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Phoenix Records its Hottest Summer on Record


donsutherland1
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6 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

So if you believe CO2 is a control knob on the climate system you are basically believing the climate system is linear. We all know this is wrong. 

 

There is literature about the lags namely where increasing solar insolation kicked off warming in the Northern Hemisphere and subsequent warming led to increases in CO2, which, in turn, amplified further warming. That humanity has engineered a “short cut” of sorts by dramatically and rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 does not mean that (1) this increased CO2 won’t drive warming (CO2's properties found in physics and other empirical literature suggests that it should; the ongoing observed warming demonstrates that the expected warming is taking place) and (2) that one assumes the climate system is linear. No serious climate scientist has made such claims that I can find.

The real question is why atmospheric CO2 levels consistent with the Pliocene should not produce warming perhaps of a similar magnitude?  Global temperature are rising. The 2010s was the warmest decade of the instrument record (all major data sets). The 2020s will likely exceed that level of warmth.

 

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3 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

There is literature about the lags namely where increasing solar insolation kicked off warming in the Northern Hemisphere and subsequent warming led to increases in CO2, which, in turn, amplified further warming. That humanity has engineered a “short cut” of sorts by dramatically and rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 does not mean that (1) this increased CO2 won’t drive warming (CO2's properties found in physics and other empirical literature suggests that it should; the ongoing observed warming demonstrates that the expected warming is taking place) and (2) that one assumes the climate system is linear. No serious climate scientist has made such claims that I can find.

The real question is why atmospheric CO2 levels consistent with the Pliocene should not produce warming perhaps of a similar magnitude?  Global temperature are rising. The 2010s was the warmest decade of the instrument record (all major data sets). The 2020s will likely exceed that level of warmth.

 

 

Yes the climate is warming. But how can you rule out that natural forces such an ENSO (stronger El Ninos since the late 1970s) doesn't play a big role?  Yes CO2 has some role but paleorecords from the Pleistoscene suggest it is minor.   The pliocene was a warmer epoch because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were not seperate. The Isthmus of Panama was open. Once this closed around 2.6 million years ago we went into glacial-interglacial cycles because of the development of the AOMC. This led to more moisture reaching high latitudes and much more snowfall which in turn began the glaication process. The pliocene is a different epoch completely. We didn't have the moisture and snowcover/ice age cycles. This really suggests ocean currents are a major driver of the climate system. Not CO2. 

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1 hour ago, blizzard1024 said:

 

Yes the climate is warming. But how can you rule out that natural forces such an ENSO (stronger El Ninos since the late 1970s) doesn't play a big role?  Yes CO2 has some role but paleorecords from the Pleistoscene suggest it is minor.   The pliocene was a warmer epoch because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were not seperate. The Isthmus of Panama was open. Once this closed around 2.6 million years ago we went into glacial-interglacial cycles because of the development of the AOMC. This led to more moisture reaching high latitudes and much more snowfall which in turn began the glaication process. The pliocene is a different epoch completely. We didn't have the moisture and snowcover/ice age cycles. This really suggests ocean currents are a major driver of the climate system. Not CO2. 

When greenhouse gases are omitted, the observed ongoing warming cannot be replicated. Only when such gases are included can the observed warming be replicated. 

Gavin Schmidt, director of National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that scientists look at a lot of different things at once.

“We have a very, very clear understanding that the amount of heat in the ocean is increasing—the ocean heat content is going up by a lot,” said Schmidt. “That implies that there must be an external change in the radiation budget of the earth—more energy has to be going in than leaving...

To understand this rapid change in climate, scientists look at data sets and climate models to try to reproduce the changes that have already been observed. When scientists input only natural phenomena such as the sun’s intensity, changes in the Earth’s orbit and ocean circulation, the models cannot reproduce the changes that have occurred so far.

“We have independent evidence that says when you put in greenhouse gases, you get the changes that we see,” said Schmidt. “If you don’t put in greenhouse gases, you don’t. And if you put in all the other things people think about—the changes in the earth’s orbit, the ocean circulation changes, El Niño, land use changes, air pollution, smog, ozone depletion—all of those things, none of them actually produce the changes that we see in multiple data sets across multiple areas of the system, all of which have been independently replicated.” In other words, only when the emissions from human activity are included, are the models and data sets able to accurately reproduce the warming in the ocean and the atmosphere that is occurring.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/04/04/how-we-know-climate-change-is-not-natural/

 

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45 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

When greenhouse gases are omitted, the observed ongoing warming cannot be replicated. Only when such gases are included can the observed warming be replicated. 

