It seems that there’s a paper (from JeanPaul Vernier at NASA) out that contradicts the findings of Kaufmann et al 2011, where they blame China’s increasing coal consumption for lack of warming in the past decade saying coal use is adding aerosol particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight and therefore cool the planet. [Update, see caveat at end of this post] But in Vernier et al in press at GRL, they say
Recently, the trend, based on ground-based lidar measurements, has been tentatively attributed to an increase of SO(2) entering the stratosphere associated with coal burning in Southeast Asia. However, we demonstrate with these satellite measurements that the observed trend is mainly driven by a series of moderate but increasingly intense volcanic eruptions primarily at tropical latitudes.
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Dr B Basil Beamish writes in Tips and Notes:
Anthony,
Here is a new paper hot off the press that seems to contradict the recent concept of cooling temperatures from China’s coal use.
Author(s): Vernier, JP (Vernier, J. -P.)1,2; Thomason, LW (Thomason, L. W.)1; Pommereau, JP (Pommereau, J. -P.)2; Bourassa, A (Bourassa, A.)3; Pelon, J (Pelon, J.)2; Garnier, A (Garnier, A.)2; Hauchecorne, A (Hauchecorne, A.)2; Blanot, L (Blanot, L.)2,4; Trepte, C (Trepte, C.)1; Degenstein, D (Degenstein, Doug)3; Vargas, F (Vargas, F.)5
Source: GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS Volume: 38 Article Number: L12807 DOI: 10.1029/2011GL047563 Published: JUN 30 2011
Abstract:
The variability of stratospheric aerosol loading between 1985 and 2010 is explored with measurements from SAGE II, CALIPSO, GOMOS/ENVISAT, and OSIRIS/Odin space-based instruments. We find that, following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, stratospheric aerosol levels increased by as much as two orders of magnitude and only reached “background levels” between 1998 and 2002. From 2002 onwards, a systematic increase has been reported by a number of investigators. Recently, the trend, based on ground-based lidar measurements, has been tentatively attributed to an increase of SO(2) entering the stratosphere associated with coal burning in Southeast Asia. However, we demonstrate with these satellite measurements that the observed trend is mainly driven by a series of moderate but increasingly intense volcanic eruptions primarily at tropical latitudes. These events injected sulfur directly to altitudes between 18 and 20 km. The resulting aerosol particles are slowly lofted into the middle stratosphere by the Brewer-Dobson circulation and are eventually transported to higher latitudes. Citation: Vernier, J.-P., et al. (2011), Major influence of tropical volcanic eruptions on the stratospheric aerosol layer during the last decade, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L12807, doi:10.1029/2011GL047563.
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It seems the Calipso satellite is designed specifically for this task. From Spie.org:
Since June 2006, the Cloud-Aerosol and Lidar Infrared Pathfinder Observations (CALIPSO) satellite, a joint US (NASA)/French (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) mission, has provided high-resolution aerosol and cloud profiles of the Earth’s atmosphere. The long-range transport in the tropics of several small-scale volcanic plumes has been monitored using these observations, which are unprecedented in their scope and detail. Their fate demonstrates the importance of even minor volcanic events on stratospheric-aerosol levels.
CALIPSO offers a unique opportunity to monitor aerosols and clouds in the atmosphere. The instrument is carried on a spacecraft circling the Earth in a polar orbit (see Figure 1), which provides coverage from 82°S to 82°N. The CALIPSO lidar (light detection and ranging) uses a laser that emits light at 532 and 1064nm. The laser light is scattered by molecules and particles in the atmosphere, and a portion is scattered back (backscattered) towards the spacecraft. The backscatter signal is collected by a telescope and sampled at a rate of 10MHz. The 3D location and density of clouds and aerosol layers can be inferred from the vertical backscatter profiles from the ground to the stratosphere.3 Primarily designed for studying tropospheric particles, the nighttime channel at 532nm has a high sensitivity and can, with sufficient averaging, be used to detect small-scale volcanic plumes in the stratosphere for several months, even if the aerosol density is very low.
Since June 2006, CALIPSO observed several volcanic plumes and followed them as they were carried around the world by atmospheric circulation. Figure 2 shows the evolution of the mean scattering-ratio (SR) profile between 20°N and 20°S from June 2006 to May 2010 with a temporal and vertical resolution of 16 days (CALIPSO measurement cycle) and 200m, respectively. The SR is the ratio between the total (aerosol and molecular) and molecular-only backscatter. The maxima, seen in 2006 with an SR greater than 1.2, represent two volcanic plumes, injected at 20 and 17km, respectively, by the Soufriere Hills in the Caribbean on 20 May and the Tavurvur cone of the Rabaul volcano in Papua New Guinea on 7 October. The plume from Soufriere Hills remains at the same level for three months before being slowly lifted in the stratosphere by the general circulation, while the Tavurvur aerosols, at lower levels, disappear within two to three months.
Smaller plumes, with SRs between 1.08 and 1.14, were observed at 17–19km in November–December 2008 and July–December 2009, respectively. These two plumes are further transported into the tropics after the Kasatochi (Alaska) and Sarychev (Kamchatka, Russia) eruptions on 7 August 2008 and 12 June 2009, respectively. The signal seen at 21–22km in March 2009 with an SR of 1.10–1.12 is the signature of soot particles from an extreme biomass-burning episode near Melbourne (Australia) on 7 February 2009 (‘Black Saturday’).
For the first time, those moderate events have been detected over a long period, demonstrating that eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index between three and four and located in the tropics can be an important source of aerosols for the stratosphere, a fact not fully recognized until now. The sulfuric dioxide initially injected at 19–20km is oxidized into sulfuric acid droplets and transported by the general circulation—also called Brewer-Dobson (BD) circulation—into the middle tropical stratosphere, forming a reservoir. Afterwards, those aerosols are released into the global stratosphere according to the season and the phase of the quasibiennal oscillation.5 The vertical velocity of the ascending branch of the BD circulation can be deduced by subtracting the sedimentation from the apparent volcanic-plume uplift, providing an opportunity to evaluate the mean vertical atmospheric motion in the stratosphere.
more at Spie.org here
JP Vernier has done a nice slide show explaining it all, just prior to the publication of the new paper, and you can view it here:
http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/geoengineering2011/presentations/vernier.pdf
I found this graph most interesting:
They say that small trend starting in 2002 is “No large eruptions over the last decade : but small and frequent ones”.
