carvings
Balancing the Budget
Point of View
Looking Under the Cloak of Complexity
The Free Market and the Climate Model
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 — Blog Index
seems to be the start of a cool October.
000
SXUS75 KTFX 050112
RERTFX
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREAT FALLS MT
710 PM MDT THU OCT 4 2012
MTZ008>015-044>055-050710-
...RECORD COOL MINIMUM TEMPERATURES FOR OCT 4 IN SOUTHWEST MONTANA...
LOCATION NEW RECORD OLD RECORD YEAR SET
DILLON AIRPORT 16 19 1985
WISDOM 3 8 1964
Link
As usual, a fascinating and very concise analysis of how the current change in the arctic are influencing weather patterns theoughout the entire Northern Hemisphere.
In your expert and professional opinion, have the dramatic changes in the arctic, during 2012, been significant enough to cause meaurable changes in the Polar Jet Stream and weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere in 2013?
If so, how much change is required to show the linkage betweeen the 2012 arctic events and the 2012 events?
Interesting picture. Higher latitudes still experience all 4 seasons. This should be something worthy of writing home about. I would include pictures. The one you posted is nice.
Just thought I'd mention: it was raining very early this morning (1:53 AM local) in Barrow, Alaska. Raining. Can you imagine that? Liquid water falling from the sky inside the Arctic Circle? In America's northernmost town? At night? In October?
BTW, here's the NCEP global temperature anomalies map. Note the smallish blob of blue over the northwestern U.S. That's your Dillon (and surrounding areas) cold record. I can't speak for anyone else, but there seems to be a lot more greens and yellows in the Northern Hemisphere than there are blues and purples. (Same with the Southern Hemisphere, for that matter.)
Cool October? When?
391.07ppm
co2now.org
In addition to Neapolitan's GLOBAL temperature anomalies map, here is a bit more on snow in a vastly expanded perspective contrasted to ice's statistically insignificant single snowstorm and temperature event.
Arctic Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise May Pose Imminent Threat To Island Nations, Climate Scientist Says
By James Gerken
Posted: 10/05/2012 4:39 pm EDT
Low-lying island nations threatened by rising sea levels this century could see the disastrous consequences of climate change far sooner than expected, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists.
In the wake of last month's discovery that the extent of Arctic sea ice coverage hit a record low this year, climate scientist Michael Mann told the Guardian that "Island nations that have considered the possibility of evacuation at some point, like Tuvalu, may have to be contending those sort of decisions within the matter of a decade or so."
Mann, who is the director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center, said that current melting trends show sea ice is "declining faster than the models predict."
"The models have typically predicted that will not happen for decades but the measurements that are coming in tell us it is already happening so once again we are decades ahead of schedule," Mann told the Guardian.
This year's record melting, which occurred under more "normal" conditions than the previous record set in 2007, left Arctic sea ice at a minimum "nearly 50 percent lower than the average ... for the years 1979-2000," according to Climate Central.
Rapidly decreasing sea ice suggests that the melting of polar ice sheets may occur more rapidly than previously predicted. Mann explained to the Guardian that "we [will] really start to see sea level rises accelerate," as the Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets disappear. Unlike with the melting of sea ice, these ice sheets would introduce vast quantities of water into the world's oceans, making them "critical from the standpoint of sea level rise," according to Mann.
The ongoing rise in average global temperatures, which has accelerated Arctic ice melt, has been largely attributed to the burning of fossil fuels and the resultant increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
For the most vulnerable island nations, like the Maldives, Kiribati, the Torres Strait Islands and many others, rising seas will bring significant coastal erosion and saltwater contamination of limited freshwater supplies. Environmental group Oceana recently noted that nations dependent upon the sea will face food security threats as greater temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase ocean acidity and put marine life at risk.
Despite the increasingly clear picture painted by scientific observations and climate modeling, "There's a huge gap between what is understood by the scientific community and what is known by the public," according to NASA scientist James Hansen. Recent polling suggests that as much as 35 percent of the U.S. population and 37 percent of the British public remain unconvinced of the scientific reality of climate change.
