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From the THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA:
UM researchers document global connections between El Nino events and drought
University of Montana Professor John Kimball is among the team of researchers who published an article on Oct. 30 about their study on Nature magazine’s website titled “Vegetation Greening and Climate Change Promote Multidecadal Rises of Global Land Evapotranspiration.”
Their research shows that during the past 32 years there have been widespread increases in both plant growth and evaporation due to recent global climate trends. The apparent rise in evapotranspiration – the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from plants and soil – is increasing potential drought risk with rising temperature trends, especially during periodic drought cycles that have been linked with strong El Nino events. El Nino is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific with important consequences for weather around the globe.
The researchers produced a long-term global satellite record of land evapotranspiration using remote sensing satellite data. They investigated multi-decadal changes looking at trends between 1982 and 2013. In addition to global evapotranspiration trends, they examined vegetation greenness and general climate data including temperature, precipitation and cloudiness. Collectively, these data show general increasing trends in both plant growth and evaporation with recent climate change mainly driven by vegetation greening and rising atmosphere moisture deficits.
The study predicts that a continuation of these trends will likely exacerbate regional drought-induced disturbances, especially during regional dry climate phases associated with strong El Nino events.
###
The paper can be viewed online at http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15956.
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” the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from plants and soil – is increasing potential drought risk with rising temperature trends”
Climate change… or increased farming and irrigation?
My vote would be on the second one…
Or more CO2 means better growing plants that respire more?
More CO2 leads to more drought resistant plants. Meaning that they would hold moisture longer.
They have it ass about. Hot weather does not cause droughts. Droughts lead to hot weather. They are mixing up cause and effect. Droughts are caused by lack of precipitation.
When it rains the temperature drops and soil moisture increases. Overcast conditions also cool as clouds reflect incoming sunlight back to space. Subsequently, much the energy from the sun that would have increased the temperature is used up in evaporation of that soil moisture which keeps the area cool. That keeps the temperature down.
In a period of little or no precipitation, the cooling effects of the rain, cloud and subsequent evaporation are absent and the temperature rises.
That is the conclusion of an Australian scientist who studied the problem and I feel that he is correct. However, it doesn’t add to the CAGW panic and so is ignored.
John
JPM:
They have it ass about.
JM:
Here in US we call than ass backwards. Oh, and, I agree. They have it ass about/backwards.
JPM:
Hot weather does not cause droughts. Droughts lead to hot weather. They are mixing up cause and effect.
JM:
Once again, I agree.
JPM:
That is the conclusion of an Australian scientist who studied the problem and I feel that he is correct.
JM:
Interesting. I’m doing research on this subject. Any chance I could get a name of this scientist? Or even an email? Thanks in advance.
James McGinn
The Australian scientist in question’s name is Stewart W. Franks. He wrote a section in the book Climate Change The Facts 2014. He is Foundation Chair of Environmental Engineering , University of Tasmania. Sorry that I am late providing this information. I hope it helps.
John
Only the green nuts could turn increased greening of the earth into a bad new story. OMG what do they say to each other on a warm sunny day? Is there disaster every where all the time?
I first smelled a rat back in the UK in the 1990s when, during every warm spell the BBC would hammer the Global Warming meme. In radio advertising we used to call that an ‘ice cream’ package i.e. the advertiser’s message would be carried when the temperature went above a certain agreed point.
So what you said is spot on…’on a warm, sunny day’ the alarmists do indeed resume their relentless song of disaster!
“their relentless song of disaster”: Doombaya, Lord, Doombaya…
So a greening earth means more droughts which means plants don’t have enough water so they die but the earth is greening? Only in climate “science”.
Warmists are not scientists, they are political operatives.
Evapotranspiration ??? Really, did they make that word up !! If the plants didn’t suck up the water from the ground , it would have evaporated from the soil anyways !!! At least the plants used some of that water to create food for vegetarians !!!!
And in the long term, meat eaters like me !!
“If the plants didn’t suck up the water from the ground , it would have evaporated from the soil anyways”
Actually, no, this is not always the case.
