Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [also, see update at the end of the post]
Anthony recently highlighted a couple of new papers claiming to explain the current plateau in global warming. This time, it’s volcanoes, but the claim this time is that it’s not the big volcanoes. It’s the small volcanoes. The studies both seem to follow what I call “Willis’s Rule of Author Count”. The first study is Total volcanic stratospheric aerosol optical depths and implications for global climate change, by D. A. Ridley, S. Solomon, J. E. Barnes, V. D. Burlakov, T. Deshler, S. I. Dolgii, A. B. Herber, T. Nagai, R. R. Neely III, A. V. Nevzorov, C. Ritter, T. Sakai, B. D. Santer, M. Sato, A. Schmidt, O. Uchino andJ. P. Vernier. The second study is Observed multi-variable signals of late 20th and early 21st century volcanic activity, by Benjamin D. Santer, Susan Solomon, Céline Bonfils, Mark D. Zelinka, Jeffrey F. Painter, Francisco Beltran, John C. Fyfe, Gardar Johannesson, Carl Mears, David A. Ridley, Jean-Paul Vernier, Frank J. Wentz.
Now, Willis’s Rule of Author Count says that the quality of any study is inversely proportional to the square of the number of listed authors. And these two studies have seventeen and twelve authors respectively … not a good sign.
The abstract of the first paper says:
Understanding the cooling effect of recent volcanoes is of particular interest in the context of the post-2000 slowing of the rate of global warming. Satellite observations of aerosol optical depth above 15 km have demonstrated that small-magnitude volcanic eruptions substantially perturb incoming solar radiation. Here we use lidar, Aerosol Robotic Network, and balloon-borne observations to provide evidence that currently available satellite databases neglect substantial amounts of volcanic aerosol between the tropopause and 15 km at middle to high latitudes and therefore underestimate total radiative forcing resulting from the recent eruptions.
The abstract of the second paper, in turn, says:
The relatively muted warming of the surface and lower troposphere since 1998 has attracted considerable attention. One contributory factor to this “warming hiatus” is an increase in volcanically-induced cooling over the early 21st century. Here, we identify the signals of late 20th and early 21st century volcanic activity in multiple observed climate variables. Volcanic signals are statistically discernible in spatial averages of tropical and near-global SST, tropospheric temperature, net clear-sky short-wave radiation, and atmospheric water vapor.
Now, it is certainly possible that “small-magnitude volcanic eruptions substantially perturb incoming solar radiation”. There are lots of things that perturb incoming solar radiation, with clouds heading the list. Whether small volcano emissions in turn perturb the global surface temperature is a separate question.
But for eruptions to be an explanation for the current plateau in global warming, the authors would have to show a significant increase in volcanic eruptions in the 21st century. And unfortunately (but predictably) I see no sign in either paper that they have even tried to do that.
So let’s do their job for them by taking a look at the actual records of eruptions, both large and small. The data on all known eruptions is available from the Smithsonian Volcanism Project.
Now, we have some choices in how to display this data. Let me show three of these different ways.
First, we can show the total numbers of eruptions by year, without regard to the size of the eruption. Figure 1 shows that information:
Figure 1. Count of all volcanic eruptions, regardless of their strength, during the end of the 20th and the start of the 21st centuries.
As you can see, there is very little difference between the post-2000 (or post 1998, depending on the study) eruption count and the number of eruptions during the end of the 20th century. After 2000 (or 1998), it went up a bit, then it went down a bit … overall, little change.
But wait, I can hear you saying, the eruptions are not all of the same strength … what is the average strength of the eruptions? And reasonably so, since strong eruptions would have a bigger effect than small eruptions. So let’s look at that data.
The strength of an eruption is measured by the volcanic explosivity index, or VEI. This is a logarithmic scale. This means that an eruption with a VEI of 5 is ten times stronger than an eruption with a VEI of 4, and so on.
In order to properly average these, it’s necessary to use a “logarithmic mean” To do this, you first convert the VEIs to actual values (by taking ten to the power of the VEI). Then you average the actual values, and then take the logarithm of the resulting average to convert it back into the logarithmic VEI scale. Figure 2 shows that result:
Figure 2. Annual logarithmic mean of the volcanic explosivity index, all volcanoes.
In 1991, there were two strong eruptions, Pinatubo (VEI of 6) and Cerro Hudson (VEI of 5). Other than that, there’s not a lot of variation.
