STrange little religion. You can play diminutive god, predict the future and save the planet. Ideal for feeding the liberal fascistic disposition.
Posted by sonar at February 29, 2008 05:04 PMpredict
Prediction is a very specific occupation, in the realm of statistical meteorology, really. Indexes for well-known modes of variability, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (two that matter a lot here on the west coast of the U.S.) are used to produce outlook products (predictions) for time periods from weeks to months. Here's more at the National Weather Service website. Climate modeling is decidedly not this.
Posted by Christina at February 29, 2008 05:23 PM"Sure, our community is sometimes swept by fads but they don't last long and are not often adopted very widely."
...Could a fad accelerate global warming? If everyone on earth had a very large pet rock that they kept in the sun all day...
Posted by TIKI AL at February 29, 2008 07:00 PMThank you Christina, I always enjoy your posts.
Posted by DemnNewJ at February 29, 2008 07:03 PMYes I second that. Thank you for the always valuable info and your posts Christina.
Posted by headxray at February 29, 2008 08:12 PM"1) time windows of only a few years are almost guaranteed to mislead due to internal oscillations in the climate system and" The BBC ran this misleading article claiming 2007 made it 11 out 14 of the hottest years since 1990, of course they used the period between 1961 and 1990 as a base line...a colder period of time. Forgetting about the GISS entirely.
BTW, nice to see you here again. It's been a long time. I had thought the cold changed your mind about this stuff.
How about comparing the change...drop from January 2007 to 2008? Seems it's the largest year on year drop in the last 130 years. Then there's the recent articles from Canada, NASA, SSRC, and RIA Novosti that seem to be saying the same thing about solar activity being down...way down.
"“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,100 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.”" SSRS's Dr. Casey
I wonder how cold NA would have been had the Arctic ice hadn't melted as much as it did. I've read that the wind blew the warm waters northward last summer as a causal reason for the melt.
Posted by peter at February 29, 2008 09:47 PMThanks, Christina.
Complex subject with a lot of unknowns. I respect the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge much more than I respect the red herring fishery.
Posted by angel at March 1, 2008 07:54 AMChristina, I watched the Nova program on global dimming last night. Have you reviewed that science? What do you think of that?
Posted by angel at March 1, 2008 02:05 PMcoming next, pants pissing peter explains why the Sun revolves around the Earth
Posted by gay veteran at March 1, 2008 02:33 PMI did not see the NOVA show on "global dimming" but it is certainly the case that atmospheric particulates play a variety of roles in climate. Global dimming is the reduction of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface due to the presence of certain particulates in the atmosphere. The reduction arises from two effects: direct reflection by the particulates and an indirect effect due to the particulates increasing the reflectivity of clouds. By contrast, carbonaceous particulates, for example soot, can yield warming by absorbing incoming solar radiation. There are some important regional effects too, for example, modification of drought events due to atmospheric dust.
A big issue here is sulfate associated with coal burning. There was a nice article in the NYT last year about coal-fired power plants in China, where high-sulfur coal is abundant and scrubbing technologies are not. Burning coal produces sulfur dioxide (SO2), which up in the atmosphere oxidizes to become sulfate (SO4). Sulfate aerosols reflect some of the incoming solar radiation and increase the reflectivity of clouds. Both of these yield some cooling. Sulfate aerosols from volcanic eruptions do the same.
A difference between anthropogenic and volcanic emissions is that the former are relatively continuous while the latter are limited-duration events. This is important because sulfate aerosols have a relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere, a few years at most before they rainout or fallout. Volcanic eruptions have a short cooling effect, one which is readily observed in the tropics.
Is the SO4 dimming going to save us from global warming? In a nutshell, no, though the global mean would be increasing faster than it is without them. A longer answer requires a dedicated post, as it involves a variety of aerosol effects and feedbacks. Two points though: aerosols are not homogenized through the atmosphere the way longer-lived GHGs are and while the lifetime of SO4 in the atmosphere is short, the lifetime of CO2 is much longer, tens to thousands of years (here is an article about this in Physics Today).
There are other effects of sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere of course, such as acid rain, which has had deleterious environmental effects in the NE United States and Scandinavia.