Update – Caveat: As Jos points out in comments, this Vernier study is about the stratosphere (15-30) where Kaufmann et al is the troposphere (0-15km) , an important distinction that I missed. That’s what I get for posting late at night while tired. However, the premise that Vernier contradicts, the issue of stratospheric aersol increase due to China coal use appears to be falsified. Perhaps though, the authors will turn to the troposphere next as this recent study suggests that the volcanic impact on climate may be significantly underestimated. The secondary nucleation process they cite may work to increase tropospheric aerosols, and also, it stands to reason the smaller eruptions, as cited by Vernier, would also inject into the troposphere as well.
Sarychev is in the Kurils, hardly tropical.(48N) Other recent eruptions were Icelandic. Locon in Indonesia is currently erupting but only to a height of 3500m.
Volcanoes do inject aerosols into the upper atmosphere but every day at least one volcano is erupting somewhere on the planet. Can’t NASA look at solar activity?
Anthony:
Thankyou for posting this. It is interesting. But my BS detector jumped when I read this sentence in the paper:
“The long-range transport in the tropics of several small-scale volcanic plumes has been monitored using these observations, which are unprecedented in their scope and detail.”
The sentence is misleading in that it implies the observed effect is unprecedented. But that is not the case. It is the observation which is known to be “unprecedented” because it was obtained using the CALIPSO satelite which has only provided its observations “Since June 2006”.
Indeed, they more accurately say;
“For the first time, those moderate events have been detected over a long period, demonstrating that eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index between three and four and located in the tropics can be an important source of aerosols for the stratosphere, a fact not fully recognized until now.”
Is the recent hiatus in rising global temperature induced by natural arosol variations, and was the similar hiatus from ~1940 to ~1970 also induced by them? Perhaps and perhaps, but much more data is needed before either deduction can be made.
Any suggestion that the CALIPSO data provides answers to these questions is an error (or is spin).
Richard
Or it could be something else.
The AGW[]ers are desperate to find reasons to excuse the lack of warming which until recently they insisted had occurred. Makes me sick. Makes me sick to my stomach that I am now paying extra taxes to alleviate a warming that has not yet occurred and may not be harmful and even then by an unspecified and minuscule amount. What is wrong with these people? Why do they want to stop our energy usage, which will result in hardship and in many cases deaths, when they KNOW, I mean, THEY KNOW, that it will have no impact on the temperature even if we turn off all carbon Dioxide output for 10 years? What is wrong with these idiots? What is it that they don’t get? That they do not see?
I don’t suppose it ever even enters someone’s head that their hypothesis about CO2 might be wrong… they’re so certain that CO2 was causing the warming that… well… it just HAS to be something else masking it.
Absolute idealogues.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idealogues
Small typo on the Kaufmann paper’s link, it says 2100
REPLY: Typo fixed, thanks
Could Volcanoes be another method the earth haas of self regulating – as the pressure of the atmosphere builds the pressure on the plates increases and volcanoes release cooling particulates relieving the pressure?
In any case, given that aerosols are reflecting some energy back into space, this information lends credence to the hypothesis that the world is undergoing a rapid warming phase and is being diminished by other factors (such as aerosols). I’m re-evaluating the whole system at the moment because the idea that there are better explanations for the warming trend are wearing thin. And, the explanations as to the stagnation of the warming trends are reasonable.
With the articles of late detailing one “cause” or “another”, to me what it boils down to, really, is we simply just do NOT know what and why cycles in climate change. Stick a wet finger in the air and take a WAG!
At the same time there are attempts to explain the non-warming, others say global warming caused the recent extreme weather. It is important for the activists to be flexible.
The alarmists will blame anything to try to explain away the 10-15 year temperature statis, except, of course, solar activity.
When my pot takes a longer than normal time to bring to boil, I check the gas burner underneat the pot, not the CO2 level in the kitchen, or the aerosols at ceiling level. Ok, not a perfect analogy, but NASA should start looking at the sun, which anyway supplies 99% of all energy on the surface of this planet. They should take a hard look at solar activity, as CERN’s Jasper Kirkby has been doing for the last few years. But I think they are actually afraid to look at the sun, just as the Pope was afraid when Galileo asked him to take a pepp through his telescope. The Pope was afraid of having to accept what Galileo was claiming. So, the best way is not to look at all and keep on living in a dreamworld, and getting paid good money for it.
katla is going to erupt at any moment that will sort out the men from the boys.
The “settled science” is getting more and more unsettled ………. almost on a daily basis.
Drew:
Thankyou for the laugh you provide at July 18, 2011 at 3:32 am.
But you forgot to ad the “sarc/” comment at the end of your superb piece of satire. My mention of this oversight may seem to be a quibble, but we all need to remember there are gullible people who could read comments such as yours and think they are serious.
Richard
Until the past couple of years, there has been no reports of volcanoes that had an explosivity index high enough to propel debris up into the stratosphere since 1991. Now suddenly the lesser volcanoes can affect climate?
I am with commenter John Marshall. This seems like a dodgy explanation. Small to medium sized eruptions occur nearly constantly, but they were thought to not affect global climate. And if they did, their effect would be constant too.