Gavin Schmidt, director of National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that scientists look at a lot of different things at once.

“We have a very, very clear understanding that the amount of heat in the ocean is increasing—the ocean heat content is going up by a lot,” said Schmidt. “That implies that there must be an external change in the radiation budget of the earth—more energy has to be going in than leaving...

To understand this rapid change in climate, scientists look at data sets and climate models to try to reproduce the changes that have already been observed. When scientists input only natural phenomena such as the sun’s intensity, changes in the Earth’s orbit and ocean circulation, the models cannot reproduce the changes that have occurred so far.

“We have independent evidence that says when you put in greenhouse gases, you get the changes that we see,” said Schmidt. “If you don’t put in greenhouse gases, you don’t. And if you put in all the other things people think about—the changes in the earth’s orbit, the ocean circulation changes, El Niño, land use changes, air pollution, smog, ozone depletion—all of those things, none of them actually produce the changes that we see in multiple data sets across multiple areas of the system, all of which have been independently replicated.” In other words, only when the emissions from human activity are included, are the models and data sets able to accurately reproduce the warming in the ocean and the atmosphere that is occurring.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/04/04/how-we-know-climate-change-is-not-natural/

 

What hubris. They have it all figured out. That's like a meteorologist who claims that they have it all figured out. Models, its all about models. Models help us understand but they aren't the be all end all in most sciences. Their GCMs don't even handle convection or cloud cover explicitly and they feel that they fully model the climate?   I am skeptical of all atmospheric models. It is just my training and experience. I would like to see a real-time measure of the greenhouse effect with updates to high level water vapor monthly. Then you can calculate a real-time greenhouse effect. But only NCEP provides monthly vapor pressure at 300 mb. That shows a decline which goes against the mainstream climate science so we ignore that variable but we use NCEP for temperatures in papers all the time.  smh

 

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3 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

 

Yes the climate is warming. But how can you rule out that natural forces such an ENSO (stronger El Ninos since the late 1970s) doesn't play a big role?  Yes CO2 has some role but paleorecords from the Pleistoscene suggest it is minor.   The pliocene was a warmer epoch because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were not seperate. The Isthmus of Panama was open. Once this closed around 2.6 million years ago we went into glacial-interglacial cycles because of the development of the AOMC. This led to more moisture reaching high latitudes and much more snowfall which in turn began the glaication process. The pliocene is a different epoch completely. We didn't have the moisture and snowcover/ice age cycles. This really suggests ocean currents are a major driver of the climate system. Not CO2. 

ENSO does not create long term planetary scale energy imbalances. It just moves heat around. ONI has averaged 0.1 from 1979 to present with a trend of -0.028/decade +- 0.031.

The AMOC, on the other hand, probably does play a big role. But scientists already consider its role. It helps explain the magnitude of the MWP and LIA in the North Atlantic during the holocene for example. It has also been invoked to help explain the last deglaciation (see Shakun 2012). It is believed the AMOC will play a critical role in the contemporary warming period in the not so distant future as well.

The point...there are many agents that help drive the climate. They are all important and should be considered. That in no way takes away from the fact that CO2 (and other GHGs) plays a crucial role as well. We just happen to be living in an era where CO2, CH4, CFCs, O3, and other GHGs have dominated the positive side of the radiative forcing budget by about an order of magnitude. 

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2 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

What hubris. They have it all figured out. That's like a meteorologist who claims that they have it all figured out. Models, its all about models. Models help us understand but they aren't the be all end all in most sciences. Their GCMs don't even handle convection or cloud cover explicitly and they feel that they fully model the climate?   I am skeptical of all atmospheric models. It is just my training and experience. I would like to see a real-time measure of the greenhouse effect with updates to high level water vapor monthly. Then you can calculate a real-time greenhouse effect. But only NCEP provides monthly vapor pressure at 300 mb. That shows a decline which goes against the mainstream climate science so we ignore that variable but we use NCEP for temperatures in papers all the time.  smh

 

It’s not hubris. It’s a conclusion based on the evidence. Here’s one study that shows historical temperature trends, the trends that would have occurred only with natural forcings, and those that would have occurred only with anthropogenic forcings. The relevant charts are on page 8 of the paper.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jgrd.50239

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A couple of comments:

1) ice core timing has uncertainty. There is some air exchange as snow accumulates before ice is formed. Recent papers have found the CO2 and temperature changes are closely aligned. https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/8/1213/2012/cp-8-1213-2012.html; https://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6123/1060.abstract

2) Can't explain ice core temperature changes in the S Hemisphere without CO2 since summer insolation trends are opposite in S vs N hemisphere

3) As pointed out above can't get magnitude of ice ages without a CO2 forcing contribution. Note if CO2 is contributing nothing, this means climate is more sensitive, since forcing change is roughly 50% smaller without CO2.

