Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[GaWx]

9 minutes ago, FPizz said:

Is it accelerating because of GW, or is it that since it is smaller ice absorbs heat more quickly then when it was larger?  I always wondered that.

Thanks. Please elaborate. I’m not sure I’m following what you’re asking.

[Typhoon Tip]

49 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Thanks, Charlie, for posing that. None of what you posted from that article surprises me. I’m not at all expecting to take JB’s side, especially because he’s a proud denier of AGW being a significant factor in GW.

 But what do you know about his statement that Nepal hasn’t warmed in 400 years? Did he just make this up? From where would he have gotten accurate data so far back?
 

 Also, does that map of his that I reposted supposedly showing a somewhat cooler than normal summer along the Nepal-Tibet border have any significance even if accurate? I noticed it has no legend and no reference like the base period and the period these blue colors are representing. He’s saying this is the “wrong summer” to claim a disaster was based on GW. But even if it truly was cooler than normal this summer there, would that even matter being that melting supposedly would have already been put in motion due to supposedly prior warmer than normal periods?

Here's a not-so-novel aspect about ice vs water: when water freezes its volume necessarily expands by 12% to make room for the H20 molecules arranging geometrically into their crystalline position/lattice. That lattice then requires more space in order to achieve this hexagonal configuration among the handshaking molecules.   

    etc...

What may or may not be more novel is the application of this basic principle as partial triggering mechanism.  If the combination of CC and summer sun have been periodically thawing and refreezing the glacial mass over and over again (decadal), the interstitial integrity of glacial body may have cracked.  Fracturing over recent years.  

Basically we're just describing the glacial destabilization near it's front edge and the pooling of near freezing water and seepage that goes on with the retreating. It's a complex system, but at the end of the day, epistemic awareness ... We can either spend 20 years formulating a high degree confidence polynomial mathematical expression that describes a system to within 99% certainty, proving what we already know, or, we just have to accept that expanding and contracting the ice through these processes will weaken it over time. This both increases calving events, in turn increasing the probability for this to have occurred.

Increasing glacial melt --> filling glacial lakes and kettle geological features --> upstream calving then careens forth and there we go

[donsutherland1]

9 hours ago, GaWx said:

 I just watched Joe Bastardi’s free to the public Saturday Summary. He says the Nepal disaster has nothing to do with CC. Why?

-He says that there has been no net change in temperature in Nepal in 400 years!

-He shows a summer temp. anomaly map that has blue colors all over Tibet  including the Tibet-Nepal border.

 So, I’d like to know whether or not these two things are true. Anyone know?

@donsutherland1

The dates are cropped off his map, which is bad practice at a minimum. June was near normal with an area of cool anomalies in the Nepal/Tibet region. July was mainly warmer than normal. Here are the maps for June and July from Copernicus:

June:

July:

The region saw extreme heat during August 10-15, 2026. Kathmandu reached 32.3C (90.1F) on August 11, setting a daily record. Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology also reported that the mercury soared to 38.5C (101.3F) at Janakpur on August 13 and 37.5C (99.5F) at Lahan on August 15. Whether or not this round of heat was critical to destabilizing things remains to be seen.

Finally, Nepal has been warming dramatically in recent years.

Finally, Nepal has been warming somewhat faster than the climate model projections.

 

[FPizz]

30 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Thanks. Please elaborate. I’m not sure I’m following what you’re asking.

I'm sorry, is the ice melt actually accelerating because of GW, or does it only seem that way because as the ice sheet has been getting smaller for 1000s of years, the rate of acceleration increased because the smaller the ice, the more heat it absorbs.  A larger piece of ice has a massive volume packed behind a smaller proportional surface area. It needs a lot more heat energy to change from solid to liquid, which takes more time.  As it gets smaller, that accelerates. 

[GaWx]

18 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The dates are cropped off his map, which is bad practice at a minimum. June was near normal with an area of cool anomalies in the Nepal/Tibet region. July was mainly warmer than normal. Here are the maps for June and July from Copernicus:

June:

July:

The region saw extreme heat during August 10-15, 2026. Kathmandu reached 32.3C (90.1F) on August 11, setting a daily record. Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology also reported that the mercury soared to 38.5C (101.3F) at Janakpur on August 13 and 37.5C (99.5F) at Lahan on August 15. Whether or not this round of heat was critical to destabilizing things remains to be seen.