Climate change may force evacuation of vulnerable island states within a decade
Leading climate scientist warns that vulnerable island nations may need to be evacuated within a decade as evidence shows polar ice is shrinking at greater speeds than models predicted
One of the world's foremost climate scientists has warned that vulnerable island states may need to consider evacuating their populations within a decade due to a much faster than anticipated melting of the world's ice sheets.
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said the latest evidence shows that models have underestimated the speed at which the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets will start to shrink.
Mann, who was part of the IPCC team awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2007, said it had been expected that island nations would have several decades to adapt to rising sea levels, but that evacuation may now be their only option.
His warning comes just weeks after the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado disclosed that sea ice in the Arctic shrank a dramatic 18% this year on the previous record set in 2007 to a record low of 3.41m sq km.
"We know Arctic sea ice is declining faster than the models predict," Mann told the Guardian at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Texas. "When you look at the major Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets, which are critical from the standpoint of sea level rise, once they begin to melt we really start to see sea level rises accelerate.
"The models have typically predicted that will not happen for decades but the measurements that are coming in tell us it is already happening so once again we are decades ahead of schedule.
"Island nations that have considered the possibility of evacuation at some point, like Tuvalu, may have to be contending those sort of decisions within the matter of a decade or so."
Mann says the Pacific islands, which are only 4.6 metres above sea level at their highest point, are facing the imminent prospect of flooding, with salt water intrusion destroying fresh water supplies and increased erosion.
Suggesting evacuations would accelerate a change in public consciousness around the issue of climate change, he said: "Thousands of years of culture is at risk of disappearing as the populations of vulnerable island states have no place to go.
"For these people, current sea levels are already representative of dangerous anthropogenic interference because they will lose their world far before the rest of us suffer.
"I think it is an example, one of a number, where the impacts are playing out in real time. It is not an abstract prediction about the future or about far off exotic creatures like polar bears. We are talking about people potentially having to evacuate from places like Tvulu or the Arctic's Kivalina, another low lying island which is already feeling the detrimental impacts of sea level rise."
Mann, who is one of the primary targets for attacks by "climate deniers," said that there is still uncertainty about the speed of global warming as it is not clear what the impact of feedback mechanisms could be. In particular, he pointed to the release of methane that will come as the permafrost in the arctic melts.
"We know there is methane trapped and as it escapes into the atmosphere it accelerates the warming even further," he said. "But we don't know quite how much of it there is, but there is definitely the potential to lead to even greater warming than the models predict."
Mann said it was not only island states that were feeling the impacts of climate change and warned that the terrible drought and wildfires suffered by the US this year were just the precursor of far worse to come.
"If you look at the US, some of these things are unfolding ahead of schedule and we are already contending with climate change impacts that were once theoretical," he said.
"We predicted decades ago that this might eventually happen. We are watching them unfold and there are very real consequences to our economy and to our environment.
"The climate models tell us that what today are record breaking levels of heat will become a typical summer in a matter of 20-30 years if we carry on with business as usual. Not only will this become the new normal but we will have to change the scale because we will see heat and drought far worse than anything we have seen before."
The silver lining in all the bad news is that while the political system is gridlocked when it comes to confronting climate change, public attitudes are starting to change.
"It is going to take a little while to sink in," says Mann "but there is evidence of a dramatic shift in awareness and the public increasingly recognises climate change is real and if the public becomes convinced of this, they will demand action and they are connecting the dots because we are seeing climate change playing out in a very visible way.
"I think we are close to a potential tipping point in public consciousness and what will tip it, you never quite know, but another summer like the one we just witnessed we will see a dramatic shift in public pressure to do something about this problem."
One reason that attitudes are changing slowly, according to Mann, is that scientists are tending to be conservative in their forecasts out of fear that they will be attacked for overstating evidence.
He said the tactics of those who question climate change was not only to intimidate scientists already in the public arena, but also to warn off others from taking part in the public discourse.
But Mann believes the power of the Koch brothers and others in the fossil fuel lobby, whom he believes have been responsible for poisoning the whole climate change debate, is on the wane.