Very often plants draw water out of the ground that would otherwise not reach the atmosphere, or at least not as quickly.>
Desert plants have roots which extend far down into the ground where water is available, and bring this moisture to the surface.
All plants do this to some extent, and from time to time.
This word (Evapotranspiration) is a key concept in physical geography.
Regions in which precipitation exceeds potential evapotranspiration in all months are deemed to be moist, while those places and times where PET exceeds precipitation are deemed to be “arid”.
If potential evapotranspiration exceeds actual evapotranspiration, plants are deemed to be under water stress.
Drought and soil moisture indices are based on such calculations.
You said – This word (Evapotranspiration) is a key concept in physical geography. The question was asked, did they make it up? So, obviously, the answer is, yes, they made it up to name a key concept in physical geology.
I thought Marcuso was asking if these authors made up the word.
It has been in use since before they were born.
All words were made up by someone.
Unless you believe in spontaneous literary generation.
I personally draw the line at spontaneous human combustion.
Actually, cacti have SHALLOW roots that suck up the sudden thunderstorm rains in the desert. The great saguaros of Tucson, for example, have roots that are extremely shallow but are like an upside down umbrella. They hold excess water in their limbs and central trunk. As it dries down, they use the internal water and get skinny again.
True, but mesquite trees go way deep.
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_MEDIA/nrcs141p2_028234.gif
Menicholas, where’s the mesquite?
The word evapotranspiration has been around a long time before cagw came along. Strangely enough though, I believe that it’s well established fact that increased CO₂ levels mean that the stomata on leaves through which plants breath are getting smaller. This is because the plants are no longer struggling to obtain sufficient CO₂ and thus they breath out less water vapour. Increased plant cover might also reduce soil temperature, which would reduce direct evaporation, so I for one think their claims are a bit off the mark.
Under higher levels of CO2, stomata become fewer rather than smaller.
The increased vapor would have a much greater effect on temperature than the CO2. I rather doubt that any climate model has included the fertilizing effect of CO2 on plants and attendant increases in transpiration as an influence on global climate. The oldest (classical) definitions of climate included not just weather but the entire environment. It would interesting to see a more comprehensive theory of climate emerge. Of course that would require retiring nearly every existing climatologist and watching a large number of politicians back pedaling madly.
Nor has it included the fixing of CO2 because of the greater quantity of plant material being created in the ‘greening Earth’. But then they are required to look for all the negative issues or they would not get any further grants.
Increased water in the atmosphere has mixed effects on temperature: water vapor (increased greenhouse effect) vs. clouds (decreased insolation during daytime; greenhouse effect at nighttime.) I am unaware of a good analysis of this effect.
“The increased vapor…”
– CO2 makes the plants using less water, so CO2 is the source of declining evapotranspiration by each single plant. The plants need less stomata for receiving enough CO2 = less transpiration = less evapotranspiration. Per quantity of biomass.
– More plants can grow on the same amount of rain water, so are “greening” the earth
– More plants will retain rain water better, so preventing rain water for “run off” and diminish the problems of to much fluctuating and “soil filled” (by erosion) rivers
– More plants will produce better soils with their roots and the remnants of the roots. Better soils are necessary for agriculture. And plants are needed for animal life.
This is poor biology, and a silly conclusion. For all C3 photosynthesis (about 85% of all terrestrial plants) more CO2 has two effects:
1. More efficient photosynthesis, resulting in more growth. That is why CO2 is added to greenhouses.
2. Less evapotranspiration, since the stomata do not have to be as open to bring in CO2. This second effect is mainly why the Sahel is greening.
So more CO2 biologically lessens the impact of relative drought, rather than increasing it. Essay Carbon Pollution has more specifics.
True dat!
Also the higher the concertrations of Carbon Dioxide in the air the better plants can handle heat stress.
You are missing #3. More plants. The greening is coming from more plants, and more plants always means more evapotranspiration even if each plant evapotranspirates less.