Finally, Nepal has been warming dramatically in recent years.

 

 

Thanks, Don!

 -I agree with you about the lack of dates and other references on his map, which I mentioned to Charlie in my reply to him. That makes me wonder if he’s hiding something.

 -So, based on your June and July maps, June-July averaged near normal along the Nepal-Tibet border vs a 1991-2020 base, the warmest 30 year base. Taking that as well as the extreme heat of Aug 10-15 into account, it would seemingly have had to have been much colder than normal Aug 1-9 and Aug 16+ to possibly result in a cooler than normal summer. I have my doubts knowing who we’re dealing with here.

-He also has nearly all of Tibet in blue colors. But your June/July maps averaged out appear to average warmer than normal over much of Tibet if I’m interpreting them correctly. Thus, August would have had to have been an overall cold month to have a chance to overcome the warmer than avg June-July.

[GaWx]

14 minutes ago, FPizz said:

I'm sorry, is the ice melt actually accelerating because of GW, or does it only seem that way because as the ice sheet has been getting smaller for 1000s of years, the rate of acceleration increased because the smaller the ice, the more heat it absorbs.  A larger piece of ice has a massive volume packed behind a smaller proportional surface area. It needs a lot more heat energy to change from solid to liquid, which takes more time.  As it gets smaller, that accelerates. 

Thanks for elaborating. I see. But this begs the question: why is the ice sheet getting smaller in the first place? Isn’t that in itself due to GW? 

[donsutherland1]

1 hour ago, GaWx said:

Thanks, Don!

 -I agree with you about the lack of dates and other references on his map, which I mentioned to Charlie in my reply to him. That makes me wonder if he’s hiding something.

 -So, based on your June and July maps, June-July averaged near normal along the Nepal-Tibet border vs a 1991-2020 base, the warmest 30 year base. Taking that as well as the extreme heat of Aug 10-15 into account, it would seemingly have had to have been much colder than normal Aug 1-9 and Aug 16+ to possibly result in a cooler than normal summer. I have my doubts knowing who we’re dealing with here.

-He also has nearly all of Tibet in blue colors. But your June/July maps averaged out appear to average warmer than normal over much of Tibet if I’m interpreting them correctly. Thus, August would have had to have been an overall cold month to have a chance to overcome the warmer than avg June-July.

In a few days, the August monthly anomaly will also be available on Copernicus. Even if the summer average were cooler than normal, it's worth pointing out that the toll taken on glaciers in a warming climate is cumulative. Glaciers don't reset automatically when things turn cooler. That's a point Bastardi either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore. 

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

In a few days, the August monthly anomaly will also be available on Copernicus. Even if the summer average were cooler than normal, it's worth pointing out that the toll taken on glaciers in a warming climate is cumulative. Glaciers don't reset automatically when things turn cooler. That's a point Bastardi either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore. 

 Don, your entire post 100% makes sense. Regardless, please post the August map if you get a chance. Even assuming one cooler than normal summer wouldn’t suddenly stabilize the glaciers, I want to see whether or not his supposed summer map is essentially a lie in itself. TIA.

 And on what the heck is he basing his statement that Nepal hasn’t warmed in 400 years?? Is this just made up out of thin air?

[Brewbeer]

2 hours ago, FPizz said:

I'm sorry, is the ice melt actually accelerating because of GW, or does it only seem that way because as the ice sheet has been getting smaller for 1000s of years, the rate of acceleration increased because the smaller the ice, the more heat it absorbs.  A larger piece of ice has a massive volume packed behind a smaller proportional surface area. It needs a lot more heat energy to change from solid to liquid, which takes more time.  As it gets smaller, that accelerates. 

yes

[donsutherland1]

2 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Don, your entire post 100% makes sense. Regardless, please post the August map if you get a chance. Even assuming one cooler than normal summer wouldn’t suddenly stabilize the glaciers, I want to see whether or not his supposed summer map is essentially a lie in itself. TIA.