John M Reynolds
One of the problems with the volcano theory is that during the first part of the 20th century (certainly up to 1940) there was more volcano activity than today. This is recognised by the IPCC. If volcanos truly depress (mask) warming, then they would be counter-acting the 1900 to 1940 warming which would mean that the natural net forcing that caused that warming (this is prior to large scale manmade CO2 emissions) must be far more substantial than presently recognised/accepted. If natural variability is far more substantial than presently accepted, it follows that rather than explaing about 50% of the observed warming, it may indeed (and probably does) account for more than 50% of the observed warming. [Since I doubt that co2 accounts for much, it is probable that natural variation, particularly differences in cloud cover, account for nearly all the warming that has taken place this past century and a half].
Why do they not simply tell the truth, namely, that they do not know what is going on and cannot explain the warming of the last century nor the hiatus in that warming during the current century.
There have been many major volcanic eruptions during the recent, now stalled, warming period that prove the conclusions of this study are false.
The industrialisation of China and India also occurred during the recent, now stalled, warming period.
This is yet another display of desperation that no one is going to fall for.
15 years of no warming, AGW is falsified.
This seems reasonable, Dansgaard reconstructs past secular changes also associated with volcanism from ice-core data (W. Dansgaard, 1980. “Greenland ice sheet evidence of post-glacial vulcanism and its climate impact” Nature. Volume 288). The paper is well known. Of course, this is only one factor. The LA Times obituary of course misconstrues his career as a CO2 pioneer, but not even the dead are sacred to some (I doubt the LAT writer reads).
Oh, and Kaufman et al. 2100!? You might want to check that.
This is a perfect example of how climatology should be done. It follows the scientific method! In this study, the authors: 1. Asked a question, 2. Did background research, 3. Proposed hypotheses, (Coal or Volcanoes?), 4. Collected data to test the hypotheses, 5. Analyzed the results, 6. Drew conclusions, & 7. Presented the results (and data). – Perfect! Let’s hope all aspiring climatologists learn from this.
Darren (July 18, 2011 at 3:25 am):
Could Volcanoes be another method the earth has of self regulating – as the pressure of the atmosphere builds, the pressure on the plates increases and volcanoes release cooling particulates relieving the pressure?
Probably not. Pressure on the Earth’s crust from the addition of large amounts of water, ice, and/or rock (mountains) depresses localized areas over time (like slowly pushing your finger on the surface of a water balloon). Removing the overlying weight allows it to rebound as the pressure is relieved. However, the pressure of the atmosphere is relatively uniform, and orders of magnitude less than those generated by the weight of oceans, glaciers and mountains.
Drew says:
July 18, 2011 at 3:32 am
In any case, given that aerosols are reflecting some energy back into space, this information lends credence to the hypothesis that the world is undergoing a rapid warming phase and is being diminished by other factors (such as aerosols). I’m re-evaluating the whole system at the moment because the idea that there are better explanations for the warming trend are wearing thin. And, the explanations as to the stagnation of the warming trends are reasonable.
I would be careful in that ‘re-evaluation’. In the models the effect of CO2 was taken as a given then aerosols and other ‘minor’ effects like clouds were added as parameterized fudge factors to make the hindcasts work. Using hindcast fudge factors as a way of forecasting the behavior of a chaotic system is a lot less than scientific – almost as bad as using a single tree’s growth rings as statistically representative of global climate.
Richard S. Courtney:
You are parsing the sentence you quoted incorrectly. “unprecedented” refers to the observations, not any observed effect.
Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer, he’s singing a protest song..
Mark Knopfler, Industrial Disease.
Its not an either-or situation.
The effect of the India/China sulfur addition to the atmosphere AND the volcanoe injections to the stratosphere will be cumulative and BOTH willbe having an effect.
It may be possible to measure the magnitude of each contribution by measuring the isotopic ratio as the volcanoe sulfur will have a higher heavey isotope ratio than the biologically sourced fossil fuel derived sulfur.
At least this acknowledges that VERY small amounts of a molecule can have significant effects on global temperature, the sulfur additions are a fraction pof the CO2 additions human activity is making.
It is known that sulfur in the atmosphere will cause cooling, so in the abscence of significant cooling over the recent decades despite the addition of sulfur from either or both sources there isd clearly still a factor driving a rising trend, briefly negated by the additional sulfur.
Unlike the CO2 however whether it comes from China or a volcanoe the sulfur will ‘rain out’ of the atmosphere within a few years and its temporary cooling effect will cease.
This sounds a bit like the ozone hole problem to me. They can now measure this phenomenon much more acurately so it has to be worse than we thought and it causes the cooling! How do we know that volcanic activity hasn’t been averaging out over the last few millennia… even epochs? Has anyone made an attempt to chart levels of volcanic activity over geologic time periods? Surely there is some sort of signature in the geology? (Obviously I am not a geologist :-).
So according to that graph , aerosols were doing more masking from 1985-89 than from 1995 on.
if you a adjusted the UAH series for that , I suspect there would be 2/3rds of bugger all trend in the satellite period.
How quickly they talk out the other side of their mouth. Wasn’t demon coaluse a contributor to warming ? Yet now squinting at their themometers and seeing them not rise, it follows, gadzooks, that demon coal use must really be bad because it is a contributor to cooling. The narrative of demon coal survives.
Sorry Anthony, but Vernier et al. [2011] is about stratospheric SO2 (15-30 km altitude), Kaufmann et al. [2011] is about tropospheric SO2 (surface to 15 km altitude). Totally different parts of the atmosphere, these two studies & hypotheses are unrelated.
REPLY: Thats’ what I get for posting late at night, my mistake for noticing. I’ll add a caveat – Anthony
Given the impact Pinatubo had on climate and the order of magnitude smaller current stratospheric SO2 the recent lull in tropospheric temperatures has at least nothing to do with volcanic eruptions.
Sorry, that should be
… order of magnitude smaller current stratospheric aerosols …
Alex the skeptic says:
July 18, 2011 at 3:37 am
“The alarmists will blame anything to try to explain away the 10-15 year temperature statis, except, of course, solar activity.
