Fascinating post! I’ll be visiting your site for a look see. Similar interest in the food / eco angle (though with a bit of a population dynamics economics twist – Econ includes Malthus and the whole issue of population growth, decline, etc. not just dollars…)

It is interesting how asking a question leads to ‘excommunication’ isn’t it? Never knew I was a republican nor rich oil company loving hack until then ;-) Ah well, that’s how a church spits into new denominations… maybe eventually we’ll have our own “protestant reformation” home.

I have learned much from your comments.

Thank you. I try to ‘keep a tidy mind’ and part of that is keeping the cruft out from untidy and poorly thought through folks. That tendency was what first brought me to the skeptics side. The ‘others’ were just so untidy in their thinking. A side effect of this ‘tidy mind’ behaviour is that it becomes easy to explain things to other folks. Basically, leave out the broken bits and the rest fits together well, and clearly. I’m just glad I can be of help, to anyone.

I am looking forward to your exposition of the GISS computer programs. Now maybe if you quit sleeping at night you can get them out a little quicker. Only kidding.

I’m putting bits and pieces of it out on different threads as they become clear and as the thread provides an opportunity to ‘fit’. (And keeping a written running log, too.) BTW, my ‘sleep profile’ drops to about 4 hrs/night when I take on a STEPx of the GISStemp code. It’s a common thing with software folks. There is so much to hold in the brain at one time that taking a 4 hour break costs you about 2 hours (as what you just sucked up fades). So you tend to pull ‘all nighters’ to get to the “Ah Hah!” moment of full understanding. This is also why the software guys work until 4 a.m. but the hardware guys tend to come in at 7 a.m. and work 8 hours…

People like you are making the world a better place for science (and for people too!) I hope your findings become a post here, and also at ICECAP and CA.

Again, thanks. I’m looking for where to send the final analysis. I’m only about 1/3 to 1/2 done so it will be a while…

Sorry it took me so long to respond. This site has outgrown my capacity to keep up with it! I’m not complaining though.

No worries. I know what you mean. I got sucked into the Coral thread for more time than I care to admit. Only now doing a ‘look back’ to earlier threads… I may need to ‘take a sabbatical’ from posting to blow through the GISStemp code and be done with it…

This sounds very interesting.

I will drop by your web site.

Certainly in the Uk we have been the wrong side of the jet stream the last two years. As you say, ‘solar storage’ is in the top layer of the oceans so as it warms will cause outgassing or asbsorption of co2. I believe co2 rises follow temperatures which in themselves are closely related to solar activity. Iit gets warmer via solar activity (mostly) and more co2 is outgassed and vice versa. Then on top of all this you have the various currents-air and water-transferring this heat.

Interestingly co2 seems to have its own distinct jet stream according to the Airs data.If you see this post before the thread drops off the edge could you let me know when you expect to get your web site update?

TonyB

I first became interested in the jetstream when seeking alternative drivers for the warming – to add to Svensmark’s ideas, as well as Tinsley on electric currents – all tied in to a solar maximum (Leif’s comments notwithstanding!) – and IPCC’s dismissal of the unusual state of the sun (referencing Muscheler who argued the sun was also hyperactive in 1790according to be-10 and c-14 proxies).

When ‘warming’ is examined, it boils down to storage of solar energy in the top 200m of the oceans – most of it coming in to the tropics and subtropics where there is little cloud or wind compared to higher latitudes. The heat doesn’t stay there as perusal of the sea surface temperature and depth average temperature data shows – it moves south and north toward the polar seas. The southward movement gets entrained in the circumpolar current – about 2000km of unimpeded cicrculation in a region of permament heat deficit – and over a few years, the heat is dissipated. Northward – however, it gets trapped in longer term stores – gyres, in areas that are subject to cloud banks and winds that vary its exposure and cooling – the 1980-2005 period is the only really unusual warm period (without it no AGW) – and it coincides with thinning cloud (ISCCP data, 4%), enough to provide all the GW heat from increased SW radiation to the sea surface. The question is – what determines the shift from warming to cooling? I think there is a link between the solar status and the jetstream – demonstrated by the southerly shift in 2007 and 2008 summers. This is Shindell’s work but maybe Hansen voted the funds elsewhere? The same would have happened in Dalton and Maunder Minimums but when longer, the cooling intensifies and it is primarily a northern hemisphere event with repercussions for the rest, but maybe not the Antarctic.