4) A recent paper has found temperature change to the last glacial maximum was larger than previously thought producing a larger climate sensitivity estimate. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2617-x

 

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2020 was the 11th summer on record with a mean temperature above 94.5 degrees in Phoenix. It also became the 6th out of those 11 summers to see the 9/1-6 period wind up warmer than the entire summer average. All of those six summers with a warmer start to September occurred 2000 or later and four occurred 2010 or later. What this means is that the intense heat of exceptionally warm summers now has a tendency to last a little longer than had been the case in the past.

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September 1-7 Update:

Phoenix experienced its hottest summer on record. Following that, it experienced one of its warmest first weeks of September on record. With climate change, the intense heat of increasingly hot summers is lingering longer. Summer is now stretching into the opening week of September.

September 1-7, 2020 Summary:
Average high temperature: 108.9° (tied 2nd highest)
Average low temperature: 85.9° (6th highest)
Average temperature: 97.4° (tied 2nd highest)

Since 1980, the 30-year moving average mean temperature for the first week of September has increased 4.3°. The summer mean temperature has increased a similar 4.0°.

Table 1: Average Summer and September 1-7 Temperatures (30-Year Moving Average)
Table-9-1.jpg

September 1-7, 1928 was the first case during which the mean temperature reached 90° (90.0°). By 1995, the mean temperature (30-year moving average) reached 90° for the first time (90.1°). September 1-7, 2006, with a mean temperature of 88.7°, was the last case during which the mean temperature was less than 90° during the first week of September. The first week of September is now as warm as the typical summer was during the 1971-2000 period.

Average low temperatures now come to 80° or above. The last time the first week of September saw a weekly mean temperature below 80° was 2009 when the average temperature was 79.6°. The average number of days on which the high temperature reached 100° or above and 105° or above has also increased in recent years.

Table 2: September 1-7 Select Data (30-Year Moving Average)
Table-9-2.jpg

Since recordkeeping began in 1895, Phoenix has had 11 cases during which the mean temperature was 95.0° or above during the first week of September. Eight (73%) of those cases occurred during 2000 or later. Six (55%) of those cases occurred during 2010 or later.

September 4-6, 2020 was the hottest three-day period on record in September:

Mean Temperature: 100.5° (highest on record)
Mean High Temperature: 114.0° (highest on record)
Mean Low Temperature: 88.7° (2nd highest on record; record: 89.3°, September 5-7, 2019)

Table 3: Record High Maximum Temperatures
Table-9-3.jpg

Table 4: Record High Minimum Temperature
Table-9-4.jpg

Just as summer 2020 provided a foretaste of the kind of summers that are expected to become routine by 2050 on account of climate change, the first week of September 2020 offered a glimpse into the future of the staying power of summer's most intense heat under the evolving climate regime.

 

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On 9/6/2020 at 12:05 PM, blizzard1024 said:

 

Yes the climate is warming. But how can you rule out that natural forces such an ENSO (stronger El Ninos since the late 1970s) doesn't play a big role?  Yes CO2 has some role but paleorecords from the Pleistoscene suggest it is minor.   The pliocene was a warmer epoch because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were not seperate. The Isthmus of Panama was open. Once this closed around 2.6 million years ago we went into glacial-interglacial cycles because of the development of the AOMC. This led to more moisture reaching high latitudes and much more snowfall which in turn began the glaication process. The pliocene is a different epoch completely. We didn't have the moisture and snowcover/ice age cycles. This really suggests ocean currents are a major driver of the climate system. Not CO2. 

