Guest post by Bob Tisdale
The first part of this post, Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1, should be read prior to this the second part. Part 1 gives an overview of the datasets used in the following, illustrates the processes that take place during an El Nino event, and discusses the primary reasons for the step changes in global SST anomalies that result from significant El Nino events–those El Nino events that are not influenced by volcanic eruptions.
In the following, the periods from January 1981 to December 1995 and from January 1976 to December 1981 are examined.
THE STEP CHANGE FROM 1981 TO 1995
As noted in the introduction (Part 1), the volcanic eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991 interrupted the normal heat distribution processes of the El Nino events that occurred at or near the same time. Figure 14 illustrates the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies, scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies, and scaled (inverted) Sato Index data for the period of January 1981 to December 1995. (This is another graph you may wish to open in a separate window to keep you from having to scroll back and forth.) Again, the Sato Index and NINO3.4 SST anomaly data are not scaled to any specific level; they are provided for timing purposes only. The volcanic eruptions show up as the two depressions in the Sato Index data (green curve). The smoothing rounds off the start time of the Sato data, making it appear as though the Mean Optical thickness reacted prior to the eruption, but because the SST data is smoothed as well the impact on the discussion is nil.
http://i41.tinypic.com/20a8okz.jpg
Figure 14
The 1982/83 El Nino was the ENSO event with the second highest NINO3.4 SST anomaly of the 20th Century, yet there was little to no response by the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies to it. The El Chichon eruption effectively suppressed the heat distribution of that El Nino to the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans. In fact, the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies reacted quite sharply to the El Chichon eruption; they dropped quickly. Then as the volcanic aerosols subsided, East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies rebounded to approximately the same level they had been at before the eruption. Considering the lags in the response of the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies to El Nino events, part of that rebound from mid-1982 to mid-1983 may be attributable to the 1982/83 El Nino. Then, from mid-1983 to mid-1986, East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies modulated slightly until being swept up by the 1986/87/88 El Nino, lagging by approximately 7 months. While the SST anomalies of the 1986/87/88 El Nino did not peak as high as the 1982/83 El Nino, the 1986/87/88 El Nino lasted through the summer of 1987, making it a substantial ENSO event. The response of the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies was similar to that of the 1997/98 El Nino inasmuch as East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies shifted significantly (eyeballing it, more than 0.12 deg C at the lowest level after the 1986/87/88 El Nino). East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies then rose slightly as NINO3.4 SST anomalies rebounded from the 1988/89 La Nina. Note that, like the response to the 1998/99/2000 La Nina, there was little to no response of the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies to the 1988/89 La Nina. Then in 1991 two events, the Mount Pinatubo eruption and the beginning of a multiyear El Nino, occurred at the same time. Due to the magnitude of the Mount Pinatubo eruption, and likely its location in the West Pacific, East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies dropped almost 0.25 deg C over approximately two years. When East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies finally did rebound, possibly due to the ongoing multiyear El Nino, they did not return to their pre-1991 elevated levels.
In Figure 15, the SST anomaly data for the East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans (red curve) were added to the comparative graph. East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies rise and fall from 1981 to 1991, mimicking the variations in NINO3.4 SST anomalies. There was no visible response by the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies to the El Chichon eruption in 1982.
http://i43.tinypic.com/s5jrkl.jpg
Figure 15
A step change in East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies occurs during that period as well. Following the 1986/87/88 El Nino, East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies react to the subsequent 1988/89 La Nina. Then the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (red curve) rise in response to the rebound in NINO3.4 SST anomalies until they nearly match the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies (black curve), and they remain at that elevated level. That is, prior to the 1986/87/88 El Nino, the mean of the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (peak to trough) was approximately 0.05 deg C, but after it, the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies remained almost 0.1 deg C higher, with some minor fluctuations. A final note, the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies did not drop in response to the Mount Pinatubo eruption, but it appears Mount Pinatubo limited the rise of the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies to the El Nino. The minor rise in East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (red curve) countered the significant decrease in the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies (black curve), each responding to different natural events and making it appear that there was little reaction in the global SST anomalies to the Mount Pinatubo eruption or the El Nino at that time.
In summary, referring to Figure 16, which is the same graph as Figure 3 (Part 1), the step change in global SST anomalies between 1981 and 1995 was in response to the 1986/87/88 El Nino. The volcanic eruptions of 1982 and 1991 suppressed the normal step response to El Nino events at those times.
http://i43.tinypic.com/i74utd.jpg
Figure 16
THE STEP CHANGES FROM 1976 TO 1981
Note: I changed the smoothing to a 5-month running-average filter for this period.
The East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies and scaled NINO3.4 SST anomalies for the period of January 1976 to December 1981 are illustrated in Figure 17. There was no volcanic activity during the period, so I deleted the Sato Index data. East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies rose first (eyeballing it, approximately 0.1 deg C) in a lagged response to the first half of the 1976/77/78 El Nino, then rose again (approximately another 0.03 to 0.04 deg C), responding to the second half of that El Nino.
http://i40.tinypic.com/ors18w.jpg
Figure 17
Then the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies respond in a way that was in no way typical of their reaction to all other El Nino events. It may not be unusual if we take a closer look at the 1979/80 El Nino, which was unusual on its own. Refer to Figure 18, which is the raw and smoothed NINO3.4 SST anomaly data for the period of January 1976 to November 2008. The 1979/80 El Nino was not a significant El Nino; its NINO3.4 SST anomalies barely rose above the threshold of 0.5 deg C for a few months. It is so minor it does not register as an El Nino event on the ONI Index. It peaked at approximately 0.7 deg C. It also appears as a gradual rise and fall of NINO3.4 SST anomalies, not a sudden spike typical of other El Ninos.
http://i43.tinypic.com/a31ap0.jpg
Figure 18
In Figure 19, the SST anomaly data for the East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans (red curve) were added to the graph. The East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies again mimic NINO3.4 SST anomalies, making a specific point at which they acquire an upward step difficult to determine. Note, however, that there are underlying steps in the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies that show themselves in the values at the minimums of its cycles in 1976, 1978, and 1980. In other respects it appears that the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (red curve) are simply following a “baseline” established by the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies (black curve). This could be accomplished by natural ocean-atmospheric heat transfer processes and ocean currents.
http://i39.tinypic.com/mufjth.jpg
Figure 19
Note: The 1976 Pacific Climate Shift also occurred at the start of that period. I illustrated the changes in various SST subsets in that post and the possible influence of the Southern Ocean on the 1976 Pacific Climate Shift.
Figure 20 is a simple recap of the cause of the step change in SST anomalies from 1976 to 1981. It was due primarily to the shift of the SST anomalies in East Indian and West Pacific Oceans in response to the 1976/77/78 El Nino.
http://i41.tinypic.com/2mi0umx.jpg
Figure 20
A CONFIRMING PHENOMENON?
Two of my first three posts on this blog (Is There A Cumulative ENSO Climate Forcing? & Is There a Cumulative ENSO Forcing? Part 2) dealt with a phenomenon I had discovered in the long-term NINO3.4 SST anomalies provided as part of a Trenberth and Stepaniak study. The appropriate citations are included in the posts linked above. That NINO3.4 SST anomaly data is in fact HADSST data and uses 1950 to 1979 as base years. The dataset and base years are critical for the following. One question I can’t answer is why Trenberth and Stepaniak chose 1950 to 1979 as base years, but using those base years helped to create a unique response when a running total of that NINO3.4 SST anomaly data is graphed. Note the shape of the curve in Figure 21.
http://i35.tinypic.com/166wxnk.jpg
Figure 21
(I’ll update that running total graph as soon as I get a chance.) The curve mimics the curve of global temperature anomaly time-series data. The scale is wrong, but the proper coefficient would account for that.
Do the step changes illustrated in this post provide a mechanism for this phenomenon? And does the running total confirm that El Nino events are the primary driver of global temperature?
NON-NINO EVENTS
Figure 22 is a graph of NINO3.4 SST anomaly data from 1976 to 2008 in which I’ve noted El Nino events that were impacted by volcanic eruptions. The questions that came to mind were: What would have happened if El Chichon eruption had NOT been disturbed the heat distribution process of the 1982/83 El Nino? Would the equatorial Pacific have needed all of the additional El Ninos to distribute heat to higher latitudes? The same questions apply to the Mount Pinatubo eruption since it delayed the distribution of equatorial heat another few years.
http://i44.tinypic.com/3442jo9.jpg
Figure 22
HADSST
To check my earlier graphs and to assure that the step changes illustrated in the preceding were not resident in the ERSST.v2 data alone, I plotted the four major datasets again, but this time using HADSST2 data available through the KNMI website. Refer to Figure 23. The same step changes and responses to volcanic eruptions appear in the HADSST data.
http://i43.tinypic.com/24zivjt.jpg
Figure 23
GLOBAL SST
There will be those who will note that I used the word “Global” in numerous graphs in this post when in fact I had used data within the coordinates of 60S to 65N, 180W to 180E, excluding the Arctic and Southern Oceans.