"I am optimistic," he says. "The forces of denial will not go down with a whimper and as the rhetoric becomes more heated and the attacks become more concerted, we see the last vestiges of a movement that is dying. The effort to deny the problem exists will have set us back decades but it is still possible to avoid breaching 450 parts of per million of CO2 if concerted action is taken."
While he is severely critical of those private business that are seeking to deny climate change exists, he said there were other businesses who were starting to wake up to the need to change behaviour.
"I personally don't believe captains of business are villains and who don't care about the legacy of the world, even though there are a few bad apples," he says. "Just look at the reinsurance industry where they face devastating losses if climate change moves.
"There are an increasing number of companies like Walmart which are ideologically conservative but have a real commitment to sustainability as they realise that as people become more concerned, they will reward companies that are part of the solution."
Link
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September 27, 2012
Modern Spike Outmatches Naturally Driven %u2018Medieval Warm Period'
Summers on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard are now warmer than at any other time in the last 1,800 years, including during medieval times when parts of the northern hemisphere were as hot as, or hotter, than today, according to a new study in the journal Geology.
%u201CThe Medieval Warm Period was not as uniformly warm as we once thought--we can start calling it the Medieval Period again,%u201D said the study%u2019s lead author, William D%u2019Andrea, a climate scientist at Columbia University%u2019s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. %u201COur record indicates that recent summer temperatures on Svalbard are greater than even the warmest periods at that time.%u201D
The naturally driven Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250, has been a favorite time for people who deny evidence that humans are heating the planet with industrial greenhouse gases. But the climate reconstruction from Svalbard casts new doubt on that era%u2019s reach, and undercuts skeptics who argue that current warming is also natural. Since 1987, summers on Svalbard have been 2 degrees to 2.5 degrees C (3.6 to 4.5 degrees F) hotter than they were there during warmest parts of the Medieval Warm Period, the study found.Researchers produced the 1,800 year climate record by analyzing levels of unsaturated fats in algae buried in the sediments of Kongressvatnet lake, in western Svalbard. In colder water, algae make more unsaturated fats, or alkenones; in warmer water, they produce more saturated fats. Like pages in a book, the unsaturation level of fats can provide a record of past climate. So far, most Arctic climate records have come from ice cores that preserve only annual layers of cold-season snowfall, and thus cold-season temperatures. But lake sediments, with their record of summertime temperatures, can tell scientists how climate varied the rest of the year and in places where ice sheets are absent.
%u201CWe need both ice core and lake sediment records,%u201D said Elisabeth Isaksson, a glaciologist at the Norwegian Polar Institute who was not involved in the study. %u201CHere, Billy has found something that tells a different, more detailed story.%u201D
In looking at how summers on Svalbard varied, researchers also discovered that the region was not particularly cold during another recent anomalous period--the %u201CLittle Ice Age%u201D of the 18th and 19th centuries, when glaciers on Svalbard surged to their greatest extent in the last 10,000 years and glaciers in many parts of Western Europe also grew.They suggest that more snow, rather than colder temperatures, may have fed the growth of Svalbard glaciers. Evidence from tree rings and ice cores shows that southern Greenland and parts of North America were warmer from 950 to 1250 than today, with the Vikings taking advantage of ice-free waters to settle Greenland. Some regions also saw prolonged drought, including California, Nevada and the Mississippi Valley, leading some scientists to coin the term Medieval Climate Anomaly to emphasize the extreme shift in precipitation rather than temperature. A natural increase in solar radiation during this time was responsible for warming parts of the northern hemisphere, with a rise in volcanic activity from 1100 to 1260 causing milder winters, University of Massachusetts scientist Ray Bradley explained in a 2003 Perspective piece in Science. Bradley is a co-author of the Svalbard lake sediment study.
Western Svalbard began to gradually warm in 1600, the researchers found, when the northern arm of the Gulf Stream, known as the West Spitsbergen Current, may have brought more tropical water to the region. In 1890, the warming began to accelerate, with researchers attributing most of the warming since about 1960 to rising industrial greenhouse gas levels. Ice cores from Svalbard, by contrast, show a slight cooling over the last 1,800 years. The conflicting evidence suggests that temperatures may have fluctuated more sharply between winter and summer, said Anne Hormes, a quaternary geologist at the University Centre in Svalbard who was not involved in the study.
