From the USA Today Weather Blog
This has been in my inbox for a couple of weeks, so on a fairly quiet day for weather, I thought I’d put this out there. John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville reported earlier this month that the Earth’s climate change over the past 30 years has been rather uneven: It’s gotten much warmer in the Arctic and, at the same time, cooler in the Antarctic.
Christy and his colleague Roy Spencer, who are known in some quarters as global warming skeptics, use data from satellites to measure the temperature of the Earth. The more well-known NASA GISS and National Climatic Data Center data sets primarily measure surface temperatures.
Overall, Christy found that Earth’s atmosphere warmed an average of about about 0.72 degree F in the past 30 years, according to NOAA and NASA satellites. More than 80 percent of the globe warmed by some amount. However, while parts of the Arctic have warmed by as much as 4.6 degrees F in 30 years, Christy says that much of the Antarctic has cooled, with parts of the continent cooling as much as the Arctic has warmed (see map, above; click to enlarge).
“If you look at the 30-year graph of month-to-month temperature anomalies, the most obvious feature is the series of warmer-than-normal months that followed the major El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event of 1997-1998,” says Christy. “Right now we are coming out of one La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event and we might be heading into another. It should be interesting over the next several years to see whether the post La Nina climate ‘re-sets’ to the cooler seasonal norms we saw before 1997 or the warmer levels seen since then,” he says.
He adds that most of the warming found in the satellite data has taken place since the beginning of the 1997-98 El Nino, and that Earth’s average temperature showed no detectable warming from December 1978 until the 1997 El Nino.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the USA “faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.”
Justin Sane (23:16:02) :
Is there not some umbrella anti-AGW group that could sue the US Government to prove AGW is real before they do whatever it is they’re planning on doing? It seems to work pretty good in delaying/stopping actions when the AGW group sue the EPA etc.
I’m looking forward to a suit that alleges that their efforts to combat global warming were vastly too successful and clearly have caused a climate disaster of a mini-ice-age 😉
a) They get to say they accomplished nothing. or…
b) They get to say there is no warming, they were wrong. or …
c) They get to say they were right on and perfect (and explain how… & all the snow and ice… )
I’m with Eric Baum on this one. Satellite images of Asia show a huge brown cloud of soot that rises continously, drifts over the Arctic and falls. This causes the Arctic to melt, and causes the northern hemisphere, especially the northern parts of it, to absorb more heat than parts south. If we spent all of our “fight global warming” budget on reducing soot emissions (known, easy technology), this “global” warming would be completely reversed within a few years.
I’m also with Nick. It’s more than coincidental that warming occurs least where we have the best temperature records, which is in the United States. With the 5 temperature-data correction factors (that NASA et al apply (not to mention the ever-evolving data selection rules), the “corrected” U.S. temperature graphs show our hottest years to be about even with those in the 30s (older graphs showed the 30s to be hotter than recent years, before additional “corrections” were implemented). These correction factors can do a lot more “good” (for the “greater good”) in places where the temperature records are more scanty (i.e. everywhere besides the U.S.).
Eric and Gina
I came across a reference to soot causing the arctic to melt back in 1856 so it is a known problem. As you say it is easy to fix with current technology and would also do a lot for peoples health.
tonyB
Hi Bill Illis,
I am not a scientists; however, I am very interested in learning about ocean oscillations, and how they affects the climate.
You said that the Northern Hemisphere is affected more by the ENSO and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (from the northern Atlantic).
Question 1: Why do you think these two oscillations have more effect on the NH than the PDO?
You said the Southern Hemisphere is affected more by the Southern Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (the AMO’s counterpart in the southern Atlantic) and the ENSO’s impact is very low.
Question 2: Why do you think the ENSO has so little impact on the SH?
I may be wrong, but the ENSO tends to be around the equatorial region.
Question 3: Is there a Southern Pacific Decadal Oscillation south of the ENSO?
Finally,
Question 4: Is there an Arctic Oscillation, and, if so, how does that affect the Polar Ice Cap and the climate in the Northern Hemisphere?
I greatly appreciate your time, and invite anyone to answer the above questions. I am just trying to get a handle on these oscillations.
Jeff Wiita
Mike McMillan (23:38:53) :
Ric Werme (10:56:03) :
“It’s not a Mercator projection, it’s just an unprojected lat/long cartesian grid. Mercator projections that reach the poles are infintely tall.”
Infinitely tall? Citation needed.
In a Mercator projection the distance from the equator (strictly the circle of contact) to the parallel of latitude, theta, is the integral of sec(theta) from 0 to theta. Since sec(theta) approaches infinity as theta approaches 90º Ric’s statement is correct.
See here for example: http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel/m103/mercator/mercator.html
The reason for warming in the Arctic and cooling in the Antarctic is very simple:
Look at a globe. The Arctic is at the top and the Antarctic is at the bottom, right? Well, heat rises!
Therefore, warm at the top, cold at the bottom. Q.E.D.
Sometimes people just overthink these things.
I’ve heard geologists say the current epoch of cool temperatures is largely due to the land mass at the South Pole, which allows huge amounts of ice to pile up. We might be seeing a feedback mechanism at work here.
One wonders if the increased reports of nacreous clouds in the regions
of Scandanavia are symptomatic of anything more than the advent of
the digital camera, instant reporting to a global audience via the web,
or more people looking to the sky.