Once again, you can see that the post 2000 (or post 1998) average strength of the volcanic eruptions are little different from the strength of the eruptions prior to the turn of the century. So that cannot be the cause of 21st century plateau in global surface temperatures.
Finally, we could read the implicit claim as being that there is some kind of increase in the number of small volcanic eruptions. After all, the authors say that these are the overlooked eruptions. So let’s take a look at the small pre- and post-2000 eruptions.
Figure 3. Annual count of the smaller eruptions, those with a volcanic explosivity index of less than 3.
Once again, we see little change in the number of small volcanoes. After 2000, it goes above the average, and then it goes about the same amount below the average.
Conclusions? Well, the papers may be correct in their claim that the effect of eruptions on the clarity of the atmosphere may have been underestimated.
But they are absolutely not correct in the claim that this underestimation reveals the cause of the recent 18+ year plateau in temperatures as being eruptions. There is almost no post-2000 change in either the number of eruptions, the strength of eruptions, or the number of small eruptions.
Overall? I’d say that Willis’s Rule of Author Count, that the quality of any study goes down inversely proportional to the square of the number of listed authors, is validated once again …
[UPDATE: The underlying claim of these two papers is that although there have been no large eruptions in the 21st century, it is the weaker eruptions that are causing the plateau in temperature. These are eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of four. Some commenters below still think that the eruptions of VEI four are significant. The Santer document shows the effect of some of the VEI 4 eruptions on the stratospheric aerosol optical depth (SAOD), which is their main indication of volcanic change. The study says:
We use stratospheric aerosol optical depth (SAOD) data from Vernier et al. [2011] to study changes in stratospheric loadings of volcanic aerosol.
The eruptions make a change of about .002 in the SAOD, viz:
Now, that looks kind of impressive … until you compare it to the larger volcanoes (source):
You can see the sizes of Krakatoa in the 1880s, Pinatubo in 1991, El Chichon in 1982, and Mt. Agung in 1963, along with some smaller volcanoes … and then you can see the part that Santer et al. are discussing. This is the almost-flat line in the post-2000 era. Sorry, but given the short-term, weak, local effects of even the largest volcanoes, I’m not buying the idea that those tiny post-2000 wiggles have any discernible effect at all.
My best regards to you all,
w.
ONCE AGAIN: If you disagree with someone, please do everyone the favor of QUOTING THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU DISAGREE WITH. This prevents all kinds of misunderstandings and misrepresentations.
FURTHER READING: I note that this is not the first time that Susan Solomon has made the claim that volcanoes are the cause of the current pause in temperatures. In addition, she was the main mover behind one of the IPCC reports, from memory the Fourth, and is fully and completely invested in the meme of “CO2 Roolz Everything, OK” … whenever I see her name on a study, I’m sad to report that I just wince. See here for my discussion of her previous work.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My understanding is that conventional wisdom says that “small” volcanic eruptions have less than proportional effect because their ejections don’t get that high in the atmosphere and are quickly rained out. Is this being challenged?
Dunno, but carbonyl sulfide (COS) could be a way for the less energetic eruptions to have a way of getting sulfur to the stratosphere. COS is not very reactive in the troposphere, but if it gets hit with short wavelength UV, it dissociates and can become part of the sulfate formation mechanism. UV that short of a wavelength is only plentiful in the stratosphere. The big caveat is going to be how quickly or efficiently, COS can diffuse across the tropopause. From what I understand, COS tends to stay in the troposphere for up to nine years.
We can barely find a temperature signal from the very largest stratospheric eruptions. Willis has posted on this several times.
The large ones do clearly show up in the lower stratosphere temperatures but for the surface, it is only the largest ones that go high into the stratosphere that seem to have a (barely detectable) signal. Some of the largest ones leave nothing in the temperature series.
If we can only barely detect the largest ones, how can several small ones that leave no stratospheric or aerosol optical depth signal, have an impact.
Right. The graph of optical transmission plainly shows significant but brief excursions from large volcanoes, then a quick return to a remarkably smooth & consistent plateau (while “little” volcanoes are constantly occurring). That graph says all we need to know.
More warmy attempts to explain the lack of predicted CO2 warming — just like exaggerated human-aerosol effects.