When my pot takes a longer than normal time to bring to boil, I check the gas burner underneat the pot, not the CO2 level in the kitchen, or the aerosols at ceiling level. Ok, not a perfect analogy, but NASA should start looking at the sun, which anyway supplies 99% of all energy on the surface of this planet. ”
I wonder what makes you think that the solar output. TSI and activity are NOT being monitered by NASA and a lot of other people ?
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solarirrad.html
Alternatively you couild check the data and references at the WUWT site –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/
It is clear there is a LOT of data about solar output available with very accurate measurements of the very small variations that are happening. This solar minimum shows no lower activity than previous solar minima – although it may be longer-lasting.
But as the magnitude of this variation is a couple of orders of magnitude SMALLER than the variation that results from orbital eccentricity it is difficult to see it having any significant impact of the climate.
I’m so glad the science is settled……….
The left over heat from El Nino’s as well as the winds of La Nina adequately explain warming in some areas and cooling in others. ENSO characteristics do not translate into global trends, they translate into regional and local trends, which explains why folks will comment thusly: “It may be warmer [colder] where you are but we are freezing [roasting]”.
Wait,Wait,Wait…If coal burning by China is reducing global temperatures, then we should ramp up our coal burning to further reduce temperature. That might not work since the EPA has such stringent particulate emission requirements, so we need to back off the requirements to allow more particulate emissions to dirty up the air to cool the planet. With this knind of logic, the greens heads will explode….Clean air equals hot planet!
Kaufmann et. al 2100?
REPLY: Typo fixed, thanks
Drew, what is “wearing thin” is the constant drone from the AGW camp of catastrophic effects of the warming that clearly is not occurring.
While this study is interesting, it does not explain away the lack of warming or explain why the models still show it.
After 30 years and 100’s of billions of dollars of taxpayer funding one would expect a little more certainty coming from the researchers. Unfortunately too much of that money has been blown on studies that do little or nothing to investigate the fundamental science of climate change. I would not however say that this study fits that characterization.
Darren Parker says: July 18, 2011 at 3:25 am
Could Volcanoes be another method the earth haas of self regulating – as the pressure of the atmosphere builds the pressure on the plates increases and volcanoes release cooling particulates relieving the pressure?
I have been wondering if there is a connection to solar activity and earthquakes, but that the lack of pressure from the solar wind due to the inactive sun might be the cause.
Ridiculous. The last graphic is counter intuitive if the posit is correct. Look at 1995, given that there was less atmospheric CO2 and much great aerosols (sulfa dioxide and whatnot), the temp decline should have been much more significant than what we’ve seen since 2002. Yet, the trend isn’t much different.
Try again. That’s not it. As noted elsewhere in the comments, the assumptions about atmospheric gases are shown to be wrong.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1981/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1991/to:1995/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1981/to:1991/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2002/trend
At least it is tacitly agreed that temperatures are not climbing, that c02 is not the most important climatic factor, contrary to what the Met Office says, and that anthropogenic sulphur emissions from China are not the cause.
That leaves natural events again. Nature continually trumps NASA and the Met office a priori prognostications, such as oceans, the sun, and the natural events that take place between land, sea, and air
So all we have to do to save the planet is turn off all the scrubbers at the coal power plants? Wow. I think we can manage that… How’s next Wednesday sound?
Gerry
Skimming the pdf it sounds fairly devastating to the argument that it’s manmade pollution that is counteracting the effects of manmade pollution. Of course, circular arguments generally don’t need to be disproved. I will continue to drive a large vehicle and enjoy it. 🙂
When holding the climatologist card you can only claim that volcanoes impact climate to lower the temperature if you roll a seven and hasn’t previously included volcanoes in your super duper handheld super computers too many times so as not being able to explain away it with a should shrug and head in sand bucket.
I wish that SO2 aerosols injected into the upper atmosphere would stop being arbitrarily assigned the AGW convenient property of infrared reflectivity. Instead and more properly, treat their action potentials as being essential to ERBE through their contributory impacts upon upper atmosphere magnetism and the top to bottom layering of pressure change potential (here I am also thinking about implications for why weather regimes of pressure can exhibit an increase tendency to become stuck–pressure and magnetic density as correlates to resistance to change and determinants of what energy balance is required to overcome their conditions
The AGW debate cannot be won if its language conditions promote evidentiary bias.
still not singing from the same hymn sheet….
Looking for internal (in)consistency in the warmist hypothesis:
The longer-term GISTemp global rise is 0.145C/decade. The last 9 years (leaving out the 1998 El Nino event) saw nil or within-the-error-bar non-heating. If, as the warmists wish to say, that aerosols (Chinese or other types) cancelled the CO2-induced warming, then the 1995 – 2011 increase in CO2 (32 ppmv) warming power equals the increased reflectivity of the planet due to the aeosols. We can therefore
1) deduce the increased reflectivity of the planet by IPCC theory of CO2 (3.75 Watts per m2 for delta 280 ppmv CO2) or, conversely,
2) deduce the heating power of CO2 (for 32 ppmv) by the changes in the reflectivity of the planet.
If there is no measurable reflectivity (albedo) change from 1995 to 2011, then the warming power of CO2 has an upper limit set by the ability to measure the albedo. If that is true, then the insolation-as-cause of global warming will be seen to be as credible as the warming of the atmosphere by CO2.
The time-period of 1942 – 1965 (or even a little later) in which the planet cooled by GISTemp records, has been attributed to post-WWII aerosol pollutions. This `negative` warming, in comparison to the current non-warming, can therefore be calculated as a multiple of the currently accused Chinese or volcanic aerosol atmospheric load. Going back to points 1 & 2, the amount of increased reflectivity of the aerosols or CO2-warming power AT THAT TIME can be deduced (according to IPCC theory).
Taking the IPCC AND the current excuse for the planet not warming at present, at face value – the best tactic for revealing errors in the warmist theory – should demonstrate the uncertainty in a) the calculated warming power of CO2 and b) the role albedo changes may be under-appreciated in the IPCC theory.