Anyway this is more bonkers science from physicists who do not understand biology and shouldn’t get into it. More evapotranspiration means that more humidity is put into the air all the time, and more humidity in the air means more precipitation, not less. It is a well known biological positive feedback that more vegetation means more rain and more rain means more vegetation. It works backwards when there is a precipitation deficit and that is why the desertification is so abrupt. The African humid period came to an end in just a few centuries at 5000 yr BP.
We are going in the right direction now. More greening, more evapotranspiration and more precipitations in most places. We should celebrate, not say that this is all going to end badly.
Javier, no one gets paid unless it all ends badly 🙂
However I do believe you’re on the right track here; killing off all those pesky plants seems like an extremely bad idea to me.
Javier,
Yes, more leaves mean more evaporative surface and therefore, an over-all increase in transfer of soil moisture to the atmosphere.
I agree with you that it is bonkers science. I think that what they’re saying is that the more you have, the more you have to lose. A simple analogy would be; if you water a tree for 50 years and then deprive it of water, the tree that dies is a bigger one than if you had never watered it at all.
In the thread, above, the term ‘evapotranspiration’ is called into question. A few minutes with mr. google should clarify that point for those people, but I’m intrigued by the oft-repeated phrase “Land evapotranspiration”. I am unable to imagine “Marine evapotranspiration”, or any non-terrestrial evapotranspiration.
Often, when I read expressions like your “bonkers science from physicists who do not understand biology…”, I deem it a little dismissive, but I think you are correct.
Hello Captain Obvious.
CO2 increasing => Increased Plant Growth (which involves evaporation and respiration of water)
OK
If the planet is warming, then it is warmer, and ,warmer planet => less water in some places.
OK, if the planet is warming, which isn’t proven.
But isn’t El Nino a transient weather-related phenomena? Or is El Nino climate change now only when it makes a popular place hotter & drier?
Right now, some folks in Texas might be forgiven for doubting that the most recent floods are a clear manifestation of drought conditions brought on by the El Nino phenomenon …
I have examined the local consequences (Wyoming) of El Nino since 1947 and have found only one clear indication–that being a warm autumn. I can’t find a clear pattern of precipitation. We have sometimes droughtiness or outright drought and sometimes enhanced precipitation. There are places where the consequences seem clear (west coast for instance) and other places it seems very ambiguous.
“Collectively, these data show general increasing trends in both plant growth and evaporation with recent climate change mainly driven by vegetation greening and rising atmosphere moisture deficits.”
Wait a second…perhaps I am misreading something here, but they seem to be stating that there is more evapotranspiration, in other words, more moisture entering the atmosphere, due to increasingly verdant landscapes, and yet also rising moisture deficits?
This does not add up, IMO.
What bothers me most about this and similar studies these days is that they seem to be incorporating ever rising temperatures in their analysis and data.
Since we know that ongoing warming ceased over 18 years ago, one must wonder what temperature data are they using?
This constant reference to global warming and climate change is now tainting almost all research over wide areas of study.
In this light, one must be very skeptical of any conclusions reached, unless one uncritically buys into the narrative they have incorporated into their work.
Sickening…evidence-based science is being undermined, and in a very general and wholesale way.
Can you make a a natural process sound any more alien and ominous than that? They forgot to mention that it’s part of the thermoregulatory process of the planet and is not caused by us.
Exactly!
They seem to be using a definition of the word “disruption” which is at odds with the fact that this cycle has always existed.
It is like saying that thunderstorms are a disruption of the weather.
Each is and has always been a key component of the systems in which they exist.
A better/more apt word might be just to call it a variation, rather than a disruption.
dis·rupt
(dĭs-rŭpt′)
tr.v. dis·rupt·ed, dis·rupt·ing, dis·rupts
1. To throw into confusion or disorder: Protesters disrupted the candidate’s speech.
2. To interrupt or impede the progress of: Our efforts in the garden were disrupted by an early frost. The noise disrupted my nap.
3. To break apart or alter so as to prevent normal or expected functioning: radiation that disrupts DNA and kills bacteria
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disruption
Disruption
Collapse
Super Storm
Catastrophic
…
“disruption”
=========
El Nino is a disruption in the same fashion night is a disruption of day and day is a disruption of night.