First of all, I am not a “warmy” I think the whole idea of Globular Warming is a giant festering crock of [insert disgusting material here].
I do, however, think that the background level of the Junge layer is affected by this mechanism, but the guys that track the Tau line seem to have given up interest since about 2012. I was thinking that maybe a signal from the Tolbachik flood basalt or the Holurhaun eruption in Iceland may show some effect. I guess it’s sort of my fault for expecting Nasa to keep a data set updated.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/
An oddity though… Mobile Bay actually started forming Ice recently. Not a lot of ice, mostly a “hey, check that out” sort of thing for the locals. Not totally uncommon, but it is quite rare.
http://fox10tv.com/2015/01/08/mobile-bay-spectacular-as-frozen-wonderland/
Please see this Aerosol Optical Depth Animation from January 2005 to November 2014 – press the Play button
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MODAL2_M_AER_OD
Can anyone spot any volcanoes? I cannot.
You can clearly see the significant effects of agricultural burning in South and Central America and Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Here is the commentary that accompanies the Aerosol animation:
High aerosol amounts are linked to different process in different places and times of year. High aerosol amounts occur over South America from July through September. This pattern is due to land clearing and agricultural fires that are widespread across the Amazon Basin and Cerrado regions during the dry season. Aerosols have a similar seasonal pattern in Central America (March-May), central and southern Africa (June-September, and Southeast Asia (January-April).
In other cases, however, aerosol concentrations are not related to fires. For example, from May through August each year, aerosol amounts rise dramatically around the Arabian Peninsula and nearby oceans due to dust storms. Elevated aerosol amounts nestle at the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains in northern India in some months, and linger over eastern China for much of the year. These elevated aerosol amounts are due to human-produced air pollution.
_____________
Please see this Fires Animation from March 2000 to November 2014 – press the Play button
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD14A1_M_FIRE
Here is the commentary that accompanies the Fires animation:
The fire maps show the locations of actively burning fires around the world on a monthly basis, based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The colors are based on a count of the number (not size) of fires observed within a 1,000-square-kilometer area. White pixels show the high end of the count —as many as 100 fires in a 1,000-square-kilometer area per day. Yellow pixels show as many as 10 fires, orange shows as many as 5 fires, and red areas as few as 1 fire per day.
Some of the global patterns that appear in the fire maps over time are the result of natural cycles of rainfall, dryness, and lightning. For example, naturally occurring fires are common in the boreal forests of Canada in the summer. In other parts of the world, the patterns are the result of human activity. For example, the intense burning in the heart of South America from August-October is a result of human-triggered fires, both intentional and accidental, in the Amazon Rainforest and the Cerrado (a grassland/savanna ecosystem) to the south. Across Africa, a band of widespread agricultural burning sweeps north to south over the continent as the dry season progresses each year. Agricultural burning occurs in late winter and early spring each year across Southeast Asia.
_______________
Please see this Carbon Monoxide Animation from March 2000 to November 2014 – press the Play button
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOP_CO_M
Here is the commentary that accompanies the Carbon Monoxide animation:
These maps show monthly averages of global concentrations of tropospheric carbon monoxide at an altitude of about 12,000 feet. The data were collected by the MOPITT (Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere) sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite. Concentrations of carbon monoxide are expressed in parts per billion by volume (ppbv). A concentration of 1 ppbv means that for every billion molecules of gas in the measured volume, one of them is a carbon monoxide molecule. Yellow areas have little or no carbon monoxide, while progressively higher concentrations are shown in orange and red. Places where the sensor didn’t collect data, perhaps due to clouds, are gray.
In different parts of the world and in different seasons, the amounts and sources of atmospheric carbon monoxide change. In Africa, for example, the seasonal shifts in carbon monoxide are tied to the widespread agricultural burning that shifts north and south of the equator with the seasons. Fires are an important source of carbon monoxide pollution in other regions of the Southern Hemisphere, such as the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
In the United States, Europe, and eastern China, on the other hand, the highest carbon monoxide concentrations occur around urban areas as a result of vehicle and industrial emissions. Fires burning over large areas in North America and Russia in some years can be an important source. The MOPITT observations often show that pollution emitted on one continent can travel across oceans to have a big impact on air quality on other continents.
________________
What about CO2? There is not similar CO2 animation from this NASA site, but here is a CO2 animation from September 2002 to July 2008 (give it a minute to load):
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
Try to find the impact of fossil fuel combustion in this CO2 data – I cannot.