A post on this – say by Talkbloke, who has the math and the graphs – could be interesting. For all the technical arguments are worth, we are faced with a `consensus`of a `settled`science. It is by showing the internal inconsistency or disconnect between IPCC expectations and reality that both the consensus and the settledness of the warmist position can best be challenged. To derail CAGW legislation we need not show that the skeptical position is `right`but only that the warmist position is wrong, i.e. incorrect.
If legislation – prohibitive activities, taxes and market-intrusive policies – were not involved, the CAGW would be an interesting and challenging product of our times, with time leading to truth. The legislative drive is what motivates the furor of the debate, and that drive is the product of so-called certainty (even as the Uncertainty Principle is called upon as justification). Hansen, Gore, Suzuki and other fellow travellers use the claim of 95% or 97% or 99% certainty that CO2 increases (caused by man) are behind the heating and that we know the outcome of continued CO2 emissions to a similar level of certainty. If that certainty can be knocked down to 50%, say, then justification for action now disappears. Even the Uncertainty Principle requires a reasonable amount of certainty to be invoked.
Comments or calculations ……..
TWE says:
July 18, 2011 at 3:05 am
Small typo on the Kaufmann paper’s link, it says 2100
===
When they were telling you global warming was unstoppable… LOL
BTW the Latmos is one of those IPSL laboratories -IPCC contributors- and their reaction during the 2010 Icelandic volcano crisis was quite pathetic: they could not interpret their own Lidar readings in relation to the weather systems… These guys are just trying to say that global warming continues but is masked by volcanoes aerosols. That of course fits the AGW story. What’s indeed funny is that Kaufmann et al. found another reason to fit the same bill… LOL
If there are any scientists – not global warmer scientists but real ones – on this blog they could perhaps explain something to me, an absolute layman. I have just read Mars has an atmosphere of 95% CO2 and a lot of methane, why is it so cold that the CO2 freezes? I know the distance makes a hell of a difference but if an extra 100 parts per million will raise the temp by 2 degrees why does 950,000 parts per million do the opposite. I notice on the NASA site that the permanently frozen parts are shrinking and someone suggest it maybe the sun but that suggestion was shot down faster then a rapist in a nunnery.
Title of the post should be :
“New NASA paper contradicts Kaufmann et al saying it’s volcanoes causing aerosol increases, not China coal”
Aerosol levels are obviously a lot lower than they were after El Chichon and Pinatubo when warming was fastest. It’s reality that contradicts Kaufmann’s warming hiatus rubbish.
There is currently no observed warming of the stratospere as did occur in the El Chichon and Pinatubo events, hence the current effects are negligable.
Albedo reflectivity does not necessarily entail the escape of infrared energy. It is controlled by the same directionality and convective flow rates of infrared energy conditions determining the measures of responses to saturation levels of greenhouse gases.
Richard S Courtney says:
July 18, 2011 at 2:35 am
Anthony:
Thankyou for posting this. It is interesting. But my BS detector jumped when I read this sentence in the paper:
“The long-range transport in the tropics of several small-scale volcanic plumes has been monitored using these observations, which are unprecedented in their scope and detail.”
=====
I expect that what they intended to say was something like “CALIPSO has given us the opportunity to examine small scale volcanic plumes in much more detail than was previously possible …”
Once you’ve written a sentence like the one you cite, it’s almost impossible to see that there is an alternate reading that says something other than what you intended. So, yes, there is a plausible reading of their text that surely is BS, but no, it probably wasn’t intentional.
O/T http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/18/cern_cosmic_ray_gag/
Sorry – Just wanted to highlight this sad state of affairs
So the researchers agree that SO2 is the cause of the temporary pause in warming. In fact without the CO2 greenhouse effect it is hard to explain why the SO2 did not cause significant cooling.
So Trenberth thought it was a matter of heat being hidden in the deeper ocean.
Then we were told it was China. Now it’s volcanoes.
Where is consensus when you need it?
“Dr B Basil Beamish”
Sorry, but somebody has to say it. Best name ever.
The ceteris paribus assumptions in all of the climate theories, AGW, solar radiation, ocean currents, SO2, etc. are the fly in the ointment. As someone above noted, climate is a chaotic system. All other variables are not constant and determining the complex interactions is a very difficult objective. It’s like the salesman (or politician) who had a down year but tells his boss (constituents) that were he and his plans not so great it would have been even worse. If what you predict does not occur then you were wrong, your model is wrong and “masking” is an excuse. Important policy decisions should not be made based on such nonsense.
Drew says:
July 18, 2011 at 3:32 am
In any case, given that aerosols are reflecting some energy back into space, this information lends credence to the hypothesis that the world is undergoing a rapid warming phase and is being diminished by other factors (such as aerosols). I’m re-evaluating the whole system at the moment because the idea that there are better explanations for the warming trend are wearing thin. And, the explanations as to the stagnation of the warming trends are reasonable.
==================================================================
No Drew, they are not reasonable. It would be reasonable if minor volcanic eruptions were never part of the natural cycle prior to 2002, but they were. Obviously, CO2 isn’t the driver people thought it was. I’m not sure you were reading the same study the rest of us were. What color is the sky in your world?
Re those tropical small scale plumes. Small scale is the operative word. The tropics have been quite quiet for the last decade when it comes to major plumes. Lots of volcano, little plume action. The big plumes have been in the far north. We had been taught for years that a massive vertical plume is necessary to affect weather. This paper reverses that and implies any and all volcanic eruptions do so. But volcanic action of any sort seems to me to be a constant.
It also fails to address why the Southern Hemisphere land temperatures have shown a measurable cooling trend for over a decade.
i thought carl sagan went into hiding after his nuclear winter crap was falsified by the kuwait oil fires.
this travesty seems to have 2 equal and opposite edges
Scott says:
July 18, 2011 at 5:06 am
Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer, he’s singing a protest song..
Mark Knopfler, Industrial Disease.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Scott, I think of that line every time someone mentions the IPCC models. I go on to say, we know without doubt all but one of those models MUST be wrong, is there any reason to believe that one of them (and one which we cannot even identify) might be right?