It just seemed more appropriate to me to illustrate datasets within the same longitudes.
And there will be those who believe I was misrepresenting the data or hiding additional warming in the areas I excluded.
Nothing could be more from the truth. But to prove the longitudes had little effect on this discussion, Figure 24 is a comparative graph of the two primary datasets used throughout this post, the East Indian-West Pacific SST anomalies (black curve) and the East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean SST anomalies (red curve), compared to GLOBAL [90S to 90N, 180W to 180E] SST anomalies.
http://i44.tinypic.com/65tisz.jpg
Figure 24
CLOSING
In summary, step changes in global SST (and global surface temperature) result from El Nino events because warm water that was once below the surface of the Pacific Warm Pool (and not part of the instrument temperature record) is driven to the surface and eventually returned to the surface of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans (making it a significant part of the instrument temperature record). The other major point of this post was that the heat distribution associated with El Nino events did not occur for all of El Ninos since 1976. The El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo explosive volcanic eruptions suppressed the heat distribution of the 1982/83, the 1991/92, the 1993, and possibly the 1994/95 ENSO events.
SOURCES
Smith and Reynolds Extended Reconstructed SST Sea Surface Temperature Data (ERSST.v2) is available through the NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS).
http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/#climatencdc
It is also available through the KNMI webpage listed below.
The Sato Index Data is available from GISS at:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/
Specifically:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/tau_line.txt
The HADSST data is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer website. http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Where do you plan on publishing this?
about the Pacific warm pool thermocline :
is it as simple ( i know that sounds funny ) as a net increase in cold water in the entire basin that gives the up push or does one have to consider the sea floor topo to locate sources of cold water being channeled from a ‘cold’ location ( perhaps the antartic ) ?
which would lead me to believe that there is a pumping action going on in the pacific cold pool below this thermocline . I would guess that the water temp below the thermocline varies little in temp as you pass down thru to the ocean floor. we all know that water pretty much does not compress, so where is the pumping coming from ?
Perhaps your article should be re-titled ?
The two parts form a great article. Although very detailed and very much supported by data, it was the graph 21 (a confirming phenomenon) that convinces me.
These two posting are certainly a positive contribution to (my) the understaning of long term SST behavior.
Whatever El Nino did and La Nina and PDO do, it’s not impressing the Arctic too much. Substantial shortfall on SIA continues.
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
OT…but not sure where else to post it…
Looks like there’s a small shift in rhetoric regarding climate events. Is this because the AGW train is running out of funding steam?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478024,00.html
“Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months”
One of the highlights…
“Rush to prepare”
“The race is on for better forecasting abilities, as the next peak in solar activity is expected to come around 2012.
While the sun is in a lull now, activity can flare up at any moment, and severe space weather — how severe, nobody knows — will ramp up a year or two before the peak.
Some scientists expect the next peak to bring more severe events than other recent peaks.”
From the headline…I guess the rest of the world is safe from the impending solar crisis in 2012, as it apparently will only shut down the U.S.
JimB
BigRed, you wrote, “Where do you plan on publishing this?”
I’m a blogger, not a scientist. This and my website are as far as it goes. Having Anthony agree to post them is the big leagues for me.
Bob,
It looks like you found out where the heat was hiding. When is it going back into hiding again? Does the warm pool grow smaller when global temperatures rise? Is the size of the warm pool measured regularly?
As regards the matter of three ’steps’ between 1976 and 2005 there were three solar cycles numbered 21 22 and 23 all of which were more active than normal.
I have suggested elsewhere that if three such cycles are more active than average they may well have a cumulative effect notwithstanding that the average activity across the three cycles is steady.
Coincidence or something more ?
Weather event;
‘Killer’ cold snap hits tropical Thailand
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24908326-23109,00.html
Excellent work, Bob! Thank you. (You will forever be banned from posting comments at Real Climate. Does anyone read that blog anymore?)
Stephen Wilde: Could it be that the modern solar maximum was the cause? Since no one dares mention it’s name, solar maximum, it falls from view. And it may have ended with a bang in 2005?
My opinion — It’s interesting to contemplate that the oceans provide a background ‘stirring of the Earth’s temperature’ taking temperature up and down in reaction to stored heat and circulation overturn, this may very well be quite true. But the source driver of it all, what makes it all run … It’s not clear to me that things like the sun’s state, the Milankovich cycles, and other in and out of solar system drivers are not the real driving sources.
For instance, ice ages alternating between glaciation and interglacial warm periods started up slowly about five million years ago, to ravage the Earth. Why? How? Was it orbital, a major sun shift?
It is to naive to think Earth just sits quietly in a benign ‘constant’ sun solar system, just a bystander to the goings on in the Milky Way galaxy, and along for the ride in the universe. How could Earth not be influenced by these massive things, we are like gnats traveling a speck of dust in space, and can be done wiped out in an instant.
One final out of context point, CO2 is not a pollutant, it is the stuff of life itself to carbon life forms, like man. I’m just saying…
OT, but it looks like CO2 and increased temperatures are not as bad for coral and calcifying organisms as we’ve been told (well surprise, surprise!)…
CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs
Prospects for the Future
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/corals/toc.php
of course, it’s not really all that surprising considering corals first appeared when temperatures and CO2 concentrations were much higher…
by the way, it looks like there’s a push for that other “science” blog going on at the polls…vote now!
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-science-blog/
Sdk, your comment began with, “about the Pacific warm pool thermocline…”
I have no reference data to support or refute your comment.
Sekerob, you wrote, “Whatever El Nino did and La Nina and PDO do, it’s not impressing the Arctic too much. Substantial shortfall on SIA continues.”
BUT you provided a link to an NCEP polar view of Arctic SST anomalies. How do you equate Sea Ice Anomalies from that illustration? In the right-hand links of this webpage is a graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent. Click on it or use the link below. So far this year there’s more sea ice than 2005, 2006 and 2007 at the same time.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Additionally, take a look at a post I did a few weeks ago that compared NINO3.4 SST anomalies and volcanic aerosols to the Arctic Lower Troposphere Temperatures (TLT).
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/enso-and-volcanic-aerosols-explain-most.html
It appears that ENSO and volcanic aerosols are the primary drivers of Arctic TLT anomalies, too.
Mike Bryant, you wrote, “It looks like you found out where the heat was hiding. When is it going back into hiding again? Does the warm pool grow smaller when global temperatures rise? Is the size of the warm pool measured regularly?”
There’s a discussion on the PWP here:
http://www.crces.org/presentations/dmv_ipwp/
With an illustration of Indian Ocean (IO) and West Pacific (WP) areas and SSTs.
http://www.crces.org/presentations/dmv_ipwp/images/figure1.gif
And there are links to Equatorial Pacific Warm Water Volume at this post.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/11/equatorial-pacific-warm-water-volume.html
Here’s a comparative graph of West and East Equatorial Pacific Warm Water Volume. The east correlates reasonably well with NINO3.4, and the West counters it. Also, an increase in volume in the West doesn’t mean there’s an El Nino on the way.
http://i35.tinypic.com/dh7diq.jpg
Stephen Wilde, You wrote, “As regards the matter of three ’steps’ between 1976 and 2005 there were three solar cycles numbered 21 22 and 23 all of which were more active than normal.
“I have suggested elsewhere that if three such cycles are more active than average they may well have a cumulative effect notwithstanding that the average activity across the three cycles is steady.
“Coincidence or something more?”
You missed the theme of this post. The steps were due to the effects of significant ENSO events on the East Indian and West Pacific SST anomalies, but with a qualification; the ENSO events could not be impacted by volcanic eruptions. Had there not been the volcanic eruptions, and assuming the number of ENSO event remained the same, there would have been five or more steps. How then would 5 steps have equated to 3 solar cycles? And I’m not showing you theory or hypothesis; I’m illustrating the effects that are contained within measured data. Of course, it’s my take on what the data says, but your comment above does not convince me otherwise.
Bob Tisdale (01:12:54) wrote : I’m a blogger, not a scientist. This and my website are as far as it goes. Having Anthony agree to post them is the big leagues for me.”
Bob, you’re far more than a blogger – you’re a researcher par excellence. You have risen far above many claiming to be a scientist. Because a person has a degree (including a PhD) in a science, they are no more a scientist than I’m a mechanic because I learned to put air in my tires!
As I understand the term “scientist,” it is a person who practices the “Scientific Method.” Hansen and friends have demonstrated they don’t practice the “Scientific Method.” Folks like Lief, Fred Singer, Svensgard, and hundreds of other dedicated individuals who adhere to the “Scientific Method” are the true scientists.
As far as your feeling of being placed in the “big leagues” of sorts because Anthony posted your research, you should be proud. Whether Anthony knows what he’s created or not, WUWT has become somewhat of a down to earth, de facto “peer review” channel for scientists and researchers.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
tarpon,
That is what I would say but there is still a circle to square off.
The sun is the biggest factor long term but as Leif says the observed variations appear very small despite changes in the apparent level of activity.
Consequently I’m inclined to say the sun is the most influential influence in the longer term (over 100 years) but in the short to medium term (up to 100 years) the most noticeable driver from a human lifetime perspective is the oceans.