ENSO doesn't cause a planetary energy imbalance. In fact, by reduced ocean mixing concentrating heat at the oceans surface, more heat is radiated to space and the deep oceans cool. In contrast, we have observed an exceptionally large increase in the earth's oceanic heat content. The oceans have warmed so much that they have expanded significantly and are the primary cause of sea level rise for the last century. It's very difficult to comprehend the amount of heat the oceans have absorbed over the last 100+ years in order to expand that much (and also confirmed by deep sea buoys over more recent decades). You really should make an effort to learn about the amount of heat that the oceans have absorbed and how the only possible explanation is that the earth is stuck in a large radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. There are only a few plausible explanations for such an imbalance: 1) large changes in cloud cover 2) large land use changes making the earth less reflective (human caused land changes have tended to make the earth more reflective) 3) changes in greenhouse gas concentrations

The obvious answer is #3 given the observed increase in CO2 and its testable radiative properties

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18 minutes ago, skierinvermont said:

ENSO doesn't cause a planetary energy imbalance. In fact, by reduced ocean mixing concentrating heat at the oceans surface, more heat is radiated to space and the deep oceans cool. In contrast, we have observed an exceptionally large increase in the earth's oceanic heat content. The oceans have warmed so much that they have expanded significantly and are the primary cause of sea level rise for the last century. It's very difficult to comprehend the amount of heat the oceans have absorbed over the last 100+ years in order to expand that much (and also confirmed by deep sea buoys over more recent decades). You really should make an effort to learn about the amount of heat that the oceans have absorbed and how the only possible explanation is that the earth is stuck in a large radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. There are only a few plausible explanations for such an imbalance: 1) large changes in cloud cover 2) large land use changes making the earth less reflective (human caused land changes have tended to make the earth more reflective) 3) changes in greenhouse gas concentrations

The obvious answer is #3 given the observed increase in CO2 and its testable radiative properties

And a timely new paper on this topic:

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

 

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10 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

That is a great paper! This is the kind of study that could very well end up being cited in the IPCC's AR6 report. And the bibliography is HUGE.

Of note is that they estimate the EEI at +0.87 W/m^2 with an error of only +- 0.12.

In terms of heat uptake dispatching 1% goes into the atmosphere, 4% into the cryosphere, 6% into land, and 89% into the hydrosphere.

 

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15 minutes ago, bdgwx said:

That is a great paper! This is the kind of study that could very well end up being cited in the IPCC's AR6 report. And the bibliography is HUGE.

Of note is that they estimate the EEI at +0.87 W/m^2 with an error of only +- 0.12.

In terms of heat uptake dispatching 1% goes into the atmosphere, 4% into the cryosphere, 6% into land, and 89% into the hydrosphere.

 

Thanks Bdgwx.

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With no reflections on this paper, the credibility of all 'climate change' related documents is imho tainted at the source.

The initial Mann 'hockeystick' paper in Nature glossed over that the same dendro evidence used to form the stick showed declining ring formation in the most recent era, which had been interpreted as periods of cooler weather. So that information was frog marched out of the paper, with a chart grafting modern temperature measures on the earlier tree ring data to create the 'hockeystick'. 

An honest presentation should have highlighted the divergence, which really produces a downward signal rather that the increase shown by the thermometer measures. Perhaps it just means tree ring data is not fit for the purpose of measuring temperatures. That in itself would be a useful, but afaik that analysis has not been done, nor have there been follow on studies to examine whether the 'divergence' has worsened or improved  since the Mann Nature paper.

As a former Wall Streeter, I'm pretty attuned to hard marketing. Prof Mann marketed too hard for me. 

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4 hours ago, etudiant said:

With no reflections on this paper, the credibility of all 'climate change' related documents is imho tainted at the source.

The initial Mann 'hockeystick' paper in Nature glossed over that the same dendro evidence used to form the stick showed declining ring formation in the most recent era, which had been interpreted as periods of cooler weather. So that information was frog marched out of the paper, with a chart grafting modern temperature measures on the earlier tree ring data to create the 'hockeystick'. 

An honest presentation should have highlighted the divergence, which really produces a downward signal rather that the increase shown by the thermometer measures. Perhaps it just means tree ring data is not fit for the purpose of measuring temperatures. That in itself would be a useful, but afaik that analysis has not been done, nor have there been follow on studies to examine whether the 'divergence' has worsened or improved  since the Mann Nature paper.

As a former Wall Streeter, I'm pretty attuned to hard marketing. Prof Mann marketed too hard for me. 