The apparent recent increase in stratospheric aerosols is probably too small to have had a significant effect on the temperature or it’s trend. It’s much smaller than Pinatubo or other major individual eruptions, and those had small transient temperature impacts.
However, am I the only one who spots a potential satellite inter-calibration issue between “GOMOS” and “SAGE II” where, at least in the tropics, there appears to be a persistent low bias of GOMOS relative to SAGE II, or alternatively SAGE II biased high relative to GOMOS?
Vernier’s presentation was quite interesting. I like that he makes liberal use of the question mark 😉 making it clear he knows that there is much he, and everyone else, does not yet know, but he is curious and studying the questions, searching for answers. That is what science is all about!
Rattus Norvegicus:
Thankyou for your comment to me at July 18, 2011 at 4:58 am that says:
“You are parsing the sentence you quoted incorrectly. “unprecedented” refers to the observations, not any observed effect.”
Sorry, but that is what I said, and I did not parse it incorrecly. Please read my post at July 18, 2011 at 2:35 am again.
I said the sentence is ambiguous and gives a false implication (it does) but another statement in the paper tells the truth. I quoted both statements.
Perhaps the years have made me too sensative, but climate papers containing such ambiguous statements have been so common – and have been so often misused – that my BS detector always jumps when I see such statements.
Richard
Don K:
Thankyou for your comment to me at July 18, 2011 at 8:37 am.
I think my response to Rattus Norvegicus (at July 18, 2011 at 11:16 am) covers the point. If not, then please get back to me.
Richard
Ciccio says:
July 18, 2011 at 8:11 am
” I have just read Mars has an atmosphere of 95% CO2 and a lot of methane, why is it so cold that the CO2 freezes? I know the distance makes a hell of a difference but if an extra 100 parts per million will raise the temp by 2 degrees why does 950,000 parts per million do the opposite.”
Short answer – lack of thermal capacity of the atmosphere, there is VERY LITTLE atmosphere so no thermal sink from which to re-radiate energy absorbed from the surface. On Earth there is less CO2 but it converts the LW radiation into thermal energy of the whole atmosphere, which is then available to be converted back into LW radiation half of which is re-emitted downwards.
Of course the lack of vast bodies of liquid water as an additional thermal sink doesn’t help…..
” I notice on the NASA site that the permanently frozen parts are shrinking and someone suggest it maybe the sun but that suggestion was shot down faster then a rapist in a nunnery.”
Because solar output is falling not rising at present, but is varying too little to be a significant factor. The shrinking of part of ONE polar ice-cap is a regional or even local effect driven more by the Martian equivalent of the Milankovitch cycles on the inclination and eccentricity of the axis and orbit.
Maybe the Germans decided to abandon nuclear and go back to coal as part of their attempts to halt AGW………
Wish the UK would follow suit and get rid of the idiot windmill freak we have as a ‘climate minister’.
Seems to me it would be fairly easy to calculate the full amount of SO2 from both China and all of the volcanoes over the past few years to get a total cooling effect, and then make a reasonable estimate as to how much cooling this much SO2 would have caused.
If the amount of SO2 over the past 10 years has been significantly higher than the previous 10 years in the troposphere and stratosphere, regardless of source, then it is not unreasonable to suggest that some cooling took place because of it. Through in a couple of La Nina’s, and a quiet sun, and well…you get a halt to warming. So it took all of that to mask the effects of CO2?
Two of the largest eruptions of the past 100 years happened in 1980 and 1982 (Mt St Helens and El Chicon). Isn’t that when things started getting ‘hot’? Then two more major eruptions in 1991 (Cerro Hudson & Mt Pinatubo). While you can see some cooling after these events, you can also see the Sun growing quieter at the same time. Someone is jumping to unproven conclusions again.
>”Recently, the trend, based on ground-based lidar measurements, has been tentatively attributed to an increase of SO(2) entering the stratosphere associated with coal burning in Southeast Asia.”<
And can someone tell us how can a chimney a few hundred feet high manage to send all that SO2 miles high into the stratosphere? Molecular weight of SO2 is around 64. Compared with atmospheric gases, NO2 is 28, Oxygen 32, hence it is much heavier than atmospheric gases and should tend to settle at a lower levels not higher levels. However weather and climate may dictate otherwise. .
The more climate papers that are published the more obvious it becomes that the science is in its infancy. The scientists should quit making predictions since they really have no clue. They have a lot of work to do before they can make any believable predictions.
izen says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:32 am
Your answer to Ciccio seems like a lot of hand waving. Mars has more than 14 times the amount of CO2 in its atmosphere than earth – 5.7mb mean partial pressure of CO2 compared with 0.4mb on earth.
Let’s have a better explanation as to why Mars isn’t frying because of all that CO2.
Any informed opinions here about what happens when liquid iron is bombarded with neutrons? I want to know if there is any mechanistic rationale to a connection between mantle events and the solar wind, especially the non-magnetically-deflected neutral particles. Anyone?
Carol G in BOS says:
“Any informed opinions here about what happens when liquid iron is bombarded with neutrons? I want to know if there is any mechanistic rationale to a connection between mantle events and the solar wind, especially the non-magnetically-deflected neutral particles. Anyone?”
I don’t think the neutron flux from the sun is significant.
If there IS a flux of neutral particles, long before the flux would be strong enough to affect liquid iron it would have denatured all protein and eliminated all life on Earth.
@- Billy Liar says:
July 18, 2011 at 4:13 pm
“Your answer to Ciccio seems like a lot of hand waving. Mars has more than 14 times the amount of CO2 in its atmosphere than earth – 5.7mb mean partial pressure of CO2 compared with 0.4mb on earth.
Let’s have a better explanation as to why Mars isn’t frying because of all that CO2.”
Nobody else has offered even hand-waving…. but by all means lets have a better explanation!
