Alan Lammey, Texas Energy Analyst, Houston
Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright — the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant.
Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out.
However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way.
Words like “highly possible,” “likely” or “reasonably convincing” about what may soon occur were used frequently. Then there were other words like “mass pattern shift” and “wholesale change in anomalies” and “changes in global circulation.”
Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.
However, amid all of the highly suggestive rhetoric, none of the weather and climate pundits said outright that a global cooling trend is about to replace the global warming trend in a shift that could begin as early as next year.
Van Loon spoke about his theories of solar storms and how, combined with, or because of these storms, the Earth has been on a relative roller coaster of climate cycles. For the past 250 years, he said, global climate highs and lows have followed the broad pattern of low and high solar activity. And shorter 11-year sunspot cycles are even more easily correlated to global temperatures.
It was cooler from 1883 to 1928 when there was low solar activity, he said, and it has been warmer since 1947 with increased solar activity.
“We are on our way out of the latest (warming) cycle, and are headed for a new cycle of low (solar) activity,” van Loon said. “There is a change coming. We may see 180-degree changes in anomalies during high and low sunspot periods. There were three global climate changes in the last century, there is a change coming now.”
Meanwhile, Madden noted that while temperature forecasts longer than one to two weeks out has improved, “what has really gotten much better is climate forecasting … predicting the change in the mean,” he said.
And the drivers impacting climate suggest a shift to cooler sea surface temperatures, he said.
Perhaps the best known speaker was Colorado State University’s Gray, founder of the school’s famed hurricane research team. Gray spoke about multi-decade periods of warming and cooling and how global climate flux has been the norm for as long as there have been records.
Gray has taken quite a bit of political heat for insistence that global warming is not a man-made condition. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible, he said, compared to the amount of CO2 Mother Nature makes and disposes of each day or century.
“We’ve reached the top of the heat cycle,” he said. “The next 10 years will be hardly any warmer than the last 10 years.”
Finally, climate scientist Melita spoke of a new phase in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
“I’m looking at a new, cold-negative phase, though it won’t effect this summer, fall or winter ’08,” he said.
Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman closed the conference by addressing how natural gas prices and policy debates would be impacted by a possible climate shift that could leave the market short gas.
This would be especially problematic if gas use for power generation were substantially increased at the expense of better alternatives.
“If we’re about to shift into another natural climate cycle, we can’t do it without coal-fired generation. So the policy debate has to change,” he said. “Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”
As for natural gas: “Next year, may see a bit of price softening,” Weissman said. “After that, fogetaboutit!”.
Pierre Gosselin:
The warmists are disingenuous when they claim temperatures climbed faster in the 1990’s than TSI increases when the TSI peak of the 1960’s – 1980’s lagged in the seas, knowing full well that the seas constitute 80-90% of GW. It goes to show how utterly incomplete their models have been when they didn’t foresee a temperature plateau from the TSI drop in the early 1990’s possibly coupled w/ increased aerosol albedo/shading.
If the TSI peak of the late 20th C portends a solar crash, then we’re in for a long TSI decrease. Take away -0.3 degrC TSI & -0.3 degrC from soot mitigation and we could be seeing a net -0.6 degrC counter-effect to AGW.
If cosmic rays have even a 1% effect on cloud cover that could add another -0.6 offset against AGW. Now we’re at -1.2 degrC.
If we threw out the bulk of the Arctic thaw of the past 150 years caused by soot deposition, that’d be another -0.15 degrC or a total of -1.35 degrC. And after all, the Arctic thaw is not a problem until possibly thousands of years from now were Greenland to completely fall into the sea!
If we take out the post-Pinatubo UV-B warming of surface ozone, another -0.3 to -0.6 degrC, or -1.65 to -1.95 degrC total offsets (the stratosphere immediately cooled due to post-Pinatubo ozone loss, about -0.6 degrees Celsius, due to loss of UV-warmed ozone — that UV hit the surface, making more ozone as well as warming any already existing).
But what the climate modelers are saying is that we’re headed for +3.0 degrC warming (assuming aerosols are mitigated) all based on the evidence of an ongoing warming trend, presumably all due to GHG.
But if we ignore nearly 1.6 – 2.0 degrees as either a negative forcing or non-critical, then what’s left is approximately equiv. to the amt of warming presumably masked by aerosols, 1 – 1.4 degrees.
And the problem with this is…. ?
All you could find was four…how about the thousands who state otherwise… http://www.enewsreference.com
Taking the long view of things…
Once we topple off the edge of the interglacial, the greens will be screaming for as much CO2 and CH4 release as possible. No doubt someone will seriously propose releasing the methane clathrates to warm the atmosphere.