The findings in Mann’s paper were largely reaffirmed.

https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/rc4a/millennium/refs/Wahl_ClimChange2007.pdf

The body of evidence behind AGW is robust. There is no compelling alternative, much less one that has even a fraction of support in the literature that exists for AGW.

Actually, I believe the issue isn’t that climate science hasn’t proved its case so to speak, but that those who reject the overwhelming evidence for AGW are demanding a level of certainty not expected from other fields or disciplines.

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2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The findings in Mann’s paper were largely reaffirmed.

https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/rc4a/millennium/refs/Wahl_ClimChange2007.pdf

The body of evidence behind AGW is robust. There is no compelling alternative, much less one that has even a fraction of support in the literature that exists for AGW.

Actually, I believe the issue isn’t that climate science hasn’t proved its case so to speak, but that those who reject the overwhelming evidence for AGW are demanding a level of certainty not expected from other fields or disciplines.

I would be happy to see a decent analysis of the 'divergence', which should be a piece of cake now that we have another 20+ years worth of tree rings to evaluate.

I have no beef with current climate measures, the sea ice measures alone are pretty strong evidence. What is less convincing to me is the earlier stability claimed, it seems inconsistent with the historical record.

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15 minutes ago, etudiant said:

I would be happy to see a decent analysis of the 'divergence', which should be a piece of cake now that we have another 20+ years worth of tree rings to evaluate.

I have no beef with current climate measures, the sea ice measures alone are pretty strong evidence. What is less convincing to me is the earlier stability claimed, it seems inconsistent with the historical record.

I'm not aware of a NH or global temperature reconstruction published in a reputable peer reviewed journal that shows anything other stability during the most recent 2000 years of the Holocene.

This is possibly the most comprehensive global Holocene temperature reconstruction to date. It is a composite of hundreds of datasets using various proxy techniques.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0530-7

As you can see if anything the MBH98/99 reconstructions and "hockey stick" shape is a bit more "tame" compared to what we know today. Keep in mind that MBH98/99 is a NH reconstruction only.

 

jcACsfa.jpg

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On 9/5/2020 at 3:50 AM, blizzard1024 said:

There are parts of the world that had a very warm above normal summer, I am no doubting that. Parts of Siberia this year have had exceptional warmth. That has been measured. But what does that prove? The Earth has warmed since the 1970s. What does that prove? The Earth has warmed since the 1800s the end of the LIA. Natural warming cycles with some CO2 induced warming is likely what is going on. UHI no doubt is part of why records are being smashed in the southwest. That is pretty well known. But this has been a warm summer in many parts including the northeast U.S and others. It likely has to do with the transition from El Nino to a strong La Nina...ala 1988, 1999 both warm summers. Look I am not saying that CO2 increases are not causing the Earth to warm some, I am skeptical of the doomsday hyped-up scenarios that's all. I am very skeptical of the extreme weather arguments. A little warmer Earth is not going to cause extreme cold outbreaks in the mid-latitudes because of an "erratic" jet stream. People are getting PhDs on this stuff.  Its called the negative AO/NAO. 

Are you familiar with the statistical analysis that was done that placed the nearly 20 degrees of warming in Siberia over 6 months to be over 99.9% more likely because of AGW?  It wasn't just the extreme nature of the warming, it was also the extreme duration.  Russia has got to be loving it- when Siberia becomes the world's new bread basket (which will happen within a few decades at most), that means a lot more money for them.

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6 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The findings in Mann’s paper were largely reaffirmed.

https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/rc4a/millennium/refs/Wahl_ClimChange2007.pdf

The body of evidence behind AGW is robust. There is no compelling alternative, much less one that has even a fraction of support in the literature that exists for AGW.

Actually, I believe the issue isn’t that climate science hasn’t proved its case so to speak, but that those who reject the overwhelming evidence for AGW are demanding a level of certainty not expected from other fields or disciplines.

It also speaks volumes that the fossil fuel cartel tried to cover up the research.  We've evolved beyond prove and need to decide how to punish them.  NJ recently joined 19 other states in suing them to get funds that are needed to mitigate against sea level rise.  I believe that, like the opioid class action, they will eventually win in court.  Nothing would please me more than to bankrupt the fossil fuel cartel, a corrupt industry that makes even the drug cartels look good.

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9 hours ago, etudiant said:

With no reflections on this paper, the credibility of all 'climate change' related documents is imho tainted at the source.