Bob’s work on this is invaluable because it does far more than I could ever do myself to produce supporting evidence by getting a better correlation between ocean changes and temperature changes.
As I’ve said to Leif I’d be content to see a mere 10% of contribution to atmospheric temperature changes from solar activity (though I suspect more) with a substantial amplifying effect from oceanic variation alternating with suppressing effects depending on whether the oceans are net absorbers or net emitters of energy at any particular time.
Thus I think longer term increasing solar input has been providing a slow background warming since 1600 and in the shorter term the oceans impose their own variability.
Often solar and oceanic inputs are offsetting each other ( and often the cycles in different oceans act against one another) but from time to time they come into phase and much more rapid temperature changes occur.
From 1976 to 2000 or so both solar and oceanic influences were positive.
Now solar and PDO influences are negative with the other oceans falling into line.
What surprises me from current observations and from Bob’s work is that the atmospheric temperature effect seems rather more rapid and larger than I was expecting.
Those three steps are virtually coincident with the peaks and troughs of three solar cycles and the consistent high level of activity APPEARS to provide the cumulative effect.
There is no place in all this for human CO2. The natural elements are bigger by orders of magnitude.
SDK:”is it as simple ( i know that sounds funny ) as a net increase in cold water in the entire basin that gives the up push or does one have to consider the sea floor topo to locate sources of cold water being channeled from a ‘cold’ location ( perhaps the antartic ) ?”
That source of cold water goes from the Antartic along the coast of south america (Chile and Peru) and it is called the “humboldt current”, after his discoverer.
“There is no place in all this for human CO2. The natural elements are bigger by orders of magnitude.”
Indeed. Heh.
May I ask some (maybe stupid) questions ? Why does the El Nino induced increased temperature not go back the last 15 years ? And why did it return to the “normal” temperature in the previous periods ?
Is there any possibility that the increased (sea)temperatures do influnence (reinforce) the El Nino events ? Or with other words is there a self reinforcing relationship between temperature and El Nino intensity ?
The increased arctic and north Russia temperatures are not explained by these El Nino events ? Are there any (cyclic ?) natural phenomena that could explain these warmings ?
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age
11.01.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-0/
“Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.”
REPLY: Consider the source. – Anthony
The non-economic “alternative,” “sustainable,” “renewable” energy sources need a stimulus.
————————————————————-
Alternative energy producers seek stimulus funds
http://thehill.com/business–lobby/alternative-energy-producers-seek-stimulus-funds-2009-01-09.html
“Solar and wind executives are arguing that they need help from the upcoming stimulus measure in order to meet President-elect Obama’s goal of doubling alternative energy production in three years.”
Does Nature’s Thermostat Exist? A Global Warming Debate Challenge
January 13th, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/does-nature%e2%80%99s-thermostat-exist-a-global-warming-debate-challenge/
“In popular political parlance, most climate researchers do not appreciate the nuanced details of how one estimates feedbacks in nature, and therefore they are not qualified to pass judgment on this issue. Therefore, any claims about how many thousands of scientists agree with the IPCC’s official position on global warming are meaningless.”
“And I’m particularly interested to see whether anyone can respond to this challenge without using phrases like “this issue is settled”, “the cloud claim is bogus”, or without ad hominem attacks.”
Obama climate czar has socialist ties
Group sees ‘global governance’ as solution
http://www.iceagenow.com/Obama_climate_czar_has_socialist_ties.htm
12 Jan 09 – Until last week, Obama’s pick as global warming czar, Carol Browner, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
SUPPLEMENTAL GRAPHS
Bill Illis wrote in Part 1, “…dampen down the smoothing and filters so that one can be sure the smoothing is not causing an artifact…”
To assure that no one thinks 5- and 12-month filtering misrepresents the data in the comparative graphs, I’ve added the raw SST anomaly data for the four primary graphs in this post. Note that the vertical scaling is different due to the additional range of the data being plotted.
http://i41.tinypic.com/6ypou9.jpg
Figure 14
http://i41.tinypic.com/1z2eq2f.jpg
Figure 15
http://i44.tinypic.com/fy0uhd.jpg
Figure 17
http://i42.tinypic.com/15rcewg.jpg
Figure 19
Regards
Joe Friday: Just the facts on global warming, ma’am.
————————————————————-
Environmental terrorism
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Memo_3308_Environmental_terrorism.pdf
“I believe that global warming is the biggest scientific scam ever. There is no evidence to prove that the current climate variations are not a natural cycle.”
“These alarmist predictions have backfired. Environmental extremism, and now plain terrorism, is causing tremendous damage to the image of science. It is exacerbated by the failure of conscientious scientists to raise the alarm. Remaining silent is a deliberate decision for which they can be held accountable.”
“The best that they can do is to produce model projections of unverifiable and therefore unchallengeable consequences. This is also why it has to resort to terrorist approaches based on mathematical models instead of an analysis of real world observations.”
“I have no more faith in global climate model (GCM) predictions than I have in all those emails from Nigeria advising me that I have won the Lotto, or those proposals from rich widows in Dubai who have just lost their husbands, or from the less frequent emails from my bank asking for details of my banking account.”
“There was a time in my life when spreading alarm and despondency was a punishable offence. Cowardice in the face of the enemy could result in facing a firing squad. I swore an oath of allegiance to my country. Today there are no such legal or moral standards.”
The Contradictions of the Garnaut Report
Tim Curtin
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/1-2/the-contradictions-of-the-garnaut-report
“The Garnaut Report’s stringent emission reduction targets stand or fall on the validity of the climate science of the IPCC. Apart from the Arrhenius hypothesis that rising carbon dioxide levels can have a warming effect, the rest of the IPCC’s climate projections derive from models heavily dependent on the unfounded assumptions that biospheric absorption will decline with the higher temperatures arising from elevated carbon dioxide, thereby further raising carbon dioxide and temperature in second-round effects, and that all other feedback effects will also be positive for warming.”
Willem de Rode, you wrote, “May I ask some (maybe stupid) questions ? Why does the El Nino induced increased temperature not go back the last 15 years ? And why did it return to the ‘normal’ temperature in the previous periods ?”
Please refer to both posts. I’ve covered the past 32 years (1976 to 2008) in them, so I’m confused by your initial questions, which makes the others even more confusing.
Bob Tisdale said
I don’t disagree. Also see my reply above to Kum Dollison. The edited version is: The AGW hypothesis says that greenhouse gases should warm the skin and the mixing layer of the oceans and increase subsurface temperatures as well by locking in more heat.
First, let me thank you for posting this thought provoking hard work. It’s what makes this site so interesting. I am not a climatologist, just an engineer, from a time when you were taught the basics of science and mathematics and were left on your own to figure out how to do simple things like write programs.
An observation — When you consider that CO2 heat trapping ability is logarithmic, that effect would be minimal on it’s own. A skin layer of absorbed CO2 would not be able to contribute much to the total heat stored. I would think any overall effect above just plain absorption by water would be minimal. It’s the old ‘painted glass phenomena’ the more you paint the less effect it has, in this case the paint is CO2.
Your various graphs are thought provoking.
—
Stephen Wilde said
“Consequently I’m inclined to say the sun is the most influential influence in the longer term (over 100 years) but in the short to medium term (up to 100 years) the most noticeable driver from a human lifetime perspective is the oceans.
Bob’s work on this is invaluable because it does far more than I could ever do myself to produce supporting evidence by getting a better correlation between ocean changes and temperature changes.”
I agree completely … But what other effects may lurk out in the solar system and even the universe. We know massive extinction events may have been triggered by cosmic ray blasts, what else could be effecting energy transfer to-from the Earth, Sun and Universe. When dealing with science as strange and vast as the Universe, I always tend to go to the part we don’t know, that which is now undiscovered and may be the significant part of the puzzle.
—
Stephen Wilde said:
“What surprises me from current observations and from Bob’s work is that the atmospheric temperature effect seems rather more rapid and larger than I was expecting.
Those three steps are virtually coincident with the peaks and troughs of three solar cycles and the consistent high level of activity APPEARS to provide the cumulative effect.”
It’s quite a standout to see in Bob’s graphs. But the old nag, correlation is not causation, makes me cautious of conclusions. I look at the oceans as just a big bowl of ‘stored heat’, mixing, storing and releasing, not driving the whole. The graphs do point out an interesting storing, mixing scenario.
What I find fascinating is that the longer we study the problem, the more complex it gets. It’s nothing like the simplified form that the warmists would hope the public would buy. I don’t think it possible to leave out the effects of things we don’t know, for instance things like the recently discovered effects of Galactic Comic Rays and cloud formation. This could be huge in the scheme of things. The sun may have been protecting the Earth in ways now little understood.
—
Stephen Wilde said
“There is no place in all this for human CO2. The natural elements are bigger by orders of magnitude.”
— double Hey. And with that I can completely agree. It’s as if the words, carbon life forms is never to be spoken out loud. It’s going to be funny when afetr AGW is all hashed out, we have a very good measure of the urban heat island effect.