Breathing is a disruption of holding your breath. Living is a disruption of death.
…Can’t wait to see what these eggheads come up with during the upcoming La Nina. I’m sure it will be worse yet.
After a quick review, it seems that the water of the Oceans has been ignored while the heat pattern cycles (nino/nina) are included. I will return to the paper if only to find more tasty morsels such as:
” On the other hand, the global land area has lumped more-than-normal P during strong, negative (i.e. La Niña) ENSO phases (Fig. 4). ”
Maybe a more accurate and Climate Sciency statement would have been: on the other hand, the global land area has very likely lumped…..(lumping is , I assume a physical process known only to an elite group).
LMAO!
+100
Ha ha – I told you that it would be too lumpy, didn’t I?
“We all know that Goldilocks has a lot to say about the Three Bears. Everything they have is either too hot or too cold or too big or too lumpy or too hard or too soft or too completely, absolutely wrong.” – See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-3-Bears-and-Goldilocks/Margaret-Willey/9781416924944#sthash.sXuutpfo.dpuf
Let see if I have this right. The increasing greening of the planet will result in a more parched and plant-less earth. Isn’t that like claiming more colder weather will make it hotter outside?
Careful Alcheson. for down that path lies The Dark Side!
A team of researchers recently discovered that global climate change is causing general increases in both plant growth and potential drought risk.
Fortunately CO2, besides boosting plant growth, also increases drought tolerance, because the plant needs less <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoma"stomata and needs to open them less often to get feedstock for photosynthesis, so loses less water relative to the amount of CO2 absorbed (and turned into sugar). What is more, increasing rate of evapotranspiration means more precipitable water, which inevitably comes down as rain, eventually. Hahai nō ka ua i ka ululāʻau (the rain follows the forest), as native Hawaiians observed a long time ago.
So no, I do not think “drought risk” is on the rise, it’s rather decreasing, if anything.
They seem to be assuming, incredibly, that once moisture moves through a plant into the air, that it disappears and is never seen nor heard from again.
I am with you Berenyi, in that they seem to have reached the opposite conclusion that their own evidence presents.
Can the authors be unaware of the studies which show that the same molecules of water which leave a plant in places like the Amazon rain forest, fall to earth as rain again and again, many times and in a short span of time.
This is why drought tends to beget drought, and humid conditions beget rain.
And as well, they seem to overlook the increasing atmospheric
moisture feedback loop that is the key component of the entire CO2-leads-to-CAGW meme!
All excellent points Berényi, but I’ve noticed a very distinct opportunistic trend in AGW alarmist tracts that explains this publication completely; there is a high visibility meteorological event in progress and there’s an obvious opportunity to associate it with AGW. Several “authorities” on climate change have denied the drought in California is related to human induced climate change, on defensible grounds there are records of such events that predate increases in atmospheric CO₂.
This paper is just another feeble attempt to counter that finding. If the authors are lucky it’ll be picked up by a sympathetic (from the root word “pathetic”) science editor and touted in an article blaming yet another weather story as an indictment of fossil fuels. Unfortunately few people will recall the frequent claims made by alarmists that “weather is not climate” whenever someone mentions the unusually cold weather experienced by some region and it will turn into cocktail party talking points for the dwindling middle class. No one will critically review the article or actually read the sorry excuse for scientific research it’s based on. If you doubt this analysis I’ll refer you to the works of Michael Mann and his infamous hockey stick; if it happened once it can and will happen again.
I find this statement vague. What “recent climate change” do they mean? The present drought in their area?
It seems paradoxical that drought would result in greening. Are they saying that plant transpiration will put all the water into the atmosphere and it will never condense again due to DAGW?
It just looks like a high schooler wrote it to look impressive.
It is incoherent
No sign of any serious recognition that what they call “trends” are but phases of longer cycles.
That’s always a possibility. It goes without saying.
Ugh. So much twisted logic from the Climatoons… my head hurts.
Yup, I can see the link, El Nino events and droughts happen on the same planet.