The initial Mann 'hockeystick' paper in Nature glossed over that the same dendro evidence used to form the stick showed declining ring formation in the most recent era, which had been interpreted as periods of cooler weather. So that information was frog marched out of the paper, with a chart grafting modern temperature measures on the earlier tree ring data to create the 'hockeystick'. 

An honest presentation should have highlighted the divergence, which really produces a downward signal rather that the increase shown by the thermometer measures. Perhaps it just means tree ring data is not fit for the purpose of measuring temperatures. That in itself would be a useful, but afaik that analysis has not been done, nor have there been follow on studies to examine whether the 'divergence' has worsened or improved  since the Mann Nature paper.

As a former Wall Streeter, I'm pretty attuned to hard marketing. Prof Mann marketed too hard for me. 

I hope you dont believe the fossil fuel cartel are the "good guys" here.  They have plenty of skeletons in their closet and deserve to be taken down for it.

 

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23 hours ago, skierinvermont said:

ENSO doesn't cause a planetary energy imbalance. In fact, by reduced ocean mixing concentrating heat at the oceans surface, more heat is radiated to space and the deep oceans cool. In contrast, we have observed an exceptionally large increase in the earth's oceanic heat content. The oceans have warmed so much that they have expanded significantly and are the primary cause of sea level rise for the last century. It's very difficult to comprehend the amount of heat the oceans have absorbed over the last 100+ years in order to expand that much (and also confirmed by deep sea buoys over more recent decades). You really should make an effort to learn about the amount of heat that the oceans have absorbed and how the only possible explanation is that the earth is stuck in a large radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. There are only a few plausible explanations for such an imbalance: 1) large changes in cloud cover 2) large land use changes making the earth less reflective (human caused land changes have tended to make the earth more reflective) 3) changes in greenhouse gas concentrations

The obvious answer is #3 given the observed increase in CO2 and its testable radiative properties

The answer is more than just that.  Human land use is also to blame- 1) is too much animal farming 2) human overpopulation creating dense population centers 3) GHG of course.  It's all interrelated actually.

 

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4 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Are you familiar with the statistical analysis that was done that placed the nearly 20 degrees of warming in Siberia over 6 months to be over 99.9% more likely because of AGW?  It wasn't just the extreme nature of the warming, it was also the extreme duration.  Russia has got to be loving it- when Siberia becomes the world's new bread basket (which will happen within a few decades at most), that means a lot more money for them.

Here’s the attribution study. 

https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/WWA-Prolonged-heat-Siberia-2020.pdf

At this point, at least within the scientific realm, the argument about climate change is a settled one. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. 

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1 minute ago, donsutherland1 said:

Here’s the attribution study. 

https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/WWA-Prolonged-heat-Siberia-2020.pdf

At this point, at least within the scientific realm, the argument about climate change is a settled one. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. 

I'm surprised people still argue about this.  This was settled back in the 90s if I'm not mistaken, maybe even sooner.  How long did the argument over the health risks of tobacco go on for, Don?

 

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54 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I'm surprised people still argue about this.  This was settled back in the 90s if I'm not mistaken, maybe even sooner.  How long did the argument over the health risks of tobacco go on for, Don?

 

Decades. As far back as the 1930s the risks associated with tobacco had become clear.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK294310/

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1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

The answer is more than just that.  Human land use is also to blame- 1) is too much animal farming 2) human overpopulation creating dense population centers 3) GHG of course.  It's all interrelated actually.

 

In terms of global warming, animal farming and dense population centers have a negligible effect outside of their GHG effect (cow farts, cars in cities etc.). Outside the GHG effect of animal farms (cow farts = methane, and clear cutting = CO2), animal farms probably cause cooling by creating a more reflective land surface than a forest. Of course the GHG effect of the cow farts and clear cutting outweigh that.

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24 minutes ago, skierinvermont said:

In terms of global warming, animal farming and dense population centers have a negligible effect outside of their GHG effect (cow farts, cars in cities etc.). Outside the GHG effect of animal farms (cow farts = methane, and clear cutting = CO2), animal farms probably cause cooling by creating a more reflective land surface than a forest. Of course the GHG effect of the cow farts and clear cutting outweigh that.

I was actually referring to farm animals methane output which, if combined together adds up to being the third most emitting "country"- behind only China and the US.

A forest is more helpful because trees are carbon sinks, that's why planting (many) more trees is a good idea- as is reducing humankind's biological footprint.  Not to mention reducing air pollution by reversing urbanization.