The CO2 on Mars does cause a ‘greenhouse’ effect of around 5degC, rather more than it does on Earth where ~90% of the 33degC ‘greenhouse effect is from other GHGs, mainly water vapour.
@- Alex the skeptic says:
July 18, 2011 at 3:58 pm
“And can someone tell us how can a chimney a few hundred feet high manage to send all that SO2 miles high into the stratosphere? Molecular weight of SO2 is around 64. Compared with atmospheric gases, NO2 is 28, Oxygen 32, hence it is much heavier than atmospheric gases and should tend to settle at a lower levels not higher levels. ”
Galileo showed by logical argument (not dropping cannonballs) that all masses fall at the same rate, heavier objects do not fall faster than light ones.
At Surface temperatures and pressures there is no significant stratification of the atmosphere not least because the molecules are moving at around 1000 miles/hour.
Good thing too, otherwise given the relative weights of oxygen and nitrogen we would be walking around in pure oxygen at sea level, which would drop to zero above a thousand metres….
remeber the Iceland Volcano 2010? people asked questions then about IF the ash etc would affect the climate. the answer: “The amount of CO2 output still pales into insignificance beside human emissions.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8631396.stm
izen says:
July 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Thanks!
Izen,
NO2 has a molecular weight of 28, O2 is 32 hence not much difference to cause stratification due to different densities. However, SO2 is 64, which is more than twice the average the atmosphere, 78% of which is N2. (In my original post about this I had a typo: NO2 instead of N”)
So, I would very much appreciate a theory explaining how SO2 can reach the tratsphere after exiting a 100 Foot chimney at 5m/s, the velocity dissipating t near zero after exiting the chimney. Honest.
Off the record: a soon to be published paper – currently under embargo, I have inside information – will link it to AGW …
Wayne Swan here in Australia has just stated that with a carbon tax, coal output will double. As if by magic! So, in reality, what he really means, taking out the political spin, is that Aussie taxpayers will subsidise the emissinos from burning Aussie coal in OTHER countries. Does this man think we’re all THAT stupid??
“izen says:
July 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm”
How do you know that to state that as a categorical fact? Where is your proof/observations of that?
Chinese coal burning, volcanoes; as Roseanne Roseannadanna, so aptly put it: “It’s always something–if it ain’t one thing, it’s another”
One essential difference between SO2 from volcanoes and from industrial sources is not mentioned yet: SO2 in the troposphere, mainly from human sources, has an average lifetime of only 4 days, before raining out. An equal quantity injected in the stratosphere by volcanoes has an average lifetime of 3 years (see the Pinatubo effect). While the amounts emitted in the troposhere by humans are higher (80 Mt SO2 vs. 20 Mt for the Pinatubo), the effect thus is much smaller, due to this short lifetime, probably less than 0.025°C.
See a short discussion on RC (my comment at #6):
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=245
Moreover, much of what is measured in the troposphere by ground Lidars are not only SO2 aerosols, but also SOA, secondary organic aerosols, mainly caused by oxydation of volatile organic matter from trees (like terpenes), causing the haze of the “blue” mountains. See:
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/heald_2005.pdf
where it is clear that climate models overestimate the effect of human induced aerosols…
@-Patrick Davis says:
July 19, 2011 at 7:38 am Re:- the greenhouse effect on Mars –
“How do you know that to state that as a categorical fact? Where is your proof/observations of that? ”
Proof is for math and liquor.
Direct observations of the Martian atmosphere and temperatures are from the mid 70s Viking landers. Since then the other surface and orbital missions to Mars have confirmed the ~5degC greenhouse effect.
Try ‘Planetary Atmospheres/Mars – R M Haberie for more detail.
@- Alex the skeptic says:
“So, I would very much appreciate a theory explaining how SO2 can reach the stratsphere after exiting a 100 Foot chimney at 5m/s, the velocity dissipating t near zero after exiting the chimney. Honest.”
Actually…. very little of the SO2 will reach the stratosphere, most is rained out before that.
But this idea that the atmospheric gases might ‘settle out’ in layers according to molecular weight seems to reappear occasionally.
I find it a real puzzle why when we all have a lifetime experience of the mixing of the atmosphere. The release of intestinal gases in an elevator does not result in a thin layer on the floor or ceiling….
At a more scientific level the military closely investigated how different gases spread during the 1950s when atmospheric nuclear tests enabled them to track the precise rate and extent of different substances. Look how rapidly iodine (a heavy element!) reached the US from the Japanese nuclear plant meltdown after the recent tsunami.
Given the direct observational experience of the mixing of gases I wonder where this idea that they could stratify comes from.
Once they are mixed of course the 2LoT makes it highly improbable that they can UNmix- at least not without the expenditure of significant energy!
The theory resides in the fact that the molecules are traveling at ~1000 miles an hour and the mean free path – before they collide and bounce of another gas molecule is a very VERY small fraction of the path length over which any gravitational drop could occur. Think of it as a large box of tennis, baseball, pool and ping-pong balls all shaken so hard that they are traveling around a thousand miles an hour and continually colliding. You would not expect that they would ‘settle out’ with the heavier balls at the bottom of the box in those circumstances, so why expect it of molecules?
@- Dr Dave
Briefly overcoming my reluctance to paddle in the political froth…..
The US system could be converted to the Australian/UK parliamentary democracy version by allowing the majority in the senate to select a ‘president’ from their members and form the government.
Having a separately elected head of the government forces the political system to be a two party setup and avoids any possibility of coalition governments.
Having the government and leader emerge from a majority of elected representatives allows parties to change leader according to political expediency.
The rolling elections where only a part of the democratic caucus is up for re-election every 2 years would be an interesting modification of the Australian and UK systems. And of the US system if the head of government emerged from the senate (congress?) majority!
No big national election, just an evolving balance as 1/3 were up for (re)election every 2 years. Much more leadership changes and multi-party cooperation, coalition and transient groupings I suspect. Greater response to local and topical factors perhaps ?