No sign of volcanoes either…
Maybe they refer to volcanoes hidden in the oceans or in their imagination? International socialism need the predictive power of progressive enlightenment liberalism(policy based science/propaganda) to get a climate treaty in Paris later this year?
Some of the people behind these 2 studies are the same. Why do they participate in 2 different studies to tell the same story? Maybe if the same people tell the same story in 2 different studies then the 2 studies verify each other?
Climate change| that is real and that you can measure.
The ghost of climate change: climate change that is imaginary and needed to promote policy.
The trinity of climate change: the result of climate science being politicized.
It’s just policy enlightened science?
*sigh* Most of the warmista’s won’t even admit there is a pause *at all* when you try to discuss the pause with them. I do see that articles like this have their place (getting them to admit there is a pause at all). How much can people have their heads shoved up their asses?
Why do we even consider these frauds. They are political scientist working at the bid of their controllers and contemptible
Proctocraniosis is epidemic among climate charlatans.
I’m glad I reread your post before I looked up proctocraniosis. That’s a good one.
A.K.A. in situ proctology.
They don’t have their heads up their “asses”, or horses for that matter.
They do have their hands in the till, though.
They know they can adjust the data to make the pause disappear, they just have to wait a few years. In fact you can already see the front end of the pause changing in some data sets.
At least Thomas Stocker, a leading head of the IPCC, admits the pause by declaring it is finished now by the “heat record” of 2014. See here:
http://www.schweizamsonntag.ch/ressort/meinung/kann_die_menschheit_die_erderwaermung_stoppen/
It’s a rather unscientific conclusion of course, but Stocker is more an activist than a true scientist, according to this very fitting quote by Matt Ridley about the “heat record” of 2014:
“True scientists would have said: this year is unlikely to be significantly warmer than 2010 or 2005” and left it at that.
But wait! These two papers were peer reviewed, were they not. You must have overlooked something, Willis. Peer review is sacrosanct.
If they get 97% of all scientists to contribute to the article, then peer review is a shoo-in.
Good point. I was about to object to Willis’ rule, but, as you suggest, more authors-more friends, and more peer friends.
I believe that every peer reviewed paper that purports to have more than one author, should specifically disclose exactly what part of the paper was written by which author.
I know for example, that in the US Patent Office peer reviewed literature (AKA US patents), Every named “inventor” must be able to claim SOLE responsibility for at least ONE element of at least ONE claim in the patent, that eventually gets by the examiner to become a part of the claimed invention. I have never been a “co-inventor” of any element of any patent claim, but I have added my share of novel features to gizmos, that also included individual contributions from other inventors.
I have never stumbled across their ideas at the same time, nor have they mine.
But collectively we have improved on each others work.
But of course this is the age when 4 yr. olds are taught in kiddiegarden, and subsequently, to sit quietly at a table with a bunch of other restless brats, and let the smart kid solve the problem, then all get the same grade. This eventually becomes a focus group.
Just how many “scientists” have their names on the paper that discovered the Higgs boson, or whatever it really is that they think they have found ??
It often works in reverse; for example, when Steven Chu gets the Nobel Physics prize for inventing “optical tweezers”, but the Swedes ignore the Bell Labs chap who really invented them, and then hired, and taught Chu, how to do it many years later.
And of course in 2014, they ignored Dr. Nick Holonyak who invented the visible (red) LED, but gave the Nobel Physics prize to Shuji Nakamura, who of course invented the blue LED.
Nakamura was an admirable and deserving choice for the prize, but they should have included Holonyak, who started the whole thing rolling, decades earlier.
I think the real authors of scientific advances should be recognized by name, not by the focus group they were in.
First disclaimer: I have not yet opted to pay to view the full articles for these two papers.
Second disclaimer: regarding authors showing a significant increase in their chosen volcanic eruptions in the 21st century, I am going to assume to be correct Mr Eschenbach’s assertion that “unfortunately (but predictably) I see no sign in either paper that they have even tried to do that.”
I also would expect to read somewhere in each of these papers that the volcanic activity being claimed as the mechanism for reduced 21st century global warming would be clearly shown to be statistically or significantly increased as compared to periods of previous higher warming rates. As a result, I have a couple of open questions for any of the more vocal AGW proponents that regularly post here (e.g. Mr Stokes, Mr Mosher, Mr Socrates, Mr Gates, etc.)
