bdgwx

1 hour ago, donsutherland1 said:

Here’s weather historian Christopher Burt’s blog on the Death Valley temperatures:

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/an-investigation-of-death-valleys-134f-world-temperature-record.html

William Reid is partnering with Chris Burt on this. Reid's blog has a lot more information and is up-to-date through 2020. It is my understanding that they are (or were) preparing a publication to be submitted to WMO. I am unsure of the status on that. I do know this isn't the first time Burt has gotten a record dismissed by the WMO so he's no stranger to the process.

http://stormbruiser.com/chase/2020/11/23/death-valleys-134f-record-temperature-study-part-one/

I hope we see a statistical analysis similar to the one we got for the 2020 Siberian Heatwave after this is all said and done. I'd really like to know how this stacks up statistically. I did see the tweet above regarding 500mb heights approaching a 5-sigma event implying a recurrence interval of over 4000 years.  Clearly this is an unusual event.

Hunter 2003 concluded that the 1841 to 2002 rise was +1 mm/yr at that benchmark site in Tasmania. This is composed of +0.8 mm/yr rise wrt to the marking plus +0.2 mm/yr when accounting for isostatic uplift of the land. No analysis was made regarding acceleration at this site though. Anyway, this is consistent with broader sea level over this 160 year period.

Here is a GR2Analyst volume render of the tornado at its peak. It's still the most impressive looking volume I have seen from any tornado.

19 hours ago, Nickysixes said:

Another perspective on climate change and the greenhouse gas silliness. The insinuation is that the cooling and heating of our planet is solar induced which makes perfect sense if you have a cursory understanding of atmospheric physics...

https://www.brighteon.com/ab3515ec-c725-47ee-a5e5-5896371d6279

This is not just another perspective on climate change. It is factually incorrect in the same way claims of table top cold fusion and n-rays are incorrect. This is egregious enough that it rises to the level of disinformation.

Let me correct some factually incorrect information I heard in this video. Note that this may not be an exhaustive list, but I did my best to spot each misleading, misinformation, or disinformation (most of it) tidbit.

** Disinformation: Nature has produced 97% of the 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Fact: Humans pumped nearly 330 ppm of CO2 into the atmosphere. Of this 330 ppm pumped into the atmosphere nature buffered about 195 ppm for us in the land and ocean leaving 135 ppm in the atmosphere. Humans are responsible for 32% of the CO2 currently in the atmosphere and 100% of the rise from 280 to 415 ppm. And if Mother Nature hadn't lent a helping hand we'd actually be responsible for almost 55% of the 610 ppm that would have occurred had 195 ppm not been buffered. The mistake the commentator in the video makes is that they conflate carbon emission in units of ppm/yr or GtC/yr (4% human, 96% natural) with carbon mass ppm or GtC (without the /yr part). A ~4% increase in inflow flux to the atmosphere with only a ~2% increase in outflow flux over many years will add up rather quickly.  

Sources: Global Carbon Project - Friedlingstein 2020 

** Disinformation: Sea level is not rising by more than 1 mm/yr.

Fact: Sea level is rising by about 3.5 mm/yr now and it has accelerated in recent decades. 

Sources: Dangendorf 2019, and NASA Vital Signs Page, and IPCC SROCC

** Disinformation: Solar activity explains the warming observed today.

Fact: Solar activity peaked in 1958 and has been flat to even declining ever since. This happened during a period when the warming became most acute. Furthermore like all main sequence stars the Sun brightens with age yet the Earth has cooled and even entered into the on-going Quaternary Ice Age since the Eocene Climate Optimum 55 MYA.

Sources: SORCE - Kopp 2011 and NASA Vital Signs Page, and Berkeley Earth, and Gough 1981, and various sources.

** Disinformation: Scientists concluded that CO2 has no warming potential.

Fact: CO2's warming potential was convincingly demonstrated in the 1800's. The first climate models appeared in the 1800's and even CO2's climate sensitivity was first estimated prior to 1900. Even Arrhenius' 1908 calculation (which is said to be quite laborious) of 4C at 2xCO2 is considered be a reasonable prediction even today.

Sources: Tyndall 1861, Arrhenius 1896, Chamberlin 1897, Chamberlin 1899, Arrhenius 1908, Pekeris 1929, Callendar 1938, Callendar 1949, Plass 1956 (a, b, and c), Callendar 1961, Manabe 1961, Manabe 1967, Budyko 1969, Sellers 1969, Charney 1979, Ramanathan 1985, Hansen 1988, Myhre 1998, Schmidt 2010, IPCC AR5 WG1 Sherwood 2020, and the list goes on and on and on. I haven't even scratched the surface on all of the lines of evidence confirming over and over again that CO2 puts a positive radiative force on the planet.