Come to think of it, if the coming cooling is a repeat of the LIA, someone will propose this as a solution to man-made global cooling.
All vastly entertaining on some levels.
Personally I wouldn’t rule out both sides of the climate debate being right. AGW may be real, and superimposed on solar trends.
Is there some evidence for AGW I’ve missed? Because all of the science I’ve seen shows me that not only is C02 a relatively small player, especially since it’s effect is logarithmic (and thus any additional C02 will have very little additional warming effect), but man’s contribution is only a bit over 3%. So, if you spit in the ocean, then I guess you could say that that additional waters’ effect on sea level was “real”, but the point is, is it in any way significant? No, of course not, and neither is man’s effect on warming via his C02.
We can certainly quibble about whether significant cooling looks likely or very likely as solar science is still young and there is more to be learned. To me though, the evidence points to very likely.
I just love this site.
Thank you so much Anthony for the labors involved in getting this set up.
Comments regarding the current cooling illustrate how valuable this place is. What an array of thoughtful observers.
Yes, we are definitely cooling. Just how much and for how long will be known in the future.
Here is a very thoughtful paper on the implications of any really serious cooling in the future:
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/ArchibaldMarch2008.pdf
I really hope Archibald is wrong. I don’t want my granddaughters to have to deal with a world in the grip of a Dalton or Maunder minimum coupled with growing populations.
The minute I saw T. Boone on the the TV talking, I thought, he wants something. Sure enough, all was explained here on this thread. He wants what every believer in free markets and independent capitalism wants: he wants the privatization of profit and the socialization of losses. That is, when there are profits to be made, he wants them. When there are losses, he wants to share with the taxpayer.
So, there’s a tax subsidy about to go away, hmmmh? Can’t have that. So let’s start up a big ad campaign and act like we want to join hands with all the little people of America and do what the big moneyed interests have failed to do: cut oil imports.
We’re seeing exactly the same thing going on with ethanol alcohol. Take away the subsidies and it will all dry up. Never mind the current system leads to huge market dislocations and food shortages for the poor of the world, it’s time to make money.
T. Boone says he knows more about energy than anyone. Modest fellow isn’t he? Then how come he says we can’t drill our way out of this energy crisis when the use of more natural gas (what he is advocating) will require a great deal of drilling for more natural gas?
Thanks everyone for the discussion.
Redneck,
Anthony’s point is that, in the context of the exploration of AGW, the non-scientists among the group that believes CO2 is the ‘one and only overwhelming’ aspect of AGW initiated the use of the term to cast people (even eminently qualified climate scientists as the mental equivalent of those that deny the existence of the occurrence of historical or scientific facts (e.g., the Holocaust, the ‘semi-spherical ‘earth), with conspiracy theorists such as the second gunman, and the ‘burning jet fuel could not melt the steel in the WTC therefore it was a controlled demolition’, or by associating them with beliefs that are clearly wrong and anyone holding those beliefs is possibly a few bricks short (flat earth, creationism, etc) . The purpose of this, of course, is to avoid having to deal with the messy implications of the arguments these folks put forth by attacking them personally, thus allowing them to ignore the arguments.
Not that you don’t already know this, but the point is they have changed the usage of the word from benign to malicious and that is Anthony’s point. We should not respond in kind because that makes us no better than they are (aside from the idea that this is NOT how scientific debate is conducted).
In any case there are many different viewpoints among the folks who disagree with the IPCC, personally I’m in the ‘AGW exists, but CO2 is NOT the main, overwhelming driver, there are other human caused influences on climate such as land use change (irrigation, de-forrestation), Urban Heat Island effects, soot/sulphate aerosols, etc that have a greater effect’. So I can’t be rightly classed as a ‘denier’, more of a ‘minimizer’ I suppose.
In any case the issue is, if you are engaging someone in an argument (the scientific kind, not the political/social kind) and they start behaving like a 4 year old there is no imperative that you respond in kind, rather, it is a sign that they believe your arguments have merit and are trying to distract you (i.e., it’s an open admission that you’re winning the argument). So the best course of action is to ignore it and continue on as a professional. Eventually people witnessing the argument realize the truth of the behavior.
Redneck, I love the way you cling to your reference tomes, but honestly, honey, ya’ gotta work on the bitterness part.
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I found a link for John McDonald on Nobel winners and AGW.