 And on what the heck is he basing his statement that Nepal hasn’t warmed in 400 years?? Is this just made up out of thin air?

I will do so. It should be available by around September 5th. 

In terms of the 400-year period, he's overgeneralizing and cherry-picking from this study, which deals with spring in the western Himalayas. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/2/132

He's also ignoring this information:

Our reconstruction showed cooler conditions during 1658-1681 CE, 1705-1722 CE, 1753-1773 CE, 1796-1874 CE, 1900-1936 CE, and 1973 CE. Periods with comparably warmer conditions occurred in 1600-1625 CE, 1633-1657 CE, 1682-1704 CE, 1740-1752 CE, 1779-1795 CE, 1936-1945 CE, 1956-1972 CE, and at the beginning of the 21st century...

The impact of climate change in the central Himalayan region of Nepal is more pronounced compared to other regions at similar latitudes... and hence Nepal is experiencing higher rates of temperature increase than the global average.... However, the observed warming rates show significant spatial variability, with a more pronounced warming trend in higher altitudes...

Also, with regard to an added explanation that the rock beneath the glacier collapsed, some arguments are already being made that this disproves a climate link. Instead, it reveals the complexity of the processes. Frost-wedging from repeated freezes and thawing contribute to such developments. The water that finds its way into even microfissures expands as it freezes. It then melts when temperatures warm. This repeated cycle eventually causes larger cracks and, ultimately, the rock to split or break. The warming climate in the high alpine regions of the Himalayas has accelerated this form of rock weathering. 

For what it's worth, the New York Botanical Garden has a large glacial erratic called the "Split Rock." The rock ultimately split from repeated freeze-thawing cycles. Here's a photo of it from last winter.

In short, frost-wedging might well have increased the fragility of the rock beneath the glacier leading to its fracturing. 

[Typhoon Tip]

3 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I will do so. It should be available by around September 5th. 

In terms of the 400-year period, he's overgeneralizing and cherry-picking from this study, which deals with spring in the western Himalayas. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/2/132

He's also ignoring this information:

Our reconstruction showed cooler conditions during 1658-1681 CE, 1705-1722 CE, 1753-1773 CE, 1796-1874 CE, 1900-1936 CE, and 1973 CE. Periods with comparably warmer conditions occurred in 1600-1625 CE, 1633-1657 CE, 1682-1704 CE, 1740-1752 CE, 1779-1795 CE, 1936-1945 CE, 1956-1972 CE, and at the beginning of the 21st century...

The impact of climate change in the central Himalayan region of Nepal is more pronounced compared to other regions at similar latitudes... and hence Nepal is experiencing higher rates of temperature increase than the global average.... However, the observed warming rates show significant spatial variability, with a more pronounced warming trend in higher altitudes...

Also, with regard to an added explanation that the rock beneath the glacier collapsed, some arguments are already being made that this disproves a climate link. Instead, it reveals the complexity of the processes. Frost-wedging from repeated freezes and thawing contribute to such developments. The water that finds its way into even microfissures expands as it freezes. It then melts when temperatures warm. This repeated cycle eventually causes larger cracks and, ultimately, the rock to split or break. The warming climate in the high alpine regions of the Himalayas has accelerated this form of rock weathering. 

For what it's worth, the New York Botanical Garden has a large glacial erratic called the "Split Rock." The rock ultimately split from repeated freeze-thawing cycles. Here's a photo of it from last winter.

In short, frost-wedging might well have increased the fragility of the rock beneath the glacier leading to its fracturing. 

Seems to be a cocktail of events ... the old 'chain of misfortune culminating in the plain crash' scenario.  I do think that this event began years ago, so to speak   ( mentioned the reciprocal thawing and refreezing aspect a while ago, too).  I'm also wondering if water accumulating at the glacial-floor interface may have been partially instrumental. In this idea, the integrity of the ice being compromised, then, ...the floor friction can't hold the weight back from being 'lubricated' ...so all that was remaining was ice itself.  Made for an easier instance of calving and away she went. 