** Misinformation: A Sun driven cooling period is imminent.

Fact: Not even a solar grand minimum will reverse global warming. The current Earth Energy Imbalance is +0.8 W/m^2. A solar grand minimum might put about -0.3 W/m^2 of force on the planet. Cumulative CO2 forcing alone is +2.0 W/m^2 with another +1.7 W/m^2 expected if concentrations hit 560 ppm. There have been a few sun driven cooling prediction in the last few decades. Obviously none of them panned out. 

Source:  Schuckmann 2020, and Myhre 1998, and Owens 2017, and Anet 2013, and SORCE - Kopp 2011

** Misleading: CO2 levels have been this high in the past.

Fact: Yeah, like more than a million years ago. And note that high CO2 levels in the past were required to offset the lower solar luminosity. 600 MYA the solar forcing was -12 W/m^2 relative to today. CO2 levels would have had to been around 4,000 ppm just to maintain an offset of +12 W/m^2 to balance the lower solar flux. CO2 is an essential piece of the puzzle in solving the faint young Sun problem, the PETM, other hyperthermal events, magnitude of the glacial cycles, etc.

Source: GEOCARB III - Berner 2001 and Gough 1981, and NASA Vital Signs Page

The book Merchants of Doubt has a good rundown of how the rhetoric and strategies are echoed across multiple public interest topics. In fact, many players in the space offered their services across the gambit of these topics ranging from DDT and environmental harm to the link between smoking and cancer to climate change among other topics.

13 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

settled....of course not

Fundamentals....yes.

Details...no.

And by "settled" we mean in the same way anything in science is settled. It doesn't mean we have perfect knowledge or understanding. We never will. But we do know enough to draw conclusions with high confidence.

There is a lot of uncertainty on the climate sensitivity. There is a lot of uncertainty on the attribution on individual climate forcing agents. There is a lot of uncertainty on regional effects. There is a lot of uncertainty on a variety of aspects of climate change. But we know that the planet is warming and that humans play a significant role. That part is settled.

Great post. And welcome to AmericanWx. I'll add some commentary of my own.

The Charney sensitivity is most closely related to the fast-feedback equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). It is important to note that slow-feedbacks are often omitted from the ECS estimates you often see. Generally speaking fast-feedbacks are those that complete in < 150 years. Slow-feedbacks include those that longer than 150 years to complete like would be the case for Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and some carbon cycle processes. 

Sherwood 2020 - An Assessment of Earth's Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence is great comprehensive study that I suspect will be referenced heavily by AR6.

The 1-sigma and 2-sigma envelopes for 2xCO2 is 2.6 - 3.9C and 2.3 - 4.7C respectively.

Official Link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019RG000678

Free Copy: https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WCRP_ECS_Final_manuscript_2019RG000678R_FINAL_200720.pdf

Does Koonin present a model of the climate system in his book that makes predictions from 1880-present that are better than say CMIP5 or CMIP6?

General relativity and quantum mechanics disagree by 120 orders of magnitude regarding the cosmological constant. It is called the worst prediction in all of science. But I trust you still feel that GR and QM are settled enough to continue relying on GPS to get you where you need to go or on MRI to diagnose a potentially serious medical issue you might have in the future. No?

Fine grained details regarding AGW are still heavily debated, but the fact that the planet is warming and that humans have played a significant role is about as settled as anything can get in science.

17 hours ago, chubbs said:

Yes with the right comparison, CMIP5 is close to observations and CMIP6 runs a little warm. Thought Spencers' SST values looked too warm.  Wouldn't discount other errors.

A while ago I estimated the following trends using KNMI explorer for the period 1975 to 2020:

RCP6 globe - 0.218 (Tos, not SST blended so warmer than obs)

RCP6 ocean only - 0.144

HADSST4 - 0.152

Finally how did you make the chart.

 

 

 

I didn't make the chart. Nick Stokes did. I'm guessing he downloaded the netcdf files and did a lot of manual stuff on his side.

He also just mentioned something else last night...50 of the 68 members in Dr. Spencer's graph come from CanESM5 which runs very hot. It appears that KNMI does not yet have all of the CMIP6 data yet.

I'm really trying to be patient with Dr. Spencer. Afterall he and Dr. Christy did pioneer satellite measurements of tropospheric temperatures which is useful. But he just keeps posting misleading articles. 

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/04/an-earth-day-reminder-global-warming-is-only-50-of-what-models-predict/

Here he says the warming is only 50% what models predict. That's not true at all. This post is misleading at best because even though the graph is labeled as "Sea Surface Temperature" he's actually comparing observed SSTs with modeled air temperature. The problem...the atmosphere warms faster than the sea surface. Nick Stokes kindly created a graph in which observed SSTs are compared correctly with modeled SSTs. 