So the unmeasured manmade global warming must be causing both.
The magic gas strikes again.
Lord protect us from plant food.
The word for that paper is turgid.
Decide the result.
Design the research.
Conduct research.
Find known results.
Comment on results.
Models within models.
Annd they ignore obvious gorillas in the room; pesky realities couched in weasel terms.
I perused the paper. This will give you the gist:
Last line of the Abstract:
Continuation of these trends will likely exacerbate regional drought-induced disturbances, especially during regional dry climate phases associated with strong El Niño events.
Last lines of the conclusion:
These changes are likely to exacerbate the frequency, extent and severity of drought. Severe droughts serve as environmental triggers for other vegetation disturbances, including productivity decline, mortality, insect epidemics and fire.
So, basically they are saying that droughts are F***ing things up. I don’t disagree.
The time period is the 21 year period between 1982 and 2013. What they don’t mention is that during this time the world experienced a dramatic increase in utilization of wind energy (wind farms). How dramatic has this increase been? I dunno. My guess would be between a 20 fold increase and a 50 fold increase. Whatever the case, humans have significantly increased the amount of turbulence we introduce into the atmosphere (lower troposphere) over this 21 year period.
Might that be what is causing the droughts?
Why Wind Farms Cause Drought
http://wp.me/p4JijN-1RV
James McGinn:
You ask, “Might that be what is causing the droughts?”
There is no reason to think it might be.
And you failed to provide any supporting evidence for your suggestion when dbstealey repeatedly asked you to provide it.
Richard
Right now there is evidence that the US is experiencing the least total area of drought conditions on record…and the record goes back over 100 years.
Tony Heller has extensive documentation on this particular meme of the basic climate propaganda.
richardscourtney:
And you failed to provide any supporting evidence for your suggestion when dbstealey repeatedly asked you to provide it.
JM:
Maybe you and dbstealey can contact the authors of this paper and inform them that they, apparently, suffer from the same delusion that I suffer from.
Nah!
You’ll find them yourself. Birds of a feather and all that.
James McGinn,
You proposed a hypothesis: that droughts will increase downwind from windmill farms.
I had hoped you would take the next logical step, and do the experiment. It’s an easy one to prove or disprove.
You only need past precipitation records downwind from the hundreds of wind farms world-wide. Those are public records available at no cost.
Compare those records with precipitation occurring since the wind farms were constructed. Prove or disprove your hypothesis. Done right, there are journals that would accept such an experiment.
That seems very simple and straightforward. I was rooting for you, because it’s an interesting hypothesis. But you didn’t come through. All you did was give excuses. What good is that?
Just proposing an idea isn’t a hypothesis, it’s just a conjecture; an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions…
There is too much randomness in data for maps to be very convincing. Besides, anybody can go to google and search on drought maps and wind farm maps and come to their own conclusions. The reality is that only when people are able to conceptualize the importance of boundary layers in the lower atmosphere as being the pathways for the delivery of the energy from the jet streams is there any chance that they will be convinced. And, unfortunately, that is not simple or easy.
Climatology AND meteorology are BOTH consensus sciences. As with all consensus sciences, truth is determined not by empirical methods by whether or not the notion is easily conveyed to a gullible public.
Mostly meteorologists lack the intellectual inclination to properly evaluate many of the notions that have gained acceptance in their field. For example, a notion that is accepted by meteorologists is the notion that “inversion” layers are caused by warmer, mid-level layers of dry (or dryer) air that exert a down force that “caps” the upward movement of moist air below. This is plainly absurd. It is common knowledge that gases have no such abilities. But if anybody challenges them they just ignore them. Just like climatology.
Only through understanding is there any chance for somebody to be convinced of this new theory. And this theory is hard to understand. Moreover, much of what you have to understand can only be understood through meteorology. And, therefore, the psychological pull of meteorology’s seductively simple mythology is inescapable. Consequently, in order to be successful at understanding my theory you first need to be aware that meteorology’s mythology is the nonsense that it actually is. And that is just the first step to understanding. There are many other steps. And only after you had gained the understanding would the results of any experiment be meaningful or convincing.