First question: Can we agree that if this major oversight/omission of the subject articles identified and separately analyzed by W.Eschenbach does exist, that the peer review process at Geophysical Research Letters is flawed?
Second question (possibly N/A depending on answer #1): If you do not agree that the GRL peer review is flawed, can you explain why the omission as identified by W. Eschenbach would be acceptable for the conclusion drawn?
Thanks in advance.
Bruce
It would be interesting if we knew about small volcanic activity between 1910 to 1950. We had a warming then cooling trend.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/j/l/warmingtrend.gif
They, Santer, Salomon and Ridley from the first study first per viwed the other study. Then Santer, Solomon and Ridley from the other study per viewed the first study?
Willis, Excellent. Thanks for your effort. My gut feeling was that the studies were nonsense, but your finding and analyzing the relevant data took all of the guesswork right out of it. Thanks, much appreciated!
Small volcanoes? Sounds like Napoleon Complex to me.
I love your succint clarity, Willis!
+1
Willis and others please do look at the dates of acceptance for the second article also the first. X-mas eve for the second? thats peer review?
michael
oops 29th not 24th of dec but then isn’t this vacation time? Why would people be be rushing out a paper it this time of year?
Willis,
At this point, when the overwhelmingly majority of authors on papers, such as these, are little more than rubber stamps of consensus “communication”, one wonders if some of these people are “authors” of mutually contradicting papers. With 50 plus reasons and counting as well as pause denial, some of these authors are likely to truly be typing out of both sides of their keyboard.
The logarithmic nature of CO2 and temperature is driving them nuts! What is the saturation point of CO2 for IR anyhow?
It doesn’t saturate because optical depth increases unconstrained. But the log function therein implied means more causes less. Guy Callendar showed this in 1938.
MODTRAN, doesn’t tell you saturation point but it does tell you the degree of transmittance. If you what you can pug-in what-if scenarios and work it out.
Good job, Willis. You brought out the obvious, and as I sometimes say, the best way to refute the climate change extremists is through actual data. They seem allergic to it. Actual data drives them to their models to receive comfort.
CTM:
“… truly be typing out of both sides of their keyboard.”
Thank you for a very amusing mental image regarding the two-faced CAGW climateer profiteers using their keyboards in perverse ways… :->
Is there a factor for authors common to multiple papers?
Yes. It’s the cube of the sum total of the authors. IOW, the more the merrier…!
“Now, Willis’s Rule of Author Count says that the quality of any study is inversely proportional to the square of the number of listed authors. And these two studies have seventeen and twelve authors respectively … not a good sign.”
=======================================
Excellent rule Willis, which deserves a suitable name.
May I suggest “Widdecombe Fair Science”
In such cases the author list should be shortened to Uncle Tom Cobbley et al.
Willis’s Rule of Author Count has an immediate, intuitive, appeal. I would like to see it backed up by something more than intuition, and gain at least the status of Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle.
Anything is possible,
Yikes! Fingernails on a blackboard! Glad I don’t have to live with that.
Now Showing: The Little Volcano That Could!
Sound Track by Ben Santer: I think I can….I think I can….I think I can…..
According to the review I saw, the show blows.
If I understand correctly, volcanoes produce cooling effects via aerosols and the effects of aerosols were taken into account by NASA authors and their colleagues when they estimated +0.6 W/m2 as the recent net global warming.
James Hansen et al. (2011) Earth’s energy imbalance and implications, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 13421-13449, 2011). URL:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/13421/2011/acp-11-13421-2011.pdf
Based on the result obtained by Hansen et al., Graeme Stevens had this to say:
The net energy balance is the sum of individual fluxes. The current uncertainty in this net surface energy balance is large, and amounts to approximately 17 Wm–2. This uncertainty is an order of magnitude larger than the changes to the net surface fluxes associated with increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Fig. 2b). The uncertainty is also approximately an order of magnitude larger than the current estimates of the net surface energy imbalance of 0.6 ±0.4 Wm–2 inferred from the rise in OHC. The uncertainty in the TOA net energy fluxes, although smaller, is also much larger than the imbalance inferred from OHC.