Link
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The number of articles containing sceptical voices as a % of the total number of articles covering climate change or global warming, 200-10.
Of course, it goes without saying that Fox "News"--aka the Official Public Relations Arm of Big Oil and the Right Wing--is far ahead of all other networks in running unchallenged and indefensible blather from climate science denialists, though it should also be noted that nearly all organizations here do it, even those in the so-called (and non-existent) "liberal" media.
What a shame.
Source - with video
So ... (Most of you have seen the background mechanism):
The Arctic ice cap is now essentially melted - (proven observations both by satellite and ship)
The fact that it is melted has caused the jet stream to change shape - (again observations not models)
As luck would have it, it now blows from the south across the midwest more than not - (observations, not models)
Because of the change in the jet stream, last summer the midwest was very dry - (everyone that cared to pay attention knows this)
The drought in the midwest reduced the corn and soybean crop by about 25%.
The drought (probably caused by the same jet stream phenomenon) reduced the Russian wheat crop apparently by 55%
A near failure of the Indian monsoon has cut rice production there.
Now, look at this study (again, some of you have seen it).
As you can see, when the FAO food price index goes above 210 we are nearly guaranteed to see food riots. The Arab spring riots happened when the price index was ~230 and the food riots of 2008 happened when the food price index was about 220.
The FAO food price index is now at 216 (this is the September number the October number will be out on 11/8/12). If we get extreme food prices with an index of 220 or more, it will probably happen in the spring, and from the above I think it is a near certainty. Obama could make it less likely by stopping the production of corn ethanol, but that would cause an increase in gas prices. He certainly will not do so until after the election, if at all.
Few people are blessed (or cursed) to live at the end of a great civilization, and we are the first generation to see a global civilization fall. You and I, my friend are among those so gifted. It isn’t so scary, now that I’ve seen it begin. The Italians survived the fall of Rome, the Chinese made the transition from emperor to Mao and then into the modern regime. Whether historians will place the modern era at the point when peak oil was reached in the United States (1972), or this summer which is the first summer of the new normal weather pattern is not important.
We face a perfect storm of debt, environmental overshoot, immorality, and corruption. And our response? Paid professional liars and the toady parrots that follow them publish nonsense and the stupid and gullible believe it.
Is it evil to publish nonsense? Naw. Its just the natural process of overshoot and collapse written by a species on the way out. What would a lemming write as he and his friends run into the sea?
Scientist, in the late 20th century, used early models to predict that the Arctic Ocean would have ice free summers that would start around the year 2100. Due to observational evidence, all, but a few, scientist now believe that the Arctic Ocean will have ice free summers as soon as the year 2040. Some think that it may be as soon as 2014. You are correct, Ossqss, the previous models did not accurately predict what is being observed today. The same is true for the Greenland Ice Sheets and the Antarctic Ice Sheets. We are observing a much more rapid decay, to these regions, than what previous models predicted. I no longer think that their collapse will happen after anywhere from 300 years to 1,000 years from now. Do you?
Your ability to absorb new data, and to comprehend what it means, has fallen to even lower levels than before, Ossqss. .... Too many BLTs?
Speaking of food, here is some food for thought for you, Ossqss. EVEN IF your father, Apollo, is the donor of all the climate disasters we are beginning to see now, how do the anthropogenic greenhouse gases not capture and retain more of Apollo's gifts to us? Until our capacity to store these gifts becomes more than we can store? Share the wealth, Ossqss. Give some of Apollo's bounty back out into space where it does not overload our storage capacity for Apollo's gifts to us. Praise Apollo for the gifts to us and then honor Apollo by allowing other worlds to enjoy Apollo's gifts. Quit trying to hoard all of Apollo's gifts. This is, after all, a large solar system. Apollo rules over all of Apollo's solar system. Correct?
The below quote is from the NPR website and was a featured subject in my weekly science headlines e-mail from NPR. The "New England Complex Systems Institute" (NECSI) [LINK] organization looks very interesting, and I will spend some time at their site after I post this comment.
For those of us who have been paying attention to Dr. Rood's series of blog entries on scientific modeling, some of the modeling being done by NECSI looks to be very good - and is testable over a fairly short time span.