We have to be realistic about the fact that we are dealing with human nature here. Most people want to be convinced before they will take the time to fully understand. Unfortunately that won’t work with this theory. There are no shortcuts with this. Sorry.
I hope this link works:
The Fourth Phase of Water
http://t.co/BUKr9d69ig
Thank you for the interest and thank you for the suggestion.
James McGinn
President, Solving Tornadoes
solvingtornadoes AT gmail DOT com
Crikey!
James McGinn claims to be the “President” of some organisation with the strange name “Solving Tornadoes”.
I wonder who appointed him and if they are the same people who are paying for him to post nonsense here.
Richard
richardscourtney:
Crikey! James McGinn claims to be the “President” of some organisation with the strange name “Solving Tornadoes”. I wonder who appointed him and if they are the same people who are paying for him to post nonsense here.
James McGinn:
I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must bet to be so sure you are right and so completely unable to say how or why.
J. McGinn,
So tell us, then: who elected you President?
When were nominations announced?
Who were the candidates?
When was the election held?
What was the total vote count?
Was it a tough election fight?
Just wondering… ☺
Here we are, two days later and J. McGinn still refuses to answer a few very simple questions:
• Who elected you President?
• When were nominations announced?
• Who were the candidates?
• When was your election held?
• What was the total vote count?
• Was it a tough election fight?
McGinn is crowing about being President, as if it was some kind of accomplishment.
Was it?
Or like everything else he’s posted, was it meaningless?
That is 31 years.
Menicholas:
That is 31 years.
JM:
Uh, er, . . . I forgot to include my error bars. I meant to say 21 years give or take 10 years. (I learned this from climate scientists. My interest in global warming has not been in vane!)
Cheat grass has rampantly spread right across the US into Canada and beyond in the last 20 years, the side effects are devastating, more fires, outgrows native species which decimates wildlife.
Cheatgrass does not grow when the conditions are dry.
http://scitechdaily.com/images/cheatgrass-wildfires.jpg
http://scitechdaily.com/an-invasive-grass-species-spreads-wildfires-quicker/
They take a couple of observations over a couple of decades, throw in some ‘perhaps’, ‘maybes’, ‘likelys’ and ‘coulds’, put them in a bucket, shake well and scatter them on the ground before them. Then, the big Kahuna climate shaman comes and reads the future of the planet. ‘BUNGA’ is the future.
‘BUNGA’
That’s what my mom would say to us kids in the 60’s, since she was the preacher’s wife and shouldn’t say what she was really thinking.
It’s actually a word from a very funny joke about the typical ‘white’ explorers in Africa, caught by a tribe and being given the choice of ‘life’ or ‘death by bunga’.
How much of the increased ET was caused by warming and how much was caused by increased plant growth are hard to disentangle. It would be worth knowing the amount by which the surface cooling rate was increased by the increased rate of ET.
“Global climate projections also indicate future changes in ENSO characteristics and increasing occurrence of El Niño events”
That’s the wrong sign for increased forcing of the climate. For example the MWP had increased La Nina, while during glacial periods near permanent El Nino states exist.
All this study has done is look at the drying and warming effects of the transition from a cold AMO to a warm AMO, so it has put the cart before the horse. Qualified by the fact that a warm AMO is driven by increased negative NAO/AO, while increased forcing of the climate increases positive NOA/AO.
How does anyone know what the ENSO was doing way back then?
Serious question…I have never heard this.
Proxy studies, including some of Michael Mann’s better works.
Folks? These people are from Montana. Keep that in mind. Some of them have never even seen an ocean and wouldn’t know an El Nino from a shoe lace. They’re using popular nomenclature that’s almost guaranteed to impress the people handing out grants, it’s a slam dunk. They’ve been trained to blame things on climate change; 97% of all scientists will agree with them, and 68.5% will also suggest they use Crest to whiten their teeth.
You can’t treat this as science. I’m not going to say you can’t criticize it, but you absolutely have to have a well developed sense of humor while you do it or it’s just drowning kittens.