See http://www.spaceweather.com/ for reports and visuals.
James, that is by far the funniest post yet!!!!
“Can someone explain how if is possible to get 1.2 lbs. of water out of 1 lb. fuel? By “Consevation of Mass”, this would seem to be impossible.”
We sometimes overlook the obvious and such clear answers are important for us all to not take things at face value. Anyway it (unfortunately) got me thinking what are the combustion properties of jet fuel. I took kerosene as a basic jet turbine fuel and decided to work from there. I found that that it has a molecular formula of C12H26 and burns to C12H26(/) + 37/2 O2(g) -> 12 CO2(g) + 13 H2O(g).
I can understand 37 Oxygen atoms are bonded with Carbon and Hydrogen in a ratio 24 and 13 respectively but don’t understand why it is expressed as 37/2 O2 because that only gives me 18.5 Oxygen atoms for bonding and not 37.
Help.
Ouch! I can see my silly mistake now. It’s 37 halves of O2 which is of course is 37. I was reading it as 37 divided by the Carbon and Hydrogen bonds.
OK. Move along, nothing to see here.
Novoburgo
“Ya gotta believe its done that way on purpose.”
I couldn’t possibly comment
Combustion of kerosene produces CO (carbon monoxide):
C12H26+ 12.5O2= 12CO + 13H2O
MartinGAtkins: As a chemical engineer who worked 30 years in refineries, I want to comment gently on the jet fuel combustion chemistry from above.
Your chemical formula for jet fuel is not far off, but it has too many hydrogen atoms for the number of carbon atoms. As written, C12H26, this would be a fully-saturated hydrocarbon a.k.a. paraffin.
However, while jet fuel does have some paraffinic constituents, it also has a substantial amount of carbon rings both saturated and unsaturated, thus the hydrogen number is somewhat less than 26. The composition changes depending on the crude oil, plus some refining processes have an influence.
Further, like almost all petroleum products, jet fuel has a range of carbon numbers, typically from about 8 (although some as low as 4) all the way up to 16 or so. We blend some butane into jet fuel (the 4-carbon) to achieve the desired vapor pressure.
Finally, to get around the 37/2 O2 problem in the reaction chemistry, we normally multiply everything by a small number to get whole numbers across the equation. Thus, to use your example, we would have
2 C12H26 + 37 O2 —> 24 CO2 + 26 H2O.
Note that there are also other combustion products, usually NO, NO2, and some SO2, plus some un-burned fuel and some soot particles. There may also be carbon monoxide, CO.
By the way, the State of California now has official carbon-emission calculations for hydrocarbon combustion, developed as part of the Scoping Plan for Climate Change Initiative, a.k.a. as AB 32. This is the first step toward the Cap and Trade program, whereby every emitter of gaseous carbon (CO and CO2) must measure and report their sins. Measuring is required for 2009, and reporting is due in early 2010. There will be state-certified verifying agents who will check all this measuring and reporting.
I will find the link and post it.
Hope this helps.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, CA
The California Green House Gas Emissions verification protocols (some under development) can be found here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/reporting/ghg-rep/ghg-rep.htm
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, CA
Low Carb Diet Loses 5,000 Pounds
(from California, of course!)
http://www.gilroydispatch.com/lifestyles/252232-try-the-new-carb-diet-and-lose-5000-pounds
Gilroy is a small town just east of Monterrey Bay in California.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, CA
This may be a bit out there but with continental drift heading north could the continents be exerting greater pressure that could generate heat whereas down south less pressure = less heat
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_UwvYopNedMC&pg=PA413&lpg=PA413&dq=continental+drift+causes+heat&source=bl&ots=aLLaDNXxgp&sig=qOyWugrohEC7wRNA7jkL4yU3z6k&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Roy fOMR, TonyB et al:
The high levels of university climate science courses could well be the legacy of Margaret Thatcher that Richard Courtney documents so interestingly here. Thatcher used her science degree to gain global credit; at home she used it to upgrade climate science by damping grants to all research EXCEPT THOSE THAT CLAIMED A LINK TO GLOBAL WARMING – in all disciplines.
What is of vital importance in Thatcher’s unseen legacy is that
the giving of grants to all disciplines could well be what first ensured a multidisciplinary basis of affirmation for AGW.
This is also a form of Divide And Rule, since specialists only know their own expertise.
Oh, and the Hadley centre was also Thatcher’s bequest.
Roger Sowell (14:25:59) :
Gilroy is a small town just east of Monterrey Bay in California.
isnt Gilroy the garlic capitol of California?
pkatt (03:05:40) :
Roger Sowell (14:25:59) :
Gilroy is a small town just east of Monterrey Bay in California.
isnt Gilroy the garlic capitol of California?
So they say. They do grow a lot of garlic, have a garlic processing plant, have the garlic festival (complete with delicacies such as garlic ice cream…) and at harvest time you can smell them about 10 miles before you get there. (I drive highway 152 past the processing plant every month or two so I get this experience frequently.)
I’m just glad that I like the smell of garlic. Don’t know why folks make jokes about it, but I take care knowing that others are not so enamored…
John Cooper (07:24:06) :
Related to my previous post, I hadn’t realized that Singer authored the “airliner” theory of northern-hemispheric warming. based upon data from Christy and Spencer.
Unfortunately he based his arguments on the pre-correction MSU and the results post-9/11 didn’t bear his theory out as I recall.