Graeme L. Stephens et al, An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations. Nature Geoscience Vol. 5 October 2012
URL: http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~tristan/publications/2012_EBupdate_stephens_ngeo1580.pdf
The estimate of 0.6 Wm-2 was updated by Loeb and others in 2012 to 0.5 Wm-2.
Reference: Norman G. Loeb, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson, Richard P. Allan, David R. Doelling,Takmeng Wong, Brian J. Soden and Graeme L. Stephens. Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty. (Nature Geoscience Vol 5 February 2012)
URL: http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~sgs02rpa/PAPERS/Loeb12NG.pdf
This revised estimate leads to the conclusion that the energy imbalance is 0.15% of incoming solar radiation. Since the uncertainty is in both downward and upward flux, the energy imbalance is 0.075% of total energy flux. This estimate of energy imbalance is so small that little confidence can be placed on its accuracy. We ought to regard the current estimate of global warming as arising from spurious precision.
The metric for net warming is +0.5Wm-2 compared with 17Wm-2 uncertainty. The uncertainty is 34 times as big as the measured net warming.
What the authors of these two volcano papers purport to do is to show that the net energy imbalance would be higher than +0.5Wm-2 if small-scale vulcanism were taken into account. However, adjusting a metric that is spuriously precise would get us nowhere at all. Even if they double the net warming to +1.0 Wm-2, the uncertainty would still be 17 times bigger than the measured warming.
Frederick,
Fantastic post, Frederick. If you look further in Hansen’s paper, it gets worse:
“We also must quantify the causes of changes of Earth’s energy imbalance. The two dominant causes are changes of greenhouse gases, which are measured very precisely, and changes of atmospheric aerosols. It is remarkable and untenable that the second largest forcing that drives global climate
change remains unmeasured. We refer to the direct and indirect effects of human-made aerosols”
I see nowhere where they measure volcanic aerosols.
Now as to this alleged energy imbalance caused by humans, Hansen makes some startling observations:
“The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-yr-mean imbalance of 6.5 W m−2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W m-2″</b
So they introduce a phony calibration factor because the measurement error is something like 600%. Bottom line, the alleged energy imbalance cannot even be measured by satellites. The other method of measuring energy imbalance is indirectly through "measurements of changes in the heat content of the ocean and the smaller heat reservoirs on Earth" (per Hansen) Call me completely skeptical if this method can measure to the accuracy of 0.5 W/m-2.. Hansen had this to say about the ocean heat content approach:
"An alternative potentially accurate approach to measure Earth’s energy imbalance is via changes in the ocean heat content, as has been argued for decades (Hansen et al.1997) and as is now feasible with Argo data (Roemmich and Gilson, 2009; Von Schuckmann and Le Traon, 2011). This approach also has sampling and instrument calibration problems, but it has a fundamental advantage: it is based on absolute
measurements of ocean temperature. As a result, the accuracy improves as the record length increases, and it is the average energy imbalance over years and decades that is of greatest interest.”
“Potentially accurate”?? So further bottom line. The ALLEGED energy imbalance simply CANNOT even be measured. When one has a hypothesis, the scientific method requires confirmation by testing. If the testing, or measurement cannot be performed, the hypothesis remains unconfirmed. QED.
Holy donuts Batman! What is the purpose of putting a satellite into orbit if you are simply going to adjust it to give the answer you already expected to see? Oh look, the books don’t balance. Lets just adjust the figures so they do. In business that is called go to jail. In climate science it is called business as usual. Standard Operating Procedure.
If observations don’t match the models, adjust the observations.
But…but… we were told the models were tuned to match the data. Now they’re tuning the data to the models? Just
Exactly!
ferdberple stated:
” What is the purpose of putting a satellite into orbit if you are simply going to adjust it to give the answer you already expected to see?
Exactly. This is how they do science. It’s pure insanity. Their whole AGW hypothesis is a ruse. The alleged energy imbalance can’t even be scientifically measured, so they fake the measurements by adjusting the data to comply with what was expected.
Pretty clear to me there is an inverse correlation between the number of authors and volcanic activity…/
Excellent critique. The effluvium (love that word – describes the content of the paper well, don’t you think?) from small volcanoes clears from the atmosphere quickly because it doesn’t reach so high and there isn’t much of it. And, of course, it rains. The dust from big volcanoes can be seen at sunset/sunrise for up to 3 years, so even this is not enough to explain a 19 year hiatus. I was near Volcan Hudson when it went off – an immense amount of material was introduced into the atmosphere, but the skies cleared quickly. Incidentally, much of the effluvium was large particulate pumice – it had near zero residence time in the atmosphere.