As with most other things, he appears to be mistaken in his assertions.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/07/lindau-half-of-nobel-prize-winners-are.html
Wind power is “source of opportunity” power, used when it is available and replaced with conventional power sources when it is not. Its role is commodity replacement, rather than capacity replacement. Comparing the cost of “source of opportunity” power with the cost of reliable power is a “fools game”.
Current wind machines have an availability of ~35% and a capacity factor of ~20-25%; and, current nuclear power plants have a capacity factor of ~90-95% . Even if the cost of the power from each were the same, the value would be substantially different.
Storage is the key to adding value to source of opportunity power, but it is not without its own substantial costs. Picture five wind turbines plus storage capable of containing their total daily output to provide reliable power equal to the nameplate capacity of one of the wind turbines.
Or, you could just connect a buzzer to the output of the wind turbine, to wake you when the wind is blowing, so that you can perform whatever power consuming activities are on your “schedule” for the day.
The wind is not a constant speed.
And there are thousands and thousands of towers. Compared to a primary system, its a maintenance nightmare.
Its better to have a handful of large generating stations than it is to have thousands and thousands of teeny ones.
I design maintenance systems and when I look at nukes vs turbines, the latter’s overhead is just so much larger with no real benefit.
T-Boone’s plan is to build subsidy farms, not ecomonical energy producing farms.
I have yet to find anything Anthony says that I don’t agree with.
Regardless of the origins of a word or phrase, they take on new implications as they are used,e.g. how many of us think of a gay party as one just of happy people?
Dogmatism on either side of the climate issue seems to me to be arrogant and possibly dangerous. While I am very much the skeptic I am trying to get some civil, intelligent and useful debates going (particularly in the Austin TX area), to come up with actions that might best be described as climate hedge policies. Any suggestions?
I’n not sure if this is OT or not, but Just in respect to the % concentrations of greenhouse gases, can you guys confirm the following is representative:
Water Vapour = 95%
CO2 = 3.5%
NO2, Methane, CFC’s etc etc make up the rest
I have a few questions and a some theory I would like your comments on, just for my lay person understanding.
Question 1: Is Water Vapour more a potent GHG than CO2?
If this is the case, then I move on, (if not, then ignore the rest!) so please bear with me on this…
Logically speaking, the more CO2 that is put into the atmosphere, the greater it’s percentage of GHG makeup. Equally, the levels of Water Vapour must come
down. The next bit is very simplistic…
If Water Vapour is more potent and the % comes down due to the increase in CO2 levels, then surely the overall GH effect is reduced.
Question 2: Would this overall reduction not cause a cooling effect?
If this theory is logically sound, then it could also explain the time lag of temperature following CO2 levels (see what I’ve done here? I’ve looked at the CO2/temperature relation from a different perspective)
Question 3: Does any of the above stack up? I realise that this is the most simplistic of simple terms and that there are many other factors in driving climate, but it would settle some thoughts I was having.
Many thanks guys.
No one really knows why methane levels stopped rising 10 years ago, but programs to capture methane previously released to the atmosphere probably played a role.
Phillip B., the little reported program to retrofit cows with catalytic converters was probably a major factor, as was the marketing slogan, “BEEF, IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER”.
The forbidden “d” word is thrown at the skeptics by the AGW crowd to paint them in the worst possible light. After all, they don’t “believe”, therefore are evil and must be cast down.
If it continues to cool, I’m quite sure al-Gore and crew will blame it all on those horrible “d”ers. Whatever happens is always bad and the blame has to fall on someone. Nothing changes by itself. If it did, half the lawyers would starve.
As for predictions, we have dozens of variables, only a few equations and we don’t know if they use the variables properly, or what all the variables mean. Slightly better than a crystal ball and tea leaves, although on some days, I’m not sure.
(ahem) I predict the climate (like the stock market according to JP Morgan) will fluctuate.
Here is a site called the Solar Terrestrial Acivity report.
http://dxlc.com/solar/
Playing in their archives is a great pleasure. We learn, for example, that Cycle 23, which until the past few spotless weeks at least was still flickering, began in May of 1996. Assuming that Cycle 24, despite a flash in the pan mini-spot or two several months ago, has not yet started, cycle 23 is 146 months old and counting. The nearest recent cycle in terms of duration was Cycle 20, which began in October of 1964 and ended in June of 1976–140 months. In fact, to find a cycle as longer than 23 has been, one must go back to Cycle 9, which began in July of 1843 and ended in December of 1855, or 149 months.