Truth-Out.org
As well as global warming from carbon dioxide (CO2), there is the additional risk of warming from methane (CH4) being released into the atmosphere. Huge quantities of methane are locked up in land permafrost. But even vaster quantities exist as methane hydrates frozen below the shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean's continental shelves. Naam warns:
If even 10% of the northern permafrost's buried carbon were released as methane, it would have a heating effect over the next decade equivalent to ten times all human greenhouse emissions to date, and over the next century equivalent to roughly four times all human greenhouse emissions to date.
That's just the methane on land, trapped in the permafrost. If the methane hydrates buried on the Arctic continental shelves were to be released, that would have a warming effect equivalent to hundreds of times the total human carbon emissions to date.
Although Namm says "we are probably not in danger of a methane time bomb going off any time soon", recent observations show that Arctic methane is being released into the atmosphere. And there is scientific controversy over how serious and how rapid this release is.
SXUS73 KEAX 072124
RERMCI
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL MO
421 PM CDT SUN OCT 7 2012
...RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET AT THE KANSAS CITY INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT...
A RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE OF 26 DEGREES WAS SET AT THE KANSAS CITY
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 27 DEGREES
SET IN 2000.
$$
GA
Record cold October day across NSW and VIC
Ben McBurney, Sunday October 7, 2012 - 13:49 EDT
Thick cloud and a cold air mass associated with a low covered most of VIC and NSW yesterday, bringing a record cold day to some locations.
In New South Wales, Bega on the South Coast only climbed to 12.9 degrees, which equaled its previous record set in 1994. Denliquin in the Riverina broke its all time October record, climbing to just 11.2 degrees, smashing its previous record by 1 degree set in 2005.
In Victoria, every location recorded below average temperatures, with some places 11 degrees cooler than their October mean. Shepparton in the state's north reached just 11.6 degrees, its coldest October day on record.
DENVER
Sunday started out very cold. But, no record. The record was 23 degrees and Denver dropped to only 26 degrees at DIA.
Weather Underground midday recap for Saturday, October 06, 2012. ... low
temperatures were seen at West Yellowstone, Montana with a low temperature of
6 degrees. ...... a record low temperature of 32 degrees was set at Eugene
Oregon ...
Weather Forecast Sioux City, IA | Sioux City Weather | Wunderground
www.wunderground.com/
LiveScience.com
Nations hoping to curb global warming face a quandary: Economic growth means more planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.
On the flip side, economic decline means a drop in greenhouse gas emissions as consumers tighten their belts, factories slow down and less money is spent.
A new analysis of data from 1960 to 2008 indicates during economic decline carbon dioxide emissions decline at about half the rate at which they grow when an economy is booming.
"In a sense, economic decline only undoes a little more than half of the carbon dioxide emissions that economic growth adds,” said Richard York, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon who conducted this study.
SXAK79 PABR 061614
RERBRW
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BARROW AK
814 AM AKDT SAT OCT 6 2012
...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET IN BARROW TODAY...
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 41 DEGREES WAS SET IN BARROW
TODAY BREAKING THE PREVIOUS HIGH OF 39 DEGREES SET IN 1925.
$$
GMS OCT 2012
Your turn. I guess...
It is definitely cold in the nation's midsection. Of course, that's really the only deeply anomalously cool place in the entire globe, so despite the record lows seen in the region--and over which Anthony and His Mindless Drones have been endlessly salivating the past few days--it looks like the planet is maintaining its fossil fuel-driven warmth.
: )
It happen's.
Should be cold in Canada?
TEMPERATURES WILL BE NEAR 25 DEGREES BELOW AVERAGE
FOR PARTS OF THE NORTHERN HIGH PLAINS AND 10 TO 15 DEGREES BELOW
AVERAGE FOR THE NORTHERN PLAINS SOUTHWARD TO PARTS OF THE SOUTHERN
HIGH PLAINS..."
Some have a passion for discourse, and it helps to know someone.
Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data.