 

 

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36 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Decades. As far back as the 1930s the risks associated with tobacco had become clear.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK294310/

Yep, and people still argue about processed food and high fructose corn syrup, even though the twin pandemics of diabetes and obesity makes it all too clear.  The more things change the more they stay the same.

 

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7 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Here’s the attribution study. 

https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/WWA-Prolonged-heat-Siberia-2020.pdf

At this point, at least within the scientific realm, the argument about climate change is a settled one. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. 

 

Nothing is atmospheric science is a settled one. Science is NOT settled especially for a highly non-linear chaotic system. There is no way anyone can say "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. "  with certainty.  CO2 has one small absorption band between 13 and 17 microns in the IR. It is a small part of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas by far as it has a much wider absorption signature in the IR. The warmth we are seeing now could be do to a variety of natural effects as well as CO2 increases. What about the amazingly high record temperatures in the 1930s when many states broke all-time record highs around 110-120 degrees F?  Places in NY, PA, OH and NJ hit around 110F or even into the low 110s.   That probably is a once in a millenium event too and this occurred without CO2 increases like we see today. There are other factors that affect our climate that we don't understand. For CO2 to be driving the climate now,  you need strong positive feedbacks related to increasing water vapor in the upper troposphere where it counts. We just don't know enough about how water vapor is changing at these high levels. Desser and Soden have tried to show this. But Soden's work basically correlates well with ENSO. He showed that after Pinatubo global temperatures declined and global high level water vapor declined too. BUT what he failed to do was look at ENSO. After Pinatubo there was an El Nino which correlates to more water vapor high up from increased tropical convection. His analysis ended a few years later in La Nina conditions. So in effect you can't rule out that the changes in water vapor occurred because of ENSO. Desser comes from Texas A and M. This is the institution that makes faculty sign a document that states that climate change is a certainty. Not good science here when you shut down creative thinking. https://atmo.tamu.edu/about/faculty-statement-climate-change/index.html  This leads to more group think and academic fraud. Texas A and M meteorology department is pretty much toast now...  

Then this brings me to cloud cover. Cloud cover variations modulate the climate dramatically. There is an inverse relationship between cloud fraction and temperatures. This is well known. GCMs do NOT handle cloud cover explicitly. Cloud fraction is added in to stabilize a GCMs output. That is faulty and unrealistic. Then we get to convection which is a major factor in the global energy balance. GCMs also do not handle convection explicitly either.  Without convection the global average temperature would be 71C instead of around 15C. The greenhouse effect is typically stated to be +33C since the Earth's black body temperature is 255K or -18C. But this is WITH convection. Without convection the Greenhouse effect is 89C!! So convective overturning of the atmosphere is critical in maintaining the Earth's energy balance. So if we increase CO2 and add 1.5K to the Greenhouse effect how can you prove that convective overturning won't compensate for that?

Furthermore, the TOA outgoing long wave radiation is around 239 W/m2. A doubling of CO2 leads to an decrease of 3.7 W/m2 which is only 1.5%. Since we have not reached a doubling,  you can say we probably have increased the Greenhouse effect by 1%. 1%? That is very small and it is hard to imagine that such small changes would be unstable enough to spiral the Earth's climate out of control. If the climate was that sensitive life on earth would not exist as it does today.   Plus there was a time 6000 to 8000 year agos where the Earth was warmer than present by as much as 2-4C in the Arctic. This was with far less CO2. The plant and animal species we have today survived this. Humans flourished. This also was natural. So to make a statement that CO2 is the dominant force in the climate system is not on solid ground unless you fully believe that climate scientists have figured out how to model the Earth's climate with precision. I don't think they can. That is my scientific opinion. And yes it is my opinion based on 30 years of using atmospheric models and studying weather and climate. 