The track of the jetstream determines the rate of heat loss from the upper ocean store – follow the intelliweather maps for 2006 – an uploop dumps heat in Alaska, and by the end of that year – the store is exhausted, the PDO shifts, Alaska starts to cool (and the Beaufort Gyre will get rechargedfrom a cold Alaskan shelf – hence pushing out warm Atlantic water and reversing the ice-loss (2008). If I am right, 2009 will carry on that process.

Meanwhile, the cold north pacific feeds back to the standing wave structure of the jetstream (Charles Perry alerted me to this) – it shifts further south, and the Atlantic loop shifts longitudinally too – at times it goes up toward Massachusetts with a high pressure block in the middle, and comes down on Europe with Iceland’s air mass, rather than up from the Azores. (our recent cold spell). Another Arctic high is developing right now.

Last summer I asked Hadley who they had working on what shifted the jetstream. The answer was nobody. Too busy with their GCMs!

If anybody would like to engage in further discourse – my website at ethos-uk.com has some material I will be updating shortly. My main interest in all this is actually ecological – ecosystem stability for food, water, and biodiversity, but I have huge problems engaging in discourse since I criticised the whole modelling approach in an eco-journal! There really is an inquisition out there.

And Anthony – I really appreciate this site!

I have learned much from your comments. I am looking forward to your exposition of the GISS computer programs. Now maybe if you quit sleeping at night you can get them out a little quicker. Only kidding. People like you are making the world a better place for science (and for people too!) I hope your findings become a post here, and also at ICECAP and CA.

Sorry it took me so long to respond. This site has outgrown my capacity to keep up with it! I’m not complaining though. The more people that realize what is really happening, the better.

Mike Bryant

http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/General/10278477.html

The snowfall was at an elevation of 5700 feet. Not unheard of to get snow at that elevation. It happens. It is a known fact that snow lines drop in elevation during winter. It’s not like it was snowing in the middle of the desert. This one event doesn’t prove anything. There’s no word for snow in the local lanuage because the word for hail can be used for snow as well. Barad – balls of snow. Not much of a stretch there. Sensationalism can be used on both sides of the argument.

CO2, the cause, AND the solution of all man’s problems!

Well there’s your answer! Can I get a grant to identify the differences between the ‘warming CO2′ and the ‘cooling CO2′? But identifying each and choosing only to emit the appropriate one at the appropriate time we can have a productive economy AND manage the climate!

I think $1,000,000 is all I would need to model this (lets see, $100k/yr, 10 years to retirement, yea, a million will do it…) I will publish the solution to all our problems with a decade!

/sarcoff>

Optimum is probably a better word than sustainable as the latter indicates a level probably incompatible with modern lifestyles. The Uk is probably 10 million above our optimum figure and 30 million above the sustainable figure.

It never ceases to amaze me how urbanised Australia is, which as you rightly say is because most people want to live on the coast.

Whatever criteria you want to use it seems unlikely Australia can absorb too many more people without adversely affecting the environment and the Oz lifestyle.

TonyB

Optimum is in the eye of the beholder I think TonyB.
I’ve heard some deep Greens say that our optimum is around 8.5M and then I’ve heard that the Australian farmer can grow enough food to feed between 45M and 60M people. The last few years would indicate that available water is probably the limiting factor. Given that Oz is amongst the most urbanised country on this good Earth and almost everyone wants to live on the coast and water has been an issue I would say that the present number is quite enough. Does the world need more of us?

Thanks for the great link-so my amateur research was right-a change in our prevailing winds have had a big impact on our climate.

Now all I need to do is get hold of a few million in grant to study it further…

tonyB

I remember reading that irrigation in hot countries caused its own problem by compromising already scarce water supplies. Firstly there was considerable evaporation from systems that sprayed water on crops or golf courses from a height as that was lost to the system. Secondly the additional humidity had a noticeable effect on raising temperatures.

I suspect that Australia has about reached its optimum population bearing in mind its climate and standard of living. Do the Austrailans posting here agree?

TonyB

TonyB (07:32:15) :

Gerard

How by any stretch of the imagination is 56cm of rain per year in Central Victoria-around 22inches-considered a drought? The much derided British climate has this sort of rainfall in some parts of the east of the country.

TonyB

In my area, the normal range of precipitation is 20 to 40 inches annually. Anything below 30″ is considered below normal. A few years of 25 inches would be well within the normal range, but considered to be a drought.

Despite that I have noticed over the past few years that the weather here has resembled arctic regions more and more actually….During late fall it’s been snowing more and more often…The air is warm enough to support moisture but cold enough to freeze it (Just like way up north). When winter comes we’ve been getting very little snow because it’s been to cold to support moisture (Just like way up north). Signs of a cooling earth? Only time will tell.