Saturday, March 31st 2012 - 23:40 UTC
Height of Antarctica ice sheet increasing
According to findings come from the Europe’s Space Administration ESA’s ice-measuring satellite, CryoSat, over the last two years Antarctica’s ice sheet has increased in height.
According to the ESA website, http://www.esa.int, CryoSat is the first scientific mission to address the thickness of land and sea ice and how this thickness is changing.
CryoSat took its measurements from a particularly harsh area of land in Antarctica, a plateau known as the “blue ice region” on the edge of the continent. This region is unique due to its vast expanses of polished blue ice.
Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water.
Hows that correlation problem working out for you BobWallace??
As for whether the whole world has hit its peak, I doubt that. It could be that we're close to hitting it, but we may not for a while. It depends on what the developing economies do.
What you are saying is all good, RoboDave.
My problem comes from the fact that he has yet to admit that since we get 95% of our production of goods and services from emitting CO2, any increase in production will obviously increase emissions.
To decouple CO2 emission amounts from the volume of the production of goods and services in the US the percentage of energy derived from fossil fuels would have to be closer to 5% than 95%.
The existence of his peak is something that is legitimately debatable and I can respect that idea even though I disagree.
To deny the obvious facts that the article explains (and i tried to explain) however is unacceptable.
CO2 and CH4 were high, then they were low, it was hot, then it got cold. Cycles which have occurred for billions of years, and will continue to do so, despite our best efforts either way.
Link
Atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations over the past
60 million years
Paul N. Pearson* & Martin R. Palmer²
* Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK
² T. H. Huxley School, Imperial College, RSM Building, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP, UK
Knowledge of the evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations throughout the Earth's history is important for a
reconstruction of the links between climate and radiative forcing of the Earth's surface temperatures. Although atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentrations in the early Cenozoic era (about 60Myr ago) are widely believed to have been higher than at present,
there is disagreement regarding the exact carbon dioxide levels, the timing of the decline and the mechanisms that are most
important for the control of CO2 concentrations over geological timescales. Here we use the boron-isotope ratios of ancient
planktonic foraminifer shells to estimate the pH of surface-layer sea water throughout the past 60 million years, which can be used
to reconstruct atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We estimate CO2 concentrations of more than 2,000 p.p.m. for the late Palaeocene
and earliest Eocene periods (from about 60 to 52 Myr ago), and ®nd an erratic decline between 55 and 40 Myr ago that may have
been caused by reduced CO2 outgassing from ocean ridges, volcanoes and metamorphic belts and increased carbon burial. Since
the early Miocene (about 24Myr ago), atmospheric CO2 concentrations appear to have remained below 500 p.p.m. and were more
stable than before, although transient intervals of CO2 reduction may have occurred during periods of rapid cooling approximately
15 and 3 Myr ago.
Link
Good ole Neanderthal.
Middle Paleolithic
Geologic temperature records indicate two intense ice ages dated around 650000 ybp and 450000 ybp, these would have presented any humans outside tropics unprecedented difficulties. Indeed, fossils from this period are very few, and little can be said of human habitats in Eurasia during this period. The few finds are of Homo antecessor and Homo heidelbergensis. Lantian Man in China.
Homo neanderthal, with his Mousterian technology emerged, in areas from Europe to western Asia, after this and continued to be the dominant group of humans in Europe and Middle East up until 70000-40000 ybp. Peking man has also been dated to this period. During Eemian Stage humans probably (see f.e. Wolf Cave) spread where ever their technology and skills allowed, Sahara dried up forming a difficult area for peoples to cross.
The birth of first modern humans (Homo sapiens idaltu) has been dated to be between 200000-130000 BP (see:Mitochondrial Eve, Single-origin hypothesis), to the coldest phase of Riss glaciation. Remains of Aterian culture appear on the archaeological evidence.
Stay thirsty my friend.:>
what ever it is to be
it will be
together
will it be
Wunderground management and staff includes climate and weather experts like Ph.D. Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Ricky Rood, and also Angela Fritz, who has a M.S. Atmospheric Science.
I am posting this to try to reach the lurkers and AGW/CC awareness newbies who stumble upon this site. I come here to learn about and discuss climate change science - to try to understand that incredibly complex field and it's potential impact on human civilization. There is a core group of participants in the discussions here who have varying levels of education and knowledge, and who are aware of and accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming and climate change (AGW/CC).