I hope that somewhere in here is useful information. Aerosols in the climate system is a big topic.
Posted by Christina at March 1, 2008 04:36 PMChristina, Thank you for all you do.
Posted by Seven of Six at March 1, 2008 06:16 PMOne of the points of the global dimming program was that the particulate pollution may be masking the real impact of greenhouse gases, that as we make headway on particulate pollution we may see significant uptick of the the global warming effect.
Posted by angel at March 1, 2008 07:31 PMparticulate pollution may be masking the real impact of greenhouse gases
Yes, this has to be the case.
Posted by Christina at March 1, 2008 09:02 PMSo Christina are you changing the direction now to SO2 or SO4 derivatives from CO2? You still don't see a solar driven event causing our climate change? More active verses less active activity from the sun being the cause or a cause, if you will.
Tell me what was so prevalent in the pre 1940's to produce 5 out the top 10 temperature years in the last 130? I see 1953 on the list then a gap until the 90's with three and one since 2000. What happened from 1953 till 1990 to create the cooler climates. Weren't we using freon for refrigerant a lot during that time. Did the lack of freon usage create a greater atmospheric condition to allow this warming?
Posted by peter at March 2, 2008 10:19 AMSo Christina are you changing the direction now to SO2 or SO4 derivatives from CO2?
Uh, SO2 and SO4 are not derivatives of CO2. But maybe that's a typo. In any case, a question was asked about the climate effects of aerosols so I answered it. Sulfates are important in that story.
As to the cold winter, or any other particular year's (or season's) difference from the mean: it's an all too common mistake for people to confuse weather with climate. This was covered in the original post. There is an article about this in the NYT today as well.
Posted by Christina at March 2, 2008 11:07 AMIsn't that always the case in July too Christina?
Posted by peter at March 2, 2008 01:04 PMIsn't that always the case in July too
quoting myself:
As to the cold winter, or any other particular year's (or season's) difference from the mean:
Peter, I'm all for a serious, critical discussion of the science but it's a little difficult to do that when the evidence suggests that you are not really reading what I'm writing.
Posted by Christina at March 2, 2008 02:07 PMChristina, another voice of thank you for your posting, and all that you do. I always appreciate a little bit of understanding about this fascinating world we live in. Please keep posting here, as many of us really appreciate your work to help us understand our world.
I for one, believe in science over bullshit, and find the posts here trying to knock you a bit silly. Just ignore Peter, as you have his measure accurately.
Posted by kcbill13 at March 2, 2008 05:56 PMChristina: "Peter, I'm all for a serious, critical discussion of the science but it's a little difficult to do that when the evidence suggests that you are not really reading what I'm writing."
pants pissing peter is a right-wing troll, why the hell would he try to present a logical argument?
pants pissing peter: "So Christina are you changing the direction now to SO2 or SO4 derivatives from CO2?"
WOW, stoopid even for a troll. In your world does carbon (C) transform into sulfur(S)? I hope you get paid by the word.
Posted by gay veteran at March 2, 2008 06:06 PMWe would all understand if you just ignored Peter. But your patient answers are also appreciated. It is apparent that Peter is more interested in rhetoric than climate science. Thanks again, Christina.
Posted by angel at March 3, 2008 06:30 AMMichael E. Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said that any focus on the last few months or years as evidence undermining the established theory that accumulating greenhouse gases are making the world warmer was, at best, a waste of time and, at worst, a harmful distraction.
Did he really say that? Recent climate history hasn't seen the results Global Warming fans were expecting.
If only the masses could understand the science of global warming, they’d be alarmed, right? Wrong, according to the surprising results of a survey of Americans published in the journal Risk Analysis by researchers at Texas A&M University.
After asking a national sample of more than 1,000 Americans how much they knew about global warming and how they felt about it, the researchers report that respondents who are better-informed about global warming “both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” Another unexpected result: “Respondents who showed a great deal of confidence that scientists understand global warming and climate change showed significantly less concern for the risks of global warming than did those who have lower trust in scientists.”
The more we know the less we're concerned...
Posted by peter at March 3, 2008 08:52 PM