Every good play on Broadway took months of preparation for just 2 hours of show.

[GaWx]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I will do so. It should be available by around September 5th. 

In terms of the 400-year period, he's overgeneralizing and cherry-picking from this study, which deals with spring in the western Himalayas. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/2/132

He's also ignoring this information:

Our reconstruction showed cooler conditions during 1658-1681 CE, 1705-1722 CE, 1753-1773 CE, 1796-1874 CE, 1900-1936 CE, and 1973 CE. Periods with comparably warmer conditions occurred in 1600-1625 CE, 1633-1657 CE, 1682-1704 CE, 1740-1752 CE, 1779-1795 CE, 1936-1945 CE, 1956-1972 CE, and at the beginning of the 21st century...

The impact of climate change in the central Himalayan region of Nepal is more pronounced compared to other regions at similar latitudes... and hence Nepal is experiencing higher rates of temperature increase than the global average.... However, the observed warming rates show significant spatial variability, with a more pronounced warming trend in higher altitudes...

Also, with regard to an added explanation that the rock beneath the glacier collapsed, some arguments are already being made that this disproves a climate link. Instead, it reveals the complexity of the processes. Frost-wedging from repeated freezes and thawing contribute to such developments. The water that finds its way into even microfissures expands as it freezes. It then melts when temperatures warm. This repeated cycle eventually causes larger cracks and, ultimately, the rock to split or break. The warming climate in the high alpine regions of the Himalayas has accelerated this form of rock weathering. 

For what it's worth, the New York Botanical Garden has a large glacial erratic called the "Split Rock." The rock ultimately split from repeated freeze-thawing cycles. Here's a photo of it from last winter.

In short, frost-wedging might well have increased the fragility of the rock beneath the glacier leading to its fracturing. 

Thanks, Don. I can tell that Chris Martz has been affecting JB recently. Until recently, I recall JB (like many other mets) used to mention “heat dome” regularly without a sarcastic tone. But this summer whenever he mentions it, he often does so with a sarcastic tone. He doesn’t go out of his way to say it isn’t appropriate. But he clearly sounds like he’s making fun of the term and isn’t as comfortable using it like in the past.

[donsutherland1]

4 hours ago, GaWx said:

Thanks, Don. I can tell that Chris Martz has been affecting JB recently. Until recently, I recall JB (like many other mets) used to mention “heat dome” regularly without a sarcastic tone. But this summer whenever he mentions it, he often does so with a sarcastic tone. He doesn’t go out of his way to say it isn’t appropriate. But he clearly sounds like he’s making fun of the term and isn’t as comfortable using it like in the past.

It's unfortunate. Bastardi and Martz follow one another on X and both have audiences that overlap on climate change denial, so it's not that surprising. However, Martz is not a practicing meteorologist. He has no research to his name. Bastardi, even setting aside his positions on climate change, should stay with the proper meteorological terminology. He's damaging his professional legacy, which has already been hurt by his stance regarding climate change.  It is what it is.

[chubbs]

Storymap on the Nepal floods by the Center for Land for Land Surface Hazards with detailed information from flood gauges, seismic, paleo, etc. The story book is updated as new information becomes available. A couple of quotes from the storymap below. The first quote indicates the flood water came mainly from the slide materials i.e, this material was warm/partially melted. The second quote shows how unusual this event was in area impacted.

"However, more recent seismic analysis of the event as well as detailed reconstruction of flood downstream arrival timing (see above) suggests that damming and release of lake water did not likely contribute significantly to this event because the timing of the initial failure (i.e. the ice-rock avalanche) from seismic records is only seven minutes before the arrival of the flood waters in the nearby community of Gyirong, which is not enough time to have constructed a significant lake in the highland region. Instead, melting of ice and frozen sediment/rock in the initial debris flow and avalanche runout has been attributed to the initiation of the flood."