Whatever the ideological claims and justifications for all this civic governmental engineering, the end result, and probably the point of it all is to ensure reasonably stable civic government without disruption from democratic input for at least 3 or 4 years. That seems to be the median sort of timescale which social groups will accept leadership and government. Perceived failure for longer than that usually results in rejection. These democratic mechanisms ensure that leadership/government changes minimally disrupt ongoing civic management.
WOOPS
wrong blog, my last post should have been at libertygibbert… sorry!
The SAOT shown below doesn’t contain the latest Calipso data, but does show that even with less sensitive sources the levels were higher than the post 2006 period. Calipso with being more sensitive would also show higher levels previously, so showing higher values with a different data set doesn’t indicate that emissions are increasing post 2006. The SAOT data also shows major volcanic eruptions staying in the stratosphere for around up to 6 to 7 years after the initial event.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7766/saot.png
This latest image compared with the previous graph shows previous source data ended by the post Calipso data or this would have been reflected with lower values below.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/vernier_stratosphereic_aod.jpg?w=640&h=420
Global human SO2 emissions have been declining over this period overall until 2005. (not been able to get update yet) This is depsite significant gains in countries like China, India and even International shipping. The data below shows no trends with global temperatures and human SO2 levels linked. It does show quite significant changes with increases and decreases in SAOT levels. With the eruption from Pinatuba around 0.4c drop and general background levels no more than about 0.02c over a similar period.
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/429/had3vso2vsaot.png
The graph below shows what global temperatures would be like adjusted by SAOT with general background levels no more than 0.02c over a similar period as major volcanic eruptions. The genral conclusion is that not only can a link between human SO2 levels and global temperatures not be seen. The link between human SO2 levels and the change in the SAOT doesn’t exist, but this is continually been blamed for in climate. There is no evidence that human SO2 emissions actually reach a similar height that volcanic emissions do. (~25km)
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5816/had3vsaotadj1979.png
Izen, in the brewery where I worked we had installed CO2 monitors in the beer-fermenting areas to sound the alarm in case the level of CO2 gas (product of fermrntation) leaked and reached dangerous levels. The monitors were installed a few inches above floor level because that’s where it would mostly tend to accumulate, CO2 being somewhat heavier than air. We never had any alarms really, but the beer was bl@@dy good.
Alex the skeptical beer drinker says:
July 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm
absolutely – in a relatively still air zone – CO2 and many other heavier than air gases will sink. Of course its used to great effect in shows as dry ice!
One time on an offshore oil rig in the Middle east, an H2S rich gas blow out caused several personnel to panic and jump overboard – they were suffocated as the gas sank to sea level.
Izen is confused because AGWScience fiction promotes memes which are not in real science. His explanation of how gases travel at these speeds and mix thoroughly as default, taking work to un-mix, comes from ideal gas ‘law’, i.e., he’s imagining an atmosphere where real gases don’t exist. He doesn’t understand your explanations of breweries, or of how methane separates out to layer in ceilings of mines and so on, because he can’t picture it. His picture of the atmosphere is where air is an ideal gas, a hard non-interacting taking up no space ‘thing’, having no volume, moving at great speeds in empty space, in nothing, bouncing off other such imaginary molecules, because, that is what is taught directly by AGWScience.
“AGWScience” is what I’ve called this ‘body’ of information backing AGW physical explanations – it also can be seen in its science fiction meme that Light heats organic matter and not thermal IR (KT97) – it makes no difference to the belief when given real explanations from real science that for example blue visible light transmits through water which is a transparent medium for it, they still imagine that because it travels deeper than other visible wavelengths this means it heat the oceans further down… They believe that photons act like ideal gas molecules and all encounters are bounces off each other in which heat is created. They have not, seemingly, the ability to imagine the real world interactions, for example photosynthesis, where heat is not created, chemical, fluorescence and so on.
Anyway, that’s why izen shouldn’t go for a p-up in a brewery, he claims from AGWScience that Carbon Dioxide is always well mixed and wouldn’t be able to appreciate the dangers of falling asleep next to a vat of the good stuff brewing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/30/earths-climate-system-is-ridiculously-complex-with-draft-link-tutorial/ He says: There is no way with those velocities you will get gases stratifying out by weight within the first few miles of the atmosphere.
I ‘discovered’ that AGWScience teaches that oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide are ideal gases when I began questioning a PhD physics AGWarmist about the claims that CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere for hundreds and even thousands of years and asked how come when CO2 is heavier than Air and displaces it (in the real world)? He taught the subject and marked exams and said that anyone submitting contrary (as I was claiming), would be failed. At first he denied, as does izen, that CO2 separates out at all, then when I produced numerous real world examples, breweries, volcanic vents and so on, he deleted his denial post and came back with the ‘explanation’ that the larger amount of CO2 came down in a package of ‘air’ to sink to the ground, but from then it would rapidly diffuse back into the atmosphere in ideal gas bouncing of its own volition where it couldn’t be unmixed. [I proposed a room where CO2 had entered and pooled on the floor and the conditions for it pooling remained unchanged, no work to move it, no windows open or fan going.] This AGW claim of rapid diffusion ideal gas bouncing sometimes comes with a strange alternative of ‘Brownian’ motion as the cause of the diffusion. Take your pick. Oh, another variation is the ‘atmosphere is in constant turbulence from winds’ – I haven’t been successful explaining that ‘wind’ is air on the move, not a big spoon mixing the molecules up in empty space equally all around the globe without hemispheres, and no convection in AGWScience because ideal gas doesn’t have volume.
I have it on good authority that 50 % of scientists cant be believed. Its only a theory, but its reinforced by the large pay packets they take home, the cynicism happens when you question them and the truth eludes us. Calling us cynical
Maybe their ego is too large. They should stop trying to predict the future. Alchemists have been trying to turn base metals into gold for years. These climate change predictions are turning buls**t into gold. Quite an achievement.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. George Bernard Shaw.