After a while, you believe man’s brain is just too small to figure it all out … LOL.
I’m really sorry, but I tried reading part 1 but it was too dense for me, and i skipped part 2. From the titles and from my limited understanding of part 1, it looks like Bob’s argument is that there were some El Nino events, but when the event was over, the heat didn’t go back to wherever it came from but hung around. Why not, and when will the heat leave? Can someone post a simple one paragraph summary?
See THIS IS REAL SCIENCE.
I know there is just a few hours left in the science blog voting and other sites are closing the gap quick. If you haven’t voted today please vote for WUWT now, Anthony deserves our support!
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-science-blog/
On the Bloomberg there was a weather report that forecast bitter cold heading into Friday for the eastern area. I’m still holding out hope for a frozen and maybe even snowy inauguration… The report was by Accuweather, so I went to the web site where they have a specific inauguration page:
http://www.accuweather.com/regional-news-story.asp?region=eastusnews
The form of the URL leads me to believe that this is the story of the day for the east region and will change to some other story after inauguration…
It predicts warming just in time for inauguration, but does hold out a small chance for snow from an offshore system.
(FWIW, Bloomberg is at: http://www.bloomberg.com though I did not see the weather story on the online version. It’s probably under the ‘live TV’ option, but since I already have it on the real TV…)
Bob,
Lot of stuff in there; I’m going to have to print it all out so I can digest at leisure.
I was intrigued by your Graph 21; and if my understanding of the English language is correct, you have simply added up on a continuous basis, some periodic value for the anomaly at that time. That would explain why the scale is in tens of degrees instead of hundredths of degrees. (so what is the time interval between data points added to the heap?)
I’m curious as to what prompted you to do that ?
We often hear that ” a single years cooling (or warming) is not indicative of climate trend.” or words to that effect. I have regarded that kind of statement with a jaundiced eye, on the theory that if the periodically reported variable data are real data and not simply noise, that whatever happens “next” has to at least start from exactly where we are now.
And that belief has led me to state (IMHO) that “Climate is NOT the average of weather; it IS the integral of weather .” meaning that all the forces that are acting simply add up continuously, to result in the present state.
Your fig 21, if I understand what you did, is exactly an integral of El Nino, or whatever passed for El Nino Data in your data base. It may not include all weather or climate influences, but it does include those that are immediately associated with what we call El Nino.
In which case, your fig 21 is a manifestation of my assertion that Climate is the integral of weather, not the average of weather.
Now if I just understood what causes El Nino; we know from assertions from the AGWers, that it has nothing whatsoever to do with that big blank Orange ball over there on the right on Anthony’s forum; how could a puny 0.1% solar variation do anything to planet earth.
Problem is, that if we eliminate old sol from causal considerations; whatever the hell comes next is even punier; ocean bottom volcanism ? or lunar drag; maybe the outer planets; planet X? nah it couldn’t be the sun that drives our climate.
Anyway, and interesting look at some ideas of yours.
George
Tom: You wrote, “…it looks like Bob’s argument is that there were some El Nino events, but when the event was over, the heat didn’t go back to wherever it came from but hung around. Why not, and when will the heat leave? Can someone post a simple one paragraph summary?”
An El Nino is a way for the Earth to distribute heat away from the Tropics so that it can be radiated more efficiently into space. It releases heat that’s been stored (most of it well below the surface) in the West Pacific Warm Pool into the atmosphere and also spreads it around the surface of the West Pacific and East Indian Oceans. But it takes a while for the heat to dissipate, and what happens is the next El Nino comes along before all the heat is gone and adds to it, causing a step change in the sea surface temperature of the West Pacific and East Indian Oceans.
When will the heat leave? It appears to have been subsiding globally for a few years. It took decades for it to build up; it’ll take decades for it to dissipate. Last winter there was a significant La Nina that helped lower global temperatures. We’re working into another La Nina that appears to be getting stronger, which would help lower global temperatures more. Will that help lower the sea surface temperatures in the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans? It should help. We’ll just have to watch and see.
I hope that helped. BTW, it’s really not an argument or a theory, Tom. I’ve just explained in these two posts what I believe the data shows.
George E. Smith, “I was intrigued by your Graph 21; and if my understanding of the English language is correct, you have simply added up on a continuous basis, some periodic value for the anomaly at that time.”
A running total is illustrated in Figure A of the following link:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/howdoi/?p=188
You also wrote, “I’m curious as to what prompted you to do that ?”
I was looking to see if I could spot trends.
I snipped the following from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-there-cumulative-enso-forcing-part-2.html
If the intensity and frequency of El Nino and La Nina events were equal, they would balance one another, and a running total would hover near zero.
Example:
Annual Nino3.4 Values = +2, -1.5, +1.0, -1.5
Annual Nino3.4 Running Total = +2, +0.5, +1.5, 0
But the intensity and frequency of positive and negative ENSO events are not equal and preparing the running total of the data created a curve that mimicked global temperature anomaly.
Hey Bob,
Since you are not a climate scientist and since, by far, the majority of climate scientists support global warming. And since, if correct, the results to the earth and life as we know it will be devastating, why is it not prudent to error on the side of caution. I mean we can always go back to our polluting ways if the experts are wrong, but if we do nothing and the experts turn out to be right, we’re kind of screwed aren’t we?
Roger from Loveland
REPLY: Consider the source. – Anthony
————————————————————-
Astronomical Theory of Climate Change
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
“Changes in the “tilt” of the earth can change the severity of the seasons – more “tilt” means more severe seasons – warmer summers and colder winters; less “tilt” means less severe seasons – cooler summers and milder winters. The earth wobbles in space so that its tilt changes between about 22 and 25 degrees on a cycle of about 41,000 years. It is the cool summers which are thought to allow snow and ice to last from year to year in high latitudes, eventually building up into massive ice sheets. There are positive feedbacks in the climate system as well, because an earth covered with more snow reflects more of the sun’s energy into space, causing additional cooling. In addition, it appears that the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere falls as ice sheets grow, also adding to the cooling of the climate.”
“The earth’s orbit around the sun is not quite circular, which means that the earth is slightly closer to the sun at some times of the year than others. The closest approach of the earth to the sun is called perihelion, and it now occurs in January, making northern hemisphere winters slightly milder. This change in timing of perihelion is known as the precession of the equinoxes, and occurs on a period of 22,000 years. 11,000 years ago, perihelion occurred in July, making the seasons more severe than today. The “roundness”, or eccentricity, of the earth’s orbit varies on cycles of 100,000 and 400,000 years, and this affects how important the timing of perihelion is to the strength of the seasons. The combination of the 41,000 year tilt cycle and the 22,000 year precession cycles, plus the smaller eccentricity signal, affect the relative severity of summer and winter, and are thought to control the growth and retreat of ice sheets. Cool summers in the northern hemisphere, where most of the earth’s land mass is located, appear to allow snow and ice to persist to the next winter, allowing the development of large ice sheets over hundreds to thousands of years. Conversely, warmer summers shrink ice sheets by melting more ice than the amount accumulating during the winter.”
————————————————————-
The Milankovich cycles seem to be a better explanation for the variations in the North Pole ice cap than the computer models for global warming. The NOAA Paleoclimatologists are aware of the possibility.
The Pravda article is on the alarmist side. Like the IPCC computer models, it ignores other mitigating factors.
Devoloping a computer model for chaos can be difficult.
Roger, you wrote, “Since you are not a climate scientist and since, by far, the majority of climate scientists support global warming. And since, if correct, the results to the earth and life as we know it will be devastating, why is it not prudent to error on the side of caution. I mean we can always go back to our polluting ways if the experts are wrong, but if we do nothing and the experts turn out to be right, we’re kind of screwed aren’t we?”
Roger, I fail to see what your comment has to do with my post. I illustrated a process that shows up in the data–nothing more, nothing less. But since you raised the fact that I’m only a blogger and not a scientist, I’ll remind you of two basic facts.
First, my discussion was based on the actual data, not the output of a GCM that was programmed to calculate how much global temperature will rise in response to an increase in greenhouse gases.
Second, as I noted in a comment on the other thread, “There will, of course, be those who disagree, but since GCMs (the few that try to model El Ninos) do not reproduce their historic frequency, or magnitude, or dynamics well, it will be tough to contradict the data.”
If you’d like to dispute what I’ve presented, use the links above, download the data, prepare your graphs, write up your interpretation of the data, and post the results somewhere so we can discuss it. Otherwise, your comment has no value in this discussion.
Well I suspect one would be hard pressed for anyone to demonstrate that Milankovitch cycles have had anything to do with any observed climate changes in the last 100 years, let a lone the last decade..
I suspect that earth orbital changes, including the effect of every known planet, can be computed using a computer to a quite high precision; and none of it would explain what can only be described as eratic or chaotic changes in earth climate.
George
George: Do you feel the same way about the Earth’s magnetic field – climate link?
http://geology.gsapubs.org/cgi/reprint/37/1/71
George: Sorry. Misinterpreted your point. Disregard my comment. Nevertheless, the January 2009 article I posted might be of interest.
Just noted your post up there Bob respnding to Roger (whose post I haven’t read yet.)