Now, the longest of all recorded cycles was Cycle 4, from September 1784 to May of 1798–160 months! It bears noticing that the following two cycles, 5 and 6, constitute the Dalton Minimum, the better part of three decades characterized by very weak solar activity as indicated by sunspots and, here below, by the last gasp of the Little Ice Age.
The fact that the current solar cycle is at least among the top 5 in terms of duration over a record that goes back more than 250 years would seem to this layman’s mind, at least, worthy of attention. The super-long cycle 4 was at its maximum, quite active, as Cycle 23 has been, but its extended minimum led into the weak, as well as long, cycles 5 and 6.
HadCrut is in at +0.31°C, beating GISS.
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html#CRUG
Philip_B (16:35:51)
Your ref outlines a long term study of the impact of aerosols on temperature. I found especially interesting this line: …monsoon season shows warming. This warming can be attributed to a significant increase in the low cloud amount.
This is part of what I was referring to in my first comment. I’ve since found the particular study that first intrigued me. The written study is available at Nature. This is where they found temperature differences which were attributed to the aerosols and their effects on cloud formation and precipitation over the Maldives. The area where the aerosol laden clouds covered the northern Maldive Islands were warmed while the clear southern Maldive Islands were cooler. This was during the outflowing monsoonal flow from the Indian subcontinent. I don’t know if the study contains satellite photos but I remember seeing them. This is real science, not playing games on a computer. Here is real demonstrable evidence of man’s influence on the climate. They found impacts on temperature and precipitation. This is why there’s a need to remove aerosols from their source — smokestacks. This would be especially important for India; when the monsoonal flow changes direction, the initial monsoonal clouds only warm without providing the anticipated rain. While the clouds are moisture laden, the water droplets that form on the small particulate matter are too small to coalesce and fall as rain. The effect is to delay the start of the monsoon (maybe even shorten the season}. This is a far more important impact than any imaginary major warming from CO2.
“Why the world education system didn’t get a clue on this two decades ago is a tale for another day (and partially beyond my ability willingly to comprehend, anyway). It’s not a liberal Vs conservative thing. It is sublimely empirical, and has been demonstrated thoroughly, comprehensively, and repeatedly.” Evan Jones
Evan,
This is a very provocative statement and I would like to read more on the subject if you have some recommendations.
From what I understand, knowledge + energy + raw materials = progress. So I get alarmed when one of those ingredients is under attack. Since, as you point out, we can’t run out of raw material, I find it interesting that education and energy are under attack.
I think part of the answer is that some people fear too much progress. But we have to have it. The universe is dangerous and we had better be able to defend ourselves one day.
On the subject of methane clathrates, I understand that vast quantities of methane from these deposits were released into the atmosphere in giant “burps” 55 milion years ago, and this has been linked to the sharp temperature increase at that time.
For argument’s sake, if the late 20th century warming trend started to recur, say after 2015, is there a likelihood that something similar would start to happen in our lifetimes? Or is the “tipping point” for that scenario so high that even using the IPCC’s gloomier projections, the chances would be low to nil?
Another question: what brought temperatures back down after this event, 55 million years ago? In other words, did the climate re-set itself, and how?
I thought it would be interesting to look at this paper http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/clim_res_had_fut_pol.pdf
which was issued by the UK Met Office in which the following was stated
“We are now using the system to predict changes out to 2014. By the end of this period, the global average temperature is expected to have risen by around 0.3 °C compared to 2004, and half of the years after 2009 are predicted to be hotter than the current record hot year, 1998. ”
also in the paper was a forecast graph of temperature anomolies – page 6. As the baseline was different to the normal Hadcrut figures it is necessary to modify the Hadcrut figures. I have added the data for 2005, 2006 and 2007 with the current average for 2008 shown in green. These figures are all derived from the Hadcrut latest figures. The deviation from the predicted is, to say the least, worrying. http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/climate_forecast_updated.jpg
This might cool things down a little:
http://www.physorg.com/news135159318.html
Anyone here know if the D word was used to disparage others before WWII?
Oldjim (09:27:11) :
As the baseline was different to the normal Hadcrut figures it is necessary to modify the Hadcrut figures.
Good to see that if the data doesn’t match the model, then the data must change. If Hadley are saying the the “dangerous” warming will continue after 2009, then it gives them potentially another year to avoid being questioned on the realities. A politically shrewd move.
“Chicken Licken Gases”!
I predict it will wind up costing us one hell of a Henny-Penny.
All you could find was four…how about the thousands who state otherwise…
Not that it is a numbers game, but if you stick around you will find a heck of a lot more than four. There has been a grand shift in scientific opinion over the last year.