Note that "tas" is air temperature and "tos" is sea surface temperature. Is modeling perfect? Nope. Is it as bad as Dr. Spencer claims? Not even close. 

JTWC estimated its minimum central pressure at 888mb. JMA at 895mb.

This shatters the record for the most intense cyclone prior to May 1st and is in the elite top 20 highest wind speeds at any time of year.

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2021-04-16-typhoon-surigae-philippines-forecast

BTW...this was a well forecasted cyclone. Both the GFS and ECMWF had been consistently showing a low 900's intensity at least 5 days out.

The latest JMA advisory is 895mb.

Surigae is a beast. ADTv9 shows CI T# is 8.0 with estimated pressure of 890mb and winds of 170 kts. I've not been able to find the official 12Z pressure estimate yet, but JTWC is saying 155 kts.

ADT90 LIST 02W.ODT CKZ=YES
=====    ADT-Version 9.0 =====
                  ----Intensity--- -Tno Values-- --------Tno/CI Rules-------- -Temperature-                    
           Time         MSLP/Vmax   Fnl Adj Ini   Cnstrnt Wkng Rpd   ET   ST   Cntr   Mean   Scene  EstRMW   MW   Storm Location  Fix
   Date    (UTC)   CI  (CKZ)/(kts)  Tno Raw Raw    Limit  Flag Wkng Flag Flag Region  Cloud  Type    (km)  Score   Lat     Lon    Mthd    Sat   VZA
2021APR17 054000  7.2  916.7 146.0  7.2 7.7 7.9  1.3T/6hr  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  10.69 -84.01  EYE     18 IR  97.0   11.36 -130.19  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.1 
2021APR17 061000  7.3  913.5 149.0  7.3 7.8 8.0  1.3T/6hr  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  16.61 -84.24  EYE     20 IR  97.0   11.35 -130.10  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.1 
2021APR17 064000  7.4  910.3 152.0  7.4 7.8 7.9  1.3T/6hr  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  14.37 -83.97  EYE     20 IR  97.0   11.43 -130.07  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.2 
2021APR17 070000  7.5  907.1 155.0  7.5 7.9 8.0  1.3T/6hr  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  18.17 -83.19  EYE     20 IR  97.0   11.55 -130.03  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.4 
2021APR17 074000  7.7  900.5 161.0  7.7 7.8 7.8  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF   9.07 -83.17  EYE     18 IR  97.0   11.58 -129.95  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.4 
2021APR17 081000  7.8  897.2 164.0  7.8 7.9 8.0  3.2T/18hr OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  14.12 -83.98  EYE     18 IR  97.0   11.62 -129.81  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.6 
2021APR17 084000  7.8  897.2 164.0  7.8 7.9 8.0  3.2T/18hr OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  17.99 -84.15  EYE     18 IR  70.7   11.67 -129.78  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.7 
2021APR17 091000  7.8  897.2 164.0  7.8 7.9 7.9  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  10.49 -83.78  EYE     19 IR  70.7   11.74 -129.72  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.8 
2021APR17 094000  7.8  897.1 164.0  7.8 7.9 7.9  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF   9.30 -84.51  EYE     21 IR  79.9   11.80 -129.67  ARCHER   HIM-8 18.9 
2021APR17 101000  7.9  893.7 167.0  7.9 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  16.97 -84.71  EYE     20 IR  79.9   11.87 -129.51  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.0 
2021APR17 104000  7.9  893.7 167.0  7.9 8.1 8.1  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  20.34 -84.85  EYE     20 IR  79.9   11.87 -129.49  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.1 
2021APR17 111000  7.9  893.7 167.0  7.9 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  18.33 -84.50  EYE     20 IR  79.9   11.94 -129.38  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.2 
2021APR17 114000  7.9  893.7 167.0  7.9 7.9 7.9  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF   8.16 -84.74  EYE     19 IR  79.9   12.03 -129.26  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.4 
2021APR17 121000  7.9  893.7 167.0  7.9 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  16.59 -84.31  EYE     19 IR  79.9   12.05 -129.10  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.5 
2021APR17 124000  8.0  890.3 170.0  8.0 8.1 8.1  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  20.18 -84.63  EYE     20 IR  79.9   12.04 -129.06  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.5 
2021APR17 131000  8.0  890.3 170.0  8.0 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  15.77 -84.25  EYE     18 IR  79.9   12.06 -129.05  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.6 
2021APR17 134000  8.0  890.3 170.0  8.0 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  16.61 -84.06  EYE     18 IR  79.9   12.13 -128.98  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.7 
2021APR17 141000  8.0  890.3 170.0  8.0 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  19.79 -84.06  EYE     18 IR  79.9   12.16 -128.91  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.8 
2021APR17 143000  8.0  890.3 170.0  8.0 8.0 8.0  NO LIMIT  OFF  OFF  OFF  OFF  20.34 -83.52  EYE     18 IR  79.9   12.20 -128.87  ARCHER   HIM-8 19.8 

So the big question...will the IPCC AR6 stick with the likely ECS of 1.5-4.5C or refine it?