So how many “climate scientists” the majority of whom believe in AGW according to Roger; or more accurately according to your quotation of what Roger allegedly said, are physicists with a sufficient knowledge of orbital dynamics, thermodynamics, molecular spectroscopy, cosmic ray physics, solar physics, etc etc etc to be able to make an informed decision as to whether the computer models used by “climate scientists”, many of whom, are statisticians, biologists, historians, oceanographers, glaciologists, etc etc etc are valid models of what planet earth does, in response to the forces around it.
I doubt that there are many fields of “science” where more disciplines are brought to bear on a subject than happens in “Climate Science”.
We have people citing famines, and plagues, and catastrophic weather events, social unrest, economic upheavals etc etc etc, all in the discussion of “climate science” and what to do about it.
Then there are the politicians and the philosophers, the ecologists the behavioral scientists, all of whom have an opinion about what we should do about responding to somewthing that they understand nothing about.
The so-called precautionary principle is a philosophical principle, not a scientific one.
So we send out five ships on an expedition just in case catastrophic disaster should befall most of them; then we can fall back on the backup plan. In the process we divide our resources in this shotgun approach to progress.
So just what is our backup plan if all five of our ships come home; and we wasted so much resource on all the backups, that we have nothing left to proceed effectively on the course of action that our returning ships suggest would be fruitful.
The precautionary principle, has never led to progress; but it has sure wasted a lot of resources, and continues to do today.
I just got back from lunch during which I watched on C-SPAN as the great Senator John Kerry and his Foreign Relations Committee gave a soft ball “confirmation hearing” to Senator Hillary Clinton in her bid to become Secretary of State.
So Kerry goes off the deep end talking about how the “Scientific concensus” is so overwhelmingly strong; and we are so far out on a limb past the climate “tipping point” that if the committee doesn’t quit talking and confirm the new SofS, so she can sprint over to the UN and volunteer the US to remove all the GHG from the atmosphere, that Washington DC will be awash in sea water, and half of the island nations on earth, including Indonesia will be wiped off the map.
Now Clinton may just be far more intelligent, than Kerry’s entire committee put together of both parties; and could even make a betetr SofS than the current disappointment in that office.
But I think there are far more important issues facing the world than pushing Ponzi Scams to sell carbon dioxide pollution rights to each other, in a futile attempt to alter global climate.
In terms of her politics we are worlds apart, but she just may be two oreders of magnitude smarter and more savvy than her soon to be Peter Principled boss.
Heaven spare us, if she goes of on Kerry’s futile tilting at windmills.
Hear hear !
George E. Smith
“Well I suspect one would be hard pressed for anyone to demonstrate that Milankovitch cycles have had anything to do with any observed climate changes in the last 100 years, let a lone the last decade.”
————————————————————-
The earth wobbles in space so that its tilt changes between about 22 and 25 degrees on a cycle of about 41,000 years. One hundred years is 0.0024% of the cycle time. Changes certainly imperceptible over that time frame of 100 years.
This change in timing of perihelion is known as the precession of the equinoxes, and occurs on a period of 22,000 years. One hundred years is 0.0045% of the cycle time. Changes certainly imperceptible over that time frame of 100 years.
The “roundness”, or eccentricity, of the earth’s orbit varies on cycles of 100,000 and 400,000 years, and this affects how important the timing of perihelion is to the strength of the seasons. One hundred years is 0.001% and 0.00025%, respectively, of the cycle time. Changes certainly imperceptible over the time frame of 100 years.
Changes being imperceptible does not deny their existence.
————————————————————-
“I suspect that earth orbital changes, including the effect of every known planet, can be computed using a computer to a quite high precision; and none of it would explain what can only be described as erratic or chaotic changes in earth climate.”
————————————————————-
The success in celestial navigation shows that high precision can be achieved, although, there are course changes necessary in-route.
Why would you expect such a computation to explain changes in Earth’s climate without knowing the effect on climate of the orbital changes due the Earth’s position in each of the cycles? While changes may appear chaotic, nothing in Nature is erratic. Well, maybe man’s nature.
We have not considered the position of the Solar System position in the Milky Way Galaxy which is subject to cycles analogous to the Milankovich cycles.
Lulo, I’m presuming that you are asking for my opinion relative to the link you posted. ?
Right now I don’t have time to go look at that, but as to whether I am supportive of the Henrik Svensmark et al’s thesis of local magnetic field interraction with cosmic rays and other charged particle showers, and their effect on cloud formation and hence negative feed back cooling effects; the answer is I think that conclusion is inescapable.
I personally believe that so long as we have those oceans out there, we couldn’t change the temperature of this planet (significantly) either up or down even if we desperately wanted to. I believe, as far as the great global question of does the earth radiate enough Electromagnetic Radiation energy out into space to maintain the global surface in a comfortable range (sans major orbital shifts and unpredictables like asteroid/cometary encounters), that the answer is yes it does; and the Svensmark Cosmic ray Hypothesis which brings solar effects into play, is a significant part of that.
No I don’t have a good understanding of how some of the details work, and I certainly have no understanding of how PDOs and La Ninas, and El Ninos/ENSOs and other recognised climate cycles work, so I don’t pay a lot of attention to those details, I’m not really competent to do that. But I do understand a lot of the basic pHysics, and themodycnamics related to the bigger question.
I don’t deny we’ve had some warming recently; I don’t deny that CO2 and other trace molecules intercept outgoing earth thermal IR radiation, delaying its exit, and creating surface heating in the process; but I bleieve that the atmosphere cannot distinguish between one GHG and another.
Take the CO2 situation at say 385 ppm (molecular abunbdance) today. That’s one CO2 molecule for every 2597.4 total atmospheric molecules. Cube roort of that is about 13.75.
So that means that any atmospheric CO2 molecule has to look pasta bout 14 layers of molecules around it in any direction to find another member of its species (on average). Clearly they don’t even know that another like them even exists. A CO2 molecule interracts only with Nitrogen, and Oxygen, and occasionally one of those weirdo soloist Argon atoms. The energy that a CO2 molecule collects by absorbing a 14.77 thereabout micron photon, is rapidly transferred in some fashion to the ordinary gases of the atmosphere, so it heats the atmosphere. Each CO2 molecule acts independently and individually; they do not co-operate with themselves. Any other GHG molecule does the same thing, except theyt may target different regions of the emitted IR spectrum.
Water vapor is a bit different in that it is much more prevalent (on average) as in about 1% globally, but likely more than that in humid zones and less than that in low moisture regions. Water vapor generally can grab the same spectrum energy that CO2 does, so it is more than capable of doing the same atmospheric warming that CO2 does.
The thermal radiation from the (heated) atmosphere, is a function of the regular atmosphere itself and its temperature, with some small addition of additional components due to re-emission of an IR photon from some CO2 or other GHG molecules, before they sufefr collisions with atmospheric gases.
So the re-radiated IR that goes back down to the surface, is a function of the lower atmosphere, and the only significant way the GHG molecules affect that is to some extent their properties determine in what atmospheric layers the heating takes place.
So total GHG including water vapor seems to rule the roost, and in humid air CO2 will have less IR to get involved in.
Overall, I reject the 150 year old Arrhenius thesis that CO2 causes all the surface heating, as simply unsupportable in light of modern knowledge.
Any effects it may have are overhsadowed by the fact that water in the form of liquid and solid in clouds produces negative feedback cooling that offsets the positive feedback warming due to vaporous water. Liquid, and solid water in clouds, also contribute to absorption of incoming solar spectrum radiation, thereby directly heating the upper atmosphere, before that energy gets a chance to reach the ground; but remeber than any solar energy so extracted form the incoming solar, is then unavailable at the surface, so the surface solar heating is reduced by solar absorption in clouds.
So you do have an atmospheric warming by solar, along with a cooling due to blocking solar from the ground. the cooling wins, because direct atmopsheric heating from absorbed solar spectrum, causes a vertical convective transport to higher altitudes, where cooling and re-radiation to space can dispose of it.
I’m sure the exact details are alot more complicated than my simple handwaving; but I believe the basic processes are inescapable.
I don’t know if that answers your question, but bottom line I am a fan of the cosmic ray/solar magnetism/earth magnetism interraction with water and clouds.
Before anything I left a name that might seem absurd, even offensive, but for anyone seeing a certain site that insulted WUWT, concerning the weblog awards, you’ll notice that I took it there (proudly, and I’ll keep it) and got good old Joe to STFU after accepting his bet (at WUTT you can use and check the mail, it’s real enough and to you I’d be proud to talk to).
I think that in this article they might be on the good track, I would like to point to the poster the following article at NATURE (dully peer reviewed as AGW fanatics demand)
http://www.essc.psu.edu/~dseidov/meteo597/papers/Moy_et_ql_Nature_2002.pdf
Best regards
A MAJOR ASS
To Bob Tisdale,
Thanks Bob; just wanted to be sure I understood what it was you did.
Pretty hard to argue with the concept that the sun keeps sending us 1368 W/m^2 over an intercept area about 1/4 the global surface area, and all sorts of processes mess with that energy, and send some of it back out in some form, and we are the beneficiaries of all of that stuff going on ALGEBRAICALLY ADDITIVELY.