Can I help them out in their salary aspirations by suggesting grants may be awarded for studies on increased dust concentration in the atmosphere from drying deserts? Particulate pollution from nano- plastic particles and nano-technology by-products? Anti-matter coronal effects from the top of thunderstorms? Increased eructation from processed foods. What ever takes take their fancy – they don’t seem shy of suggesting all sorts of mechanisms – other than water vapour/ice which really is important and which could easily provide the negative feedback loop that is holding the temperature constant in spite of increasing CO2 levels.
Beautiful data Willis – I love it when alarmist arguments can be quickly dismissed with a little basic research & data. Exposes them for the political agenda driven bunch they are versus the science driven bunch skeptics are.
Well done!
Ok, it took awhile but I’ll now have to agree, grudgingly, that volcanoes ain’t got much pull.
Which only gives more weight to the other drivers.
Except they’re a major source of CO2.
And excepting that volcanism is by far mostly submarine, and eruptions are punctuated (and still possibly cyclic) and exhale a great deal of heat into ocean basins, which will modify currents. So volcanism is far from sidelined, it is very much a player in that regard, and also in regard to known optical effects of big eruptions.
It’s CO2 rise that’s better and better explained by volcanism, and that what’s being sidelined here, not volcanoes, when ocean cyclicity is deeply implicated in climate variability, and altered by bottom water thermal regime (which is the open question).
Unmentionable,
The same problem of CO2 from volcanoes as for aerosols: if they are responsible for the increase over the past 160 years, there should be an enormous increase in activity (a 4-5 fold since 1959, when accurate measurements started), which isn’t seen anywhere.
Further most CO2 from undersea volcanoes is absorbed in the deep oceans and distributed in the enormous amount of (bi)carbonates there.
Last but not least, volcanic CO2 has a higher δ13C level than CO2 in the atmosphere. The atmosphere and the ocean surface shows a sharp decline in δ13C level, completely in parallel with human emissions…
Ferdinand Engelbeen
January 10, 2015 at 3:39 am
“Last but not least, volcanic CO2 has a higher δ13C level than CO2 in the atmosphere. ”
—
Yes, it looks unlikely (I regretted the sentence the moment I posted). As with all oceanic data sample coverage is low or very low and data surprisingly diverse with geography, and with deposition context. But a small δ13C depletion is the overall. So it’s an overstatement to say rising atmospheric CO2 is adequately explained by underwater volcanism that simultaneously imparts a thermal rise, inducing any actual warming cycle.
Which ones? Natural or fantasy?
“But for eruptions to be an explanation for the current plateau in global warming, the authors would have to show a significant increase in volcanic eruptions in the 21st century. ”
No. they would not have to show this.
Showing it would help, but its not necessary.
What’s important is total forcing.
Except that CO2, the putative major forcing has risen during this period at about the same rate as before it. For the temperature to flatline, there must have been a drop in total forcing–something else must have changed. If not rising volcanic SO2, what?
Steven Mosher January 9, 2015 at 9:16 pm
Say what? Given that as I have shown, there is no difference in the volcanic eruptions during the time of increasing temperatures and the time of the plateau in warming, then how on earth can the eruptions be the reason for the pause?
You’ll have to explain that claim a whole lot better than you’ve done so far, Mosh.
w.
I think Mosh must be thinking that it is the total force of the accumulated Volcanic Emissions over the last 2 Centuries has reached the Tipping Point at the end of 1997. Obviously you proved that there was no change in average volcanic activity, however they may wish to measure it.
Every volcanic eruption is chemically different. How many or how intense these eruptions are means nothing. Aerosol forcing has been measured by the paper “Total volcanic stratospheric aerosol optical depths and implications for global climate change” which states “we determine the global volcanic aerosol forcing since 2000 to be −0.19 ± 0.09 Wm−2 [which] translates into an estimated global cooling of 0.05 to 0.12°C.”
mosh is correct… with “climate science” the formula is come to desired conclusion, “adjust” data to fit conclusion…. deny any contrary indicators… make wild guesses with lots of maybe and possibly… and publish, publish, publish! It does not matter if right or wrong just publish what supports the predetermined desired conclusion, ignore all else and call lots of unsavory names those that disagree…. “climate science” at its best. not sure where to put the “sarc” tag but there might need to be one somewhere…
Cheers!