There is also a cadre of what many of us call "climate change denialists" here who come here to spout off about things like a the rash of low temp records such as is happening in the central U.S. right now, while ignoring the fact much of the rest of the world is above average in daily temperatures. (Thanks, Neapolitan for your frequent "global" temperature anomaly maps).
Another current denialist "gotcha" is the [modern] record areal extent of Antarctic sea ice during the current freeze season down there. Those of us who accept AGW/CC as a scientific fact recognize that this anomaly is occurring, but search for explanations by the scientists who study such things rather than shouting loudly that this proves that GW isn't happening. (See my next post for more on this subject.)
I find it sadly amusing to watch the frantic flailing of the AGW/CC denialists who pop up periodically here at the WU climate blog, but I am committed to rebutting true skepticism and answering legitimate questions when my limited knowledge permits me to do so. One of the things that attracted me to this site was the incredible patience displayed by some of the regulars who are grounded in real science, and who repeatedly rebut the persistent "stuck in a rut" commenters here - posters who claim to be scientific skeptics, but repeatedly post the same set of non-science, pseudo-science, and discredited science references.
And the struggle to find and share scientific truth continues...
I appreciate you asking a question in such a civil manner, Tomball, since I currently view you as a skeptic, but not a denialist like many here. There are things that the denialists say here and elsewhere that could cause skepticism, but when you look past their rants and really peer down into the true science of AGW/CC, the view is quite alarming.
In short, the poles are expected to warm first, with the Arctic leading the way - which is what we are currently seeing, and at a mind-bogglingly rapid rate. Most of the dry land on the earth, which is where most of we humans live, is in the northern hemisphere. Our weather is driven by the difference between Arctic and tropical temperatures. As the Arctic to tropics temperature differential decreases (the rise in average temperature in the tropics is much slower than in the arctic), there will probably be significant changes in climate and weather.
The details of climate change symptoms and dynamics is a very complex subject, and includes land, sea and atmospheric components and interactions. I don't want to get in over my head, but I will say that if I could be a young man again, I would love to study under a teacher of systems modeling like Dr. Rood. If, as an amateur, you dig into the subject, it becomes so overwhelmingly complex that you just want to give up and back out. The antics of the denialists and their simplistic, one-dimensional associations is to my mind, laughable. However, it is often the reaction of those who cannot deal with complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and potentially dire outcomes.
The current anomaly of Antarctic sea-ice increase to a modern record areal extent has yet to be understood. However, it would be naive in the extreme to cite this as "poof" or even "strong evidence" that AGW/CC is not occurring.
Try these words in Google: "global warming pole equator difference " (without the quotation marks). You'll find a wealth of information from many websites, including some based on news and commentary, and many real science web sites related to various scientific disciplines.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
OCTOBER 8, 2012
BY: BRENT MCGRADY
Link
This is a very nice description of what constitutes a model, with climate models as the example. I will make it required reading for my physics and chemistry students, as we extensively discuss our work in terms of models. My physics class also creates computational models of systems using Python.
One thing I also do with my students is to distinguish between models and the representations that are parts of the models. I would call the equation that is used in the ledger a representation. The actual table that is the ledger itself is another representation. A graph made from ledger entries would be a third representation. The model is the overall description of your finances, including the simplifying assumptions (e.g. no interest earned in your example... and that's a pretty good assumption these days!), estimations and approximations. Where do you draw the line between representations and models? It depends on what you are trying to chunk together into a model and what you are trying to parse into separate models. I can see climate models being pretty huge with lots of different representations.
Anyway, thanks for the primer. This is so well written!
...and even here in the good old U.S. of A., temperatures will be well above normal next week:
BTW: even with the current cold records thrown into the mix, for 2012 as a whole, high records in the U.S. have outnumbered low records by 56,725 to 12,271. Here's a handy graphic:
It's interesting to note that this past Sunday was the first day this year to see more than 500 record low or low maximum temperature records. That's opposed to the 29 days so far that have seen more than 500 high or high minimum records.
The warming continues unabated...
And uncontested.
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