Sherwood 2020's 1σ range is 2.6-3.9C and 2σ range is 2.3-4.7C.

The IPCC uses 66% as the standard for "likely". Using this standard with Sherwood 2020 an argument could be made for 2.5-4.0C. That would be a big change. I'm wondering if 2.0-4.0C might be a more reasonable choice for now.

With each passing decade we can constrain the lower bound further. I think at this point 1.5C is all but impossible at this point.

Sherwood 2020: An Assessment of Earth's Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence (official / free) suggests a TCR of 1.8C with 66% upper bound of 2.2C. If the PDF was normally distributed that would imply a 95% upper bound of 2.6C. However, the PDF is not normally distributed and has a long tail on the right side so 95% upper bound is likely higher than 2.6C. Sherwood 2020 is probably the most comprehensive study on climate sensitivity to date.

Some of you probably saw news articles regarding the Kramer et al 2021 publication which for the first time measures the net instantaneous radiative force using CERES and AIRS between 2003 and 2018.

News Article: https://www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-effect-nasa-study-2651319284.html

Official: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL091585 

Free: https://www.essoar.org/doi/10.1002/essoar.10506610.1

From the publication...

Total-IRF = +0.033 W/m2/year +/- 0.007
LW-IRF = +0.027 W/m2/year +/- 0.006
SW-IRF = +0.006 W/m2/year +/- 0.003

The SOCRATES radiative transfer model predicts LW-IRF to be +0.023 W/m2/year +/- 0.003. The model computes the RF for increases in most of the GHG species found in the atmosphere. Note that measurement and modeling are consistent here.

The MERRA reanalysis attributes +0.006 W/m2/year +/- 0.003 to aerosol declines. Note that this matches well with the measured value.

The integrated IRF for 2003-2018 is +0.53 W/m^2 +/ 0.11 with 0.40 W/m^2 +/- 0.1 being in the LW band. Modeling predicted the LW band to be 0.35 W/m^2 +/- 0.05 over this same period which implies good agreement between theory and observation.

In summary about 80% of the net heat uptake for the period 2003-2018 is the result of GHGs while 20% is the result of aerosol reductions. It used to be that aerosols were increasing which was suppressing the warming. They stabilized around 1980. But at least for this 15 year period efforts to reduce pollution are now contributing to the warming. This may explain why the EEI has increased to +0.87 W/m^2 +/- 0.12 (Schuckmann 2020) in recent years.

I could see it making a run at the low 1060's. :But I'll be extremely surprised if it hits 1070mb. There is going to be a pretty steep pressure gradient either way. The Euro actually shows slightly higher sustained winds than does the GFS even though it is much weaker with the anti-cyclone. It certainly looks like Fram export will be in high gear shortly.

There is no holding back by the GFS. The 12Z cycle is now showing a 1096mb high against a 971mb low.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2021/03/arctic-sea-ice-reaches-uneventful-maximum/

"On March 21, 2021, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.77 million square kilometers (5.70 million square miles), tying for the seventh lowest extent in the satellite record with 2007. This year’s maximum extent is 870,000 square kilometers (336,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 million square kilometers (6.04 million square miles) and 360,000 square kilometers (139,000 square miles) above the lowest maximum of 14.41 million square kilometers (5.56 million square miles) set on March 7, 2017. Prior to 2019, the four lowest maximum extents occurred from 2015 to 2018."

It looks like there may have been a mesoscale boundary south of the storm that was forcing junk convection. It looks like the cell is starting outrun that now. Once it finishes ingesting this last bit of convection it looks like the inflow notch might clear out. We'll see what happens.

The spatial and temporal size of the 90 tornado ingredients contour from the 9Z SREF has doubled since last night. I'm pretty sure we've seen larger in the past, but this is high risk worthy for sure.

21Z SREF tornado ingredients product is somewhat aggressive. We've certainly seen larger spatial and temporal sizes of the 90 contour, but this one is respectable nonetheless.

In addition we had this publication come out last year with a comprehensive analysis of the Earth Energy Imbalance. It is now up to +0.87 W/m^2.

https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2013/2020/essd-12-2013-2020.pdf

We've seen 3 local peaks. One on Feb 15th, one on Mar 6, and the most recent on Mar 12 with a 5D average of 14.75 per NSIDC extent. We cannot eliminate the possibility of a higher max (the 2012 max occurred on Mar 20), but with each passing day the probability decreases. It looks to me like the melt season is going to start lower than it did last year.