Joe
In total, it is the analyses being forced, as are the dubious data ‘adjustments’.
Unaffected, the climate continues to change, ‘pause’, and cycle, naturally.
The null hypothesis stands….and that’s what’s important.
What they would have to show is that the volcanic aerosols have increased and they have not shown this.
What they have shown is that there is more, between 15k and the tropopause, than they originally thought. They then use this and the “pause” to infer that there was less earlier in the 20th century and then blame the pause on this.
They have no data, from AERONET, pre 98 with which they can determine the aerosol levels.
Another beautiful example of the logic of ‘Climate Science’. ‘Y’ is happening now, since everyone knows ‘X’ causes ‘Y’, then ‘X’ must have been the case in the past… Which proves ‘Y’ = k’X’.
Steven Mosher: ” What’s important is total forcing”
####
Actually no , Steven. What’s important is the _change_ in total forcing. There seems to have been no attempt to demonstrate such a change from the period previous to the study.
That is the reason for comparing volcanic activity, Steven.
Without showing that the study era (post 2000) was an era of increased volcanic aerosols, then their conclusion is simply a bald assertion.
And Steven, I advise that you avoid bald assertions if you have any regard for your reputation as a scientist.
Mosher is not a scientist, unless a BA in English qualifies you as a scientist ?
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/06/who-is-steven-mosher.html
Mosher writes “What’s important is total forcing.”
What’s important is the possibility of an “internal” forcing.
Willis, all correct. Nicely and newly displayed this post. Well done. You reached the same conclusion as essay Blowing Smoke in ebook of same name published last year. Or my posts based on same on the previous thread. Nice to have further visual validation from a data hound such as yourself.
BTW, your rule of author count is something new (well, to me) but sure seems empirically validated here. Worth a larger statistical test.
Willis. Is the VEI the correct parameter to estimate the quantity of fine partic and sulphate/SO2. Im no vulcanologist, but I cant intuitively see the relationship. Surely it is the mass of those two (mostly) that is important not the VEI. Your thoughts ?
Your question was adressed to Willis, whom I am not. But an answer.
VEI takea no account of the composition of ejecta. Only the maximum altitude attainable.
But VEI is correlated with the type of volcanism as is particulate ejections, which occur most heavily in volcanoes above subduction zones.
Terry January 9, 2015 at 9:32 pm Edit
Good question, Terry. The answer is, the VEI is not really the correct parameter, but it’s the nearest and best we have. Charles Lamb had something he called the “DVI”, the Dust Veil Index, but it stops in (from memory) about 1988 or thereabouts, so it’s of no use to us for modern data.
Also, what Rud said.The VEI is a measure of power in the eruption, not the makeup of what is being ejected.
w.
Willis: I’m with Terry and Rud on this: If the ‘pause’ can be explained by volcanic activity it must surely be based on the sheer amount of ejecta that remains (stratospherically?) airborne after ejection.
But then, we surely must take into account that there is a possible delay between the eruptions and the effect they have on climate – if any. It seems inconclusive to me that the effects of any eruptions have an immediate and long-term effect on climate – which is supposed to be the aggregation of weather over a period of thirty years, or so I was told by people like Nick Stokes et al.
I should have read the comments further before posting. I see that Rud has made a similar observation further down the thread. Sheer cooincidence.
So does that mean the heat is still hiding in the oceans? Skeptics are not the intended audience for the “it’s the volcanoes” line. Why would they think someone wouldn’t look at the number and size? Oh.. I know, the truly faithful. It has to be co2!!! It’s a villain just lurking around the shadows, just waiting. That tipping point must be around here somewhere.
Willis writes “Well, the papers may be correct in their claim that the effect of eruptions on the clarity of the atmosphere may have been underestimated.”
Only with the assumption of a very high sensitivity…and there’s not a lot of evidence for that.
Its another case of “making stuff up” to suit their message.
Willis, with regard to your FURTHER READING comment, you do know that she’s in the National Academy of Sciences, but then so is Peter Gleick. I’d like to think it’s actually an alarmist computer model for the NAS but, sadly, no.