The 1998 El Nino, was certainly a Royal Command Performance; and I haven’t seen any La Nina data yet to rival it, so I gotta go with your concept.
George
SUPPLEMENTAL DATA
The paleoclimatological record reveals the present Indo-Pacific Warm Pool Sea Surface Temperature is well within the range of PWP SST for the past millennium, even excluding the spike in 1463.
http://i35.tinypic.com/11rb3ae.jpg
RECONSTRUCTION SOURCE:
PACIFIC WARM POOL SST RECONSTRUCTION (1004 to 1840)SUGGESTED DATA CITATION: Newton, A., et al. 2007. Indo-Pacific Warm Pool MD9821-60 Last Millennium Mg/Ca, d18O, SST, SSS Data. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 2007-018.NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
Data and Description:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/newton2006/newton2006.txt
This was one of the SST reconstructions discussed in this thread,
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/07/sst-reconstructions.html
Present PWP SST based on ERSST.v2 data is also illustrated there.
Stephen Wilde asked about the solar effect.
Awhile ago, I pulled apart the components of GISS ModelE and one of those components is the Solar Forcing component.
Unlike just about every other component (other than GHGs), GISS has built in a slightly positive impact from good old Sol. I’m not sure how they derived this but it is the only Solar increase Temperature impact I have seen from the traditional climate research field.
Here it is since 1880 versus GISS Temp. An increase to 2003 of about 0.1C (versus the GISS temp increase from 1880 to 2003 of 0.7C or 15%). I imagine GISS will have reduced this number to 0.0C now with the currently quiet Sun – the same numbers they used for the early 1900s.
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/3111/modelesolarej8.png
A MAJOR ASS; Thanks for the link.
Bob Tisdale “the intensity and frequency of positive and negative ENSO events are not equal and preparing the running total of the data created a curve that mimicked global temperature anomaly.”
One way of analyzing this would be as a random walk. Even flipping a fair coin, there are long runs of heads(tails) that make it appear that the coin is biased. It could be the same here, over a very long term El Nino and La Nina occur in equal numbers but we just happen to have come through a period where the random fluctuations created a string of El Ninos.
George: Thanks for the thought-provoking response, which I will consider more thoroughly when I have the time… research, kids, teaching, admin… aaaagh!
Bob
Very interesting stuff which I will have to wade through a few times to get the complete idea.
A question:
On graph 15 for example the red title says:
West Pacific- Atlantic-East Indian SST……
and the text says:
East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans (red curve)
I’m confused by this (nobody else seems confused!!). Am I missing something? (It is the same on your web site)
Stephen Wilde seems surprised at how quickly the atmosphere reacts to solar input compared to the oceans, but the answer seems clear: The atmosphere weighs a lot less than the oceans. It therefore heats up quicker, and cools down quicker. A cooler atmosphere is going to suck dissipated heat from the ocean quicker too.
Bob has shown us a mechanism at work. The heat was hiding away from our thermometers, already stored in the ocean from years ago. It’s very sensible that he sticks to elucidating the data and doesn’t speculate on the source. Others can pick up the football and run with it.
Personally, I think the sun provides it, the atmosphere transmits most of it in, the oceans store it, the weather releases and dissipates it, and the atmosphere transmits it out again. Bob’s patient and careful work has found the big battery which stores it away from our sst and land and satellite measurements.
The IPCC attributes 0.1C to solar over the C20th. This will be because they weren’t measuring the increase in the Pacific Warm Pool, and correlating it to the heightened C20th solar cycles.
The further ramification of this revelation is that changes in cloud albedo would only have to be small globally, and a bit larger in the region of the PWP to have a profound feedback effect on the earth’s energy balance.
Maybe the next thing to look at is how much of the heat in the warm pool is insolated locally, and how much arrives by eddying out of passing currents coming from far away.
Bill Illis,
Thanks for the solar link. I hadn’t seen that one before but a 0.1C solar effect out of a total change in temperature over the period of 0.7C suits my ideas just fine.
It gives an adequate background trend over which one can overlay the oceanic effects detailed in Bob’s work. It is also not a lot more as a proportion of total observed warming than Leif conceded. He suggested a maximum solar contribution of 10% but, hey, we are all guessing at this stage.
It would be useful to know the scale of the average oceanic amplification or suppression of any background solar signal. As a first guess I’ve suggested elsewhere that a multiple of 5 times either way would explain all observed temperature trends without involving any CO2 effect.
One further thought: does anyone know how much volcanic activity there is on the ocean floor below the pacific warm pool, and how much energy it releases into the ocean above it? Do we know from basic principles whether it is lots of orders of magnitude less than the amount of energy being dissipated via the mechanism Bob has identified?
Steve Hempell: You wrote, “On graph 15 for example the red title says:
West Pacific- Atlantic-East Indian SST……
and the text says:
East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans (red curve)”
Steve, THANK YOU for finding those typos. And, of course, since I cut and pasted the titles, the error on one got transferred to all. The text in the post (East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean) is correct, the coordinates in the graph title (60S-65N, 180-80E) are correct, and most importantly the data for the datasets are correct, but the titles for the “Red Curves” in those 6 graphs, unfortunately, are wrong. They should read “East Pacific-Atlantic-West Indian Ocean”. Then I repeated the error in the supplemental graphs.
I am making the corrections now.
Thanks again.
Bob: you’re wellcome.
Feel free to mail if you wanto to talk about it (WUWT is fully authorised to disclose my mail to you)
Am I missing something? Bob’s post is titled: Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? Then he goes into great depth to discuss the sea surface temperatures of the oceans (11 SST graphs in total), the heat distribution and the suppression of the effects by volcanic eruptions.
But nowhere he makes the link to the global temperature record, which after all includes land surface temperatures as well. He doesn’t show any global surface temperature anomaly graph. Only in his closing remarks he mentions out of the blue between brackets: (“and global surface temperature”). He also concludes that El Nino events are the result of “warm water that was once below the surface of the Pacific Warm Pool (and not part of the instrument temperature record) is driven to the surface and eventually returned to the surface of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans (making it a significant part of the instrument temperature record).”
Sure, when that happens SST increase. But the more fundamental question is: What is the origin of the heat content of that warm water and WHY is it there in the first place and WHEN and from WHERE was that heat added to the oceans? During the warming period between 1910 and 1945 or more recently or centuries ago? One would expect the heat content in the oceans to increase during an extended period of increased radiation (in a period of less cloudiness and/or increase TSI).
We don’t want to fall into the trap of the chicken and the egg. One could try to explain the universe (Global warming) as an act of God (ENSO) but that only begs the more fundamental question, ad infinitum, of who or what created God.
I can only conclude that there is a disconnect between his closing statement and the title of his post.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked the effort he made to explain the temporal and areal SST distributions during El Nino’s.
Chris Schoneveld,
Normally one would expect the heat content in the oceans to decrease during a period of warm SST because more heat is being released to the atmosphere BUT it depends on the amount of incoming solar radiation at the time.
During the period 1975 to 2000 total heat content seems to have increased DESPITE repeated strong El Nino events. It is a question of balance between the two at any given time.
The reason could have been that because solar input was at a historically high level it was still putting in more energy than the oceans were releasing.
That still begs the question about time lags within the ocean but that will have to be resolved elsewhere.
Chris Schoneveld, you wrote, “But nowhere he makes the link to the global temperature record, which after all includes land surface temperatures as well.”
The second part of this post was written on Sunday. In its first draft, I included a closing paragraph about global combined (LST+SST) surface temperature, but felt it was an opening for off-topic discussions, so I deleted it. By that time, the first part of the post had already been on-line at my website for a day and was already receiving above normal activity, about five times my normal hits for a Sunday. I didn’t feel it appropriate to go back and change the title.
Regarding the rest of your comment, the intent of a blog post is to spark discussion. This one has and much of it has remained on-topic. If you were to scroll up through the comments, you’d find that many of the points you raised, other than the philosophical, have already been covered.
Bob,
I have to admit, due to time constraints, I didn’t read through all the comments.
Stephen Wilde (01:23:12) :
It is also not a lot more as a proportion of total observed warming than Leif conceded. He suggested a maximum solar contribution of 10%
Not quite. I said that I would not quibble with that number, although I do think it is too high. As long as it is that low, it can be neglected and why bother or quibble with negligible quantities?
I found Bob’s paper very thought provoking. As a mechanism for storing and redistributing energy it looks very plausible, and his graph 21 does tend to convince me that at least the medium term pattern of air temperatures is largely governed by ocean effects. Whether this is a direct effect (the sea warming the air) or the warm sea’s affect on cloud cover (which also seems to be correlated) I guess we will find out later. However, as others have pointed out, it does not, in itself, challenge the anthropogenic warming theory. His paper confirms that there has been warming this century; the question is what has caused this increase. Whilst the absence of the Mann “hockey stick” in the sea anomaly tends to suggest that the rate of warming has not been increasing as the climate models predicted, it does not address the question of why there is a positive energy balance for most of the last century. However in a later Blog Bob stated that paleoclimatological data suggests that the current warm pool temperature is within the normal range of the last millennium so it could be argued that the current trend is just a rebound from the little ice age.