I do appreciate the passion many of you bring to make for a better planet. I agree with this. We shouldn't be polluting the atmosphere. We need to go to renewables at some point BUT it can't be forced. I would love to see solar panels on all buildings, not solar farms that take up a lot of land. I would like to see bird friendly wind turbines if that is possible.  I would not like to see energy prices rise so much that poor people resort to deforestation and other environmental calamities that comes with poverty for basic survival. I would like to see climate accords that phase out fossil fuel use for ALL countries. What is the point if some countries are allowed to pollute?  That is ridiculous. It also needs to be phased in slowly as technology advances. Anyway, it is my nature as a scientist to question everything.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

 

Nothing is atmospheric science is a settled one. Science is NOT settled especially for a highly non-linear chaotic system. There is no way anyone can say "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. "  with certainty.  CO2 has one small absorption band between 13 and 17 microns in the IR. It is a small part of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas by far as it has a much wider absorption signature in the IR. The warmth we are seeing now could be do to a variety of natural effects as well as CO2 increases. What about the amazingly high record temperatures in the 1930s when many states broke all-time record highs around 110-120 degrees F?  Places in NY, PA, OH and NJ hit around 110F or even into the low 110s.   That probably is a once in a millenium event too and this occurred without CO2 increases like we see today. There are other factors that affect our climate that we don't understand. For CO2 to be driving the climate now,  you need strong positive feedbacks related to increasing water vapor in the upper troposphere where it counts. We just don't know enough about how water vapor is changing at these high levels. Desser and Soden have tried to show this. But Soden's work basically correlates well with ENSO. He showed that after Pinatubo global temperatures declined and global high level water vapor declined too. BUT what he failed to do was look at ENSO. After Pinatubo there was an El Nino which correlates to more water vapor high up from increased tropical convection. His analysis ended a few years later in La Nina conditions. So in effect you can't rule out that the changes in water vapor occurred because of ENSO. Desser comes from Texas A and M. This is the institution that makes faculty sign a document that states that climate change is a certainty. Not good science here when you shut down creative thinking. https://atmo.tamu.edu/about/faculty-statement-climate-change/index.html  This leads to more group think and academic fraud. Texas A and M meteorology department is pretty much toast now...  

Then this brings me to cloud cover. Cloud cover variations modulate the climate dramatically. There is an inverse relationship between cloud fraction and temperatures. This is well known. GCMs do NOT handle cloud cover explicitly. Cloud fraction is added in to stabilize a GCMs output. That is faulty and unrealistic. Then we get to convection which is a major factor in the global energy balance. GCMs also do not handle convection explicitly either.  Without convection the global average temperature would be 71C instead of around 15C. The greenhouse effect is typically stated to be +33C since the Earth's black body temperature is 255K or -18C. But this is WITH convection. Without convection the Greenhouse effect is 89C!! So convective overturning of the atmosphere is critical in maintaining the Earth's energy balance. So if we increase CO2 and add 1.5K to the Greenhouse effect how can you prove that convective overturning won't compensate for that?

Furthermore, the TOA outgoing long wave radiation is around 239 W/m2. A doubling of CO2 leads to an decrease of 3.7 W/m2 which is only 1.5%. Since we have not reached a doubling,  you can say we probably have increased the Greenhouse effect by 1%. 1%? That is very small and it is hard to imagine that such small changes would be unstable enough to spiral the Earth's climate out of control. If the climate was that sensitive life on earth would not exist as it does today.   Plus there was a time 6000 to 8000 year agos where the Earth was warmer than present by as much as 2-4C in the Arctic. This was with far less CO2. The plant and animal species we have today survived this. Humans flourished. This also was natural. So to make a statement that CO2 is the dominant force in the climate system is not on solid ground unless you fully believe that climate scientists have figured out how to model the Earth's climate with precision. I don't think they can. That is my scientific opinion. And yes it is my opinion based on 30 years of using atmospheric models and studying weather and climate. 

I do appreciate the passion many of you bring to make for a better planet. I agree with this. We shouldn't be polluting the atmosphere. We need to go to renewables at some point BUT it can't be forced. I would love to see solar panels on all buildings, not solar farms that take up a lot of land. I would like to see bird friendly wind turbines if that is possible.  I would not like to see energy prices rise so much that poor people resort to deforestation and other environmental calamities that comes with poverty for basic survival. I would like to see climate accords that phase out fossil fuel use for ALL countries. What is the point if some countries are allowed to pollute?  That is ridiculous. It also needs to be phased in slowly as technology advances. Anyway, it is my nature as a scientist to question everything.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant forcing driving the observed warming is settled. That’s a fairly narrow point. There is no compelling alternative explanation in the literature. That’s why the IPCC is considering upgrading its assessment to 99%-100% confidence in that idea.

In the larger scheme of things, nuances and uncertainties exist. Questions about feedbacks persist. 

Finally, a newly published paper found that the earth’s energy imbalance has increased to +.87 W/m^2 in recent years. That may seem small, but it’s a very large imbalance.

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