 In a 2020 study , Huber and others determined boulder-emplacement timing and estimated paleo-flood magnitudes based on boulder size. They show that most boulders in the Trishuli and Sunkoshi were last mobilized and came to rest about 5000 years ago in flood events that far exceed typical monsoon discharges by one to two orders of magnitude.  Images  and  videos from this Trishuli flood  suggest this was a larger event, moving larger boulders than the flood event that impacted the valley ~5000 years ago

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f2b2425eac544929a7d18f4c90b41d66

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's hard to parse out what did what and how much, in the run up to this specific states and scenarios. 

In considering France's issues with agriculture, this was likely set into motion over decades when looking at this as an epistemic/a-priori approach.  I'm not personally with any confidence that this specific 'onsetting' warm ENSO has much to do with it frankly.

Quick primer ( I get it that you know this.. just for the general reader).  As we know El Ninos typically begin to formulate during summers, then maturing during autumn and early winters.  This one appears to fit that climatology so far...  More importantly, during these prefaces of onset the wholesale seasonal gradients are still flaccid. That's a crucial consideration in the presumptions.  Because... the gradient determines where the jet structures will ultimately bias; that becomes the El Nino characterization if/when the El Nino is sufficiently coupled. 

As an aside, the warming total atmosphere associated to CC is limiting the coupling.  Why? because the gradient of winter is being lifted to higher latitudes - that is distancing that latitude (geometrically), so the coupling is getting amorphously defined.   Enters RONI...  Relative ONI is pure statistical approach to the resulting slipping/lowering observed effectivity.  

The 2nd aspect that makes the causal parsing a challenge is that the heat and drought has been an improving frequency and specter for decades, doing so regardless of a ENSO variances in either direction over that time. 

Having said all that, here's where there's an angle:  I think there is a gray area in the completer understanding as to what actually triggers the modal oscillation of ENSO. In that area of speculation, conjecture and hypothesis, it may yet be shown that the circulation modes outside the tropics are somehow transitively causing the tropical wind patterns to occasionally reverse.  Like the noise over time organizes into a sinusoidal harmonic feedback, at a whole-Earth atmosphere scale.   If something like that were taking place then it would be entirely possible/reasonable that machinery 'switching gears' did something to specifically enhance France's agricultural problems now.  But, since the specter of heat and drought goes back years, parsing out what's to blame ...mm intuitively argues it's just a CC related matter in general. 

At some point, if the CC continues to change .. it may herald in a new behavior there and abroad. It's areas of the curve favor a phenomenon typology. 

 

Yeah, the increasing summer heatwaves across Europe and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere are being driven more by the CGT pattern. This pattern is operating independently of ENSO. So this is how we got such a contradictory pattern in Europe and other areas compared to past developing super El Niños.

 

Building on this, we propose that the circumglobal wave (CGW) pattern, also known as the circumglobal teleconnection pattern (35, 36), drives the extended duration of NWP MHWs. This prominent summer circulation feature spans the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude band (36). While prior studies have linked the CGW to terrestrial extreme weather—such as heatwaves in Europe, Asia, and North America (37–41)—its role in NWP MHW dynamics remains underexplored. Given that CGW activity peaks during boreal summer, aligning with the documented maximum in NWP MHW intensity and frequency (25, 42–46), it provides a compelling mechanism for initiating and sustaining these events beyond local forcing alone.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz4647

Marine heatwaves in the Northwestern Pacific (NWP) have become increasingly frequent and persistent, yet the mechanisms enabling their multiseasonal duration remain poorly understood. Through observational analyses and climate model experiments, we demonstrate that NWP marine heatwaves are primarily driven by a quasistationary wavenumber 5 circumglobal wave (CGW) pattern that operates independently of El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The CGW modulates surface heat fluxes during summer, triggering a self-reinforcing feedback loop where NWP warming intensifies the CGW pattern, amplifying and prolonging heatwaves across extended warm seasons. Additionally, CGW-driven summer warming in the northern North Atlantic persists into winter through oceanic thermal inertia, exciting a great-circle wave pattern that propagates back to the NWP, sustaining heatwaves through cold seasons. This interplay between atmospheric waves and trans-basin interactions enables multiyear marine heatwave events. Analysis of observational data and climate model simulations reveals a strengthening CGW influence in recent decades, indicating more frequent and prolonged NWP marine heatwaves under ongoing global warming.