What is new for me is the amount of energy that can be stored in this way. I have long been perplexed by the pattern of ice ages, where it has been said that interglacial periods correlate with peak insolation in the northern hemisphere. I have always been sceptical of this because insolation should be correlated with the rate of increase of temperature. However if one looks carefully one can see the temperature has often risen rapidly at a point when the insolation is barely past its minimum. On the other hand the recent paper by Salamatin et al uses the Milankovich cycles to indirectly calibrate Vostok ice cores. The approach assumes the correlation of insolation and temperature (in the Antarctic at least) so one cannot say it proves anything directly, but their results cross reference to other proxies suggesting that this assumption is correct. This made me think that the interglacial periods started with warming in the Southern hemisphere. I found this more plausible since it appears to me that the southern hemisphere is capable of absorbing more of the sun’s energy than the north. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly the albedo of the sea is very low so more energy is absorbed rather than reflected, and the southern hemisphere has more sea. Secondly energy absorbed by land results in a large temperature increase. For example much of the land at tropical latitudes is desert. These are not only highly reflective but also very hot, compared with the sea at the same latitude. In fact the temperature has to increase until there is sufficient energy reradiated to balance the incoming energy. The same is true for the sea except that, particularly at high sea ice cover, we have the possibility of energy being removed to melt ice and to form these warm pools. This means that more of the energy is retained. Until I read Bob’s paper I could only surmise how the particular Milankovich cycles which increased the relative length of the southern hemisphere summer might melt the ice in the southern hemisphere. What I could not fathom was how one achieved the bounce back to high temperatures in the North; the warm pools seem to provide this mechanism. It might also explain why these interglacial periods are so short (typically less than the 10000 years we have currently enjoyed). Although the warm pools are huge they are finite. Once the southern hemisphere starts cooling again (as it is now!) we are only left with what has been stored in the sea before the next cold cycle begins. I’m going out to buy a big coat.
By the way the energy balance at the ocean surface would appear to me to be exremely difficult to estimate. Does anyone know how the climate models handle this? As far as the weather goes I guess it does not matter why the sea is particular temperature but for long term climate trends one needs to know if energy is being used to melt ice or is being stored in warm pools.
“” Stephen Wilde (01:23:12) :
Bill Illis,
Thanks for the solar link. I hadn’t seen that one before but a 0.1C solar effect out of a total change in temperature over the period of 0.7C suits my ideas just fine.
It gives an adequate background trend over which one can overlay the oceanic effects detailed in Bob’s work. It is also not a lot more as a proportion of total observed warming than Leif conceded. He suggested a maximum solar contribution of 10% but, hey, we are all guessing at this stage.
>>>It would be useful to know the scale of the average oceanic amplification or suppression of any background solar signal. As a first guess I’ve suggested elsewhere that a multiple of 5 times either way would explain all observed temperature trends without involving any CO2 effect.<<< ""
Stephen, not sure I can decipher which of the above is yours and which is Bill’s.
It seems to me that there is a good deal of confusion surrounding "solar effects".
Before the space age, there wasn’t much very good "solar constant" data, and accurate measurments were done so infrequently that watching solar variability, as far as solar constant is concerned was not a favorite passtime.
But now we have some pretty good data over about three complete sunspot cycles, from satellites, and unfortunately not all from the same satellite; but that data is good enough to show a very clear cyclic variation in solar output thoughout a sunspot cycle. To me those plots look sort of scalloped like a cycloidal curve, which one can visualize as approximating a sine wave with a second harmonic component, which sharpens the maximum and flattens the minimum. It might also be just a shallow version of the sunspot numbers graph.
Leif explains that the cooler susnpots are surrounded by a brighter halo which evidently is the source of the extra radiation; and that sounds fine to me.
But the problem I see is that this small 0.1% or thereabouts peak to peak change in the observed solar constant, is just a red herring.
I believe it is a mistake to look to this effect; real as it is, as somehow being a cause of earth climate change, as a result of some "amplification" caused by who knows what here on earth.
Suppose that all of the changes that are observed on the sun over a solar cycle took place as they do, BUT the total solar emittance and observed solar constant remained exactly constant. So I just eliminated that 0.1% cyclic change in the soalr constant. NOTHING ELSE WAS CHANGED.
If that were to happen, I don’t believe we would discern any change in what the earth climate has been doing. That 0.1% variation in solar constant is having no real effect here on earth.
The effect of the sun on our climate; other than the minor fact that solar energy causes it all; relates more to the magnetic changes, the charged particle changes; the effect on cosmic ray trajectories; the solar "shockwave that surrounds us or whatever they want to call that.
Those are the things that modify our climate through variations in cloud cover and cloud distribution around the planet.
The AGW crowd take great pleasure in dismissing the small variability (of the solar constant) as too puny to affect our climate.
I AGREE WITH THEM COMPLETELY. So let’s ignore that 0.1% change; that is simply a smokescreen that diverts our attention away from what is really happening which is all the magnetic effects and the effects of and on cosmic rays.
Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis does not rest on that very small solar constant variation; his thesis is quite intact even with zero variation in the solar constant.
I first got turned on to the solar effects in reading Willie Soon’s nifty book.
"The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection." Willie Wei-Hock Soon and Steven H. Yaskell. I think Yaskell is a ghost writer. I’ve exchanged a number of e-mails in the past with Dr Soon, and his written English is not Shakespearian, so I can understand why he might collaborate with a writer.
So I don’t think we should be looking for amplifiers of the small solar cycle change in solar constant; that isn’t the target, except for the AGW fans.
It is in other ways that the sun is messing with us, and those effects are not insignificant.
George
Leif Svalgaard (10:33:31) :
Stephen Wilde (01:23:12) :
It is also not a lot more as a proportion of total observed warming than Leif conceded. He suggested a maximum solar contribution of 10%
Not quite. I said that I would not quibble with that number, although I do think it is too high. As long as it is that low, it can be neglected and why bother or quibble with negligible quantities?
Because it is not so negligible if producing a cumulative effect over a period of,say, 400 years (since the LIA) and can provide a slow background trend overlaid by various amplification or suppression processes.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your response, even though you did not respond to the question. I understand why you didn’t. I know a few “deniers” and all of their arguements fall apart when asked “Why wouldn’t it be prudent, considering the possible consequences, to error on the side of caution, when it comes to global warming?” The reason is that there is no rational response for this question.
Now we can argue for years on who is right on the global warming issue, but no one can rationally argue that it is not rational to error on the side of caution with something as potentially devastating as this.
Thanks anyway,
Roger from Loveland
Roger from Loveland: Regarding your redundant comment of 11:33:43, thanks again for failing to notice that your original comment had nothing to do with my post. I noted that in my first response to you. There is no agenda associated with my post, other than illustrating a process that has not been discussed previously, or if it has, has not been put into terms that most people would understand. If you feel your cause, whatever it is (you have not actually stated it), has been threatened by my post, that is something you must come to terms with, not me.
Have a nice day.
Stephen Wilde (11:25:54) :
Because it is not so negligible if producing a cumulative effect over a period of,say, 400 years (since the LIA) and can provide a slow background trend overlaid by various amplification or suppression processes.
Like the cumulative effect of the Sun shining every day since the LIA?
Cal, much of your comment is outside the scope of my post, so I’ll only comment on two specific sentences that do pertain to it.
You wrote, “However, as others have pointed out, it does not, in itself, challenge the anthropogenic warming theory.”
Cal, I read the comments above and I can’t recall one that stated or implied that. Our interpretations of what was written must differ. I did illustrate in this post that the effects of individual El Nino events are not simply a lagged blip in the global temperature anomaly curve. They create steps in the SST of a significant portion of the global sea surface, and that those steps are not impacted to any great extent by a subsequent La Nina. In other words, the global response to El Ninos and La Ninas over that period was not the same.
You also wrote, “His paper confirms that there has been warming this century; the question is what has caused this increase.”
My post dealt with the period from 1976 to present, not this century or the 20th. It illustrated as noted many times above that the increasing steps in SST since 1976 are the aftereffects of the significant El Nino events that were not impacted by volcanic eruptions.
George E. Smith (11:10:09) :
what is really happening which is all the magnetic effects and the effects of and on cosmic rays.
Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis does not rest on that very small solar constant variation; his thesis is quite intact even with zero variation in the solar constant.
The cosmic ray hypothesis posits that in the end, the albedo must show a solar cycle effect. Only trouble is that it does not. The albedo has been decreasing since 1984 to 1999, then increasing [or flat] since: Figure 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/Palle_Earthshine_2008.pdf
The cosmic ray flux has been constant since at least 1952 except for the cyclic 11-year changes. The solar magnetic field [as observed in space – either by a craft or by the Earth] has been constant since at least 1830s except for the cyclic 11-year changes. The Ca II K-line chromospheric flux [that outlines the magnetic network on the Sun] has been constant since 1915 except for the cyclic 11-year changes. The spicule ‘forest’ seen at the limb during eclipses in 1706 and 1716 is consistent with reports of a persistent photospheric field throughout the Maunder Minimum from analyses of 10Be radioisotopes. All recent evidence point to a baseline solar magnetic [and therefore also TSI] level with no long-term change, superposed on which the 11-year cyclic changes ride.
Leif says, in responding to something Stephen Wilde said:
Heh, nothing like three orders of magnitude (I think) to put things in perspective.
Two or three watts/cm2 seems to be unlikely to have much effect. Even 10 W/cm2 seems to leave two orders of magnitude difference.
Has anyone made any mention of this phenomenon during the life of WUWT? I notice there it is in the abbreviations when doing a search but found no mention within articles. Maybe I am doing something wrong :-0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden-Julian_oscillation
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is an equatorial traveling pattern of anomalous rainfall that is planetary in scale. The mechanism and cause of the MJO is as yet not well-understood and is a subject of ongoing study.
The MJO is characterized by an eastward progression of large regions of both enhanced and suppressed tropical rainfall, observed mainly over the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The anomalous rainfall is usually first evident over the western Indian Ocean, and remains evident as it propagates over the very warm ocean waters of the western and central tropical Pacific. This pattern of tropical rainfall then generally becomes very nondescript as it moves over the cooler ocean waters of the eastern Pacific but reappears over the tropical Atlantic and Indian Ocean. The wet phase of enhanced convection and precipitation is followed by a dry phase where convection is suppressed. Each cycle lasts approximately 30-60 days
http://www.apsru.gov.au/mjo/index.asp
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), also known as the 40-day wave, is a large scale oscillation (wave) in the equatorial region. The MJO originates over the Indian Ocean and travels east at 800 km per day (10m/s).
It is monitored and reported here – http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjoupdate.pdf
The MJO is expected to contribute to dry conditions for northeast Brazil and decrease
rainfall seen in recent weeks associated with La Nina across portions of Indonesia.
Above-average rainfall is also expected in vicinity of the South Pacific Islands along with an increased threat for tropical cyclogenesis in the Southwest Pacific.
We have seen the effect in NW QLD where a monsoonal trough has given the area a good soaking recently. Fiji was a bit wet too!
Keep yer mojo workin’
Leif Svalgaard (13:07:42) :
Stephen Wilde (11:25:54) :
Because it is not so negligible if producing a cumulative effect over a period of,say, 400 years (since the LIA) and can provide a slow background trend overlaid by various amplification or suppression processes.
Like the cumulative effect of the Sun shining every day since the LIA?
You overlook the variable storage capability of the oceans.
A small increase in solar activity over time would eventually result in a larger energy store in the oceans.
The daily sunshine and the commencement of the period just provides the initial base level.
Atmospheric temperature is a reflection of ocean temperaure. It all comes from the sun in the first instance. More from the sun means more in the oceans.
George E Smith
Actually I agree with you completely. I just got diverted by Leif’s points and tried to deal with them in isolation.
In my articles I do say more than once that I am not happy with TSI as the sole indicator of the sun’s effect on our climate. I am sure more than just TSI is involved but TSI is a useful proxy for the level of solar activity generally because even with the recent amended TSI numbers going back to 1600 it is clear that the sun is more active than it was then however slightly and an effect of some sort on climate seems to me to be irrefutable from historical records even if the fit is not perfect.
If Bill Illis provides evidence that the sun contributed 0.1C from a rise of 0.7C then that is good enough (in my mind) to explain observed warming when one combines sun with ocean cycles.
The issue may well be one of sensitivity rather than the absolute level of TSI variation and it may well be something other than simply TSI which has the effect.
Whatever the truth it is not a CO2 issue and the science is not settled.
I know a few “deniers” and all of their arguements fall apart when asked “Why wouldn’t it be prudent, considering the possible consequences, to error on the side of caution, when it comes to global warming?” The reason is that there is no rational response for this question.
Oh, well, I can think of one “rational response”, which in fact is based upon your own “Precautionary Principle’s” logic. That is, you must apply the Precautionary Principle to your own Precautions.
I had already learned this way of thinking at least by the time I was 6. So why are we still having to deal with you?
I know a few “deniers” and all of their arguements fall apart when asked “Why wouldn’t it be prudent, considering the possible consequences, to error on the side of caution, when it comes to global warming?” The reason is that there is no rational response for this question.
Editorially, I am just mystified by how slow these allegedly “elite” thinkers are. It’s like they never even got started.
“” Leif Svalgaard (13:24:01) :
George E. Smith (11:10:09) :
what is really happening which is all the magnetic effects and the effects of and on cosmic rays.
Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis does not rest on that very small solar constant variation; his thesis is quite intact even with zero variation in the solar constant. “”
Leif,
I have to admit, that I only know second hand what is in the Svensmark Papers, and in fact am presently witing to hear from him about those papers.
If albedo is the only cloud effect he has adressed (I believe his first publishing was around a decade ago), then I wouldn’t expect that the tell the whole story.
Clouds have a much bigger effect than just albedo, and there is more to the cosmic ray effect than just cosmic ray flux.
An immediate effect of near earth magnetic variations is to redistribute cosmic rays in latitude, since charged particles tend to spiral around the magnetic field lines, which selectively steers them towards the magnetic poles. And since atmospheric water vapor is not uniformly distributed in latitude, then one would not expect charged particle nucleated clouds to be uniformly distributed in latitude, but to vary depending on the strenght of the magnetic fields. And yes I realize that true primary cosmic rays are very high energies copmared to charged particles from the sun, in which case I would expect solar particles to be affected more that the true galactic cosmic rays which can get up to the 10^20 eV range.
In addition to albedo changes due to clouds, there is the further attenuation of ground level solar energy due to the internal absorption particularly in highly precipitating clouds.
According to Wentz et al (SCIENCE July 2007), increased surface temperatures produce increased total global precipitation, which means increased dense cloud formation. They reported a 7% increase in precipitation for a one deg C mean surface temperature increase, and that would lead one to expect a similar 75 increase in precipitating clouds; either in the form of increased cloud area, cloud density (moisture content) or cloud persistence; or some combination thereof.
they found that total global precipitation, total atmospheric water content, and total global evaporation all incresed 7% for a 1 deg C rise in global mean surface temperature. I added the prcipitating cloud increase myself; they never mentioned it.
They also reported that the GCMs agreed with the 7% increase in evaporation and total water content, but predicted that increases in precipitation would only be between 1 and 3%; not 7%.
So the GCM under a warming scenario predict a continuous transport of water into the atmosphere, since evaporation and precipitation do now match according to the GCMs. That then begs the question, how can the evaporation and precipitation differ by a factor of from 2 2/3 to 7, yet the total water in the atmosphere increases at the same rate as the evaporation.
There’s no physical way the GCM numbers can be real; they are mutually incompatible.
But I am suspicious of earth albedo reports. We don’t have a total global network of satellites that can continuously monitor the whole globe (continuously), and the process of measuring albedo from lunar “earthshine” is also an intermittent measurement technique that is not continuously available. Clouds on the other hand change in mere minutes; so it is not possible to observe them continuously all over the globa from satellites, and it certainly isn’t possible to continuously observe their total solar transmission from the ground continuously over the whole globe.
The idea of thermal seafloor vents making a contribution has been raised, I believe in this or the 1st thread, as well as regarding sea ice off eastern Greenland. I went looking around for a map and found this one:
http://departments.colgate.edu/biology/Images/DMcHugh/hydrothermal-vents-c.jpg
NASA had one allegedly at: http://www.resa.net, but it gives a page not found. The one from colgate shows quite a few in the Pacific, the Rim/Ring of Fire. It seems quite a few vents border three sides of the Pacific Warm Pool, but I want a better map to ascertain that. The Pacific appears to have many more vents than the Atlantic.
George E. Smith (16:54:51) :
But I am suspicious of earth albedo reports. We don’t have a total global network of satellites that can continuously monitor the whole globe (continuously), and the process of measuring albedo from lunar “earthshine” is also an intermittent measurement technique that is not continuously available.
The Earthshine measurement do come from a [small] global network and do integrate over the whole Earth and the total albedo [and cloud cover] over the globe does not change significantly from minute to minute. Neither does the cosmic ray count. The Earthshine technique works.
There is some discussion of the ‘moving target’ of Svensmark’s theory here: http://cce.890m.com/solar-cosmic-rays/
I think most of it is true [although meant for laymen].
Precaution as a argument for action is the most misused and potentially disastrous principle (e.g. the invasion of Iraq because of the feared presence of weapons of mass destruction). The precautionary action must always be proportional to the severity of the potential danger and conditional to the likelihood of it occurring. However, that’s where the argument becomes victim of subjectivity, since there are always differences of opinion as to what and how big the potential danger is and the likelihood of it occurring. The pros (there are are many) and cons of global warming have never been mapped out and weighed against each other
Hence the precautionary principle is just a hollow term that only serves as a convenient obfuscation through which a subjective opinion obtains an aura of legitimacy. That’s why AGW proponents and environmentalists love to use the precautionary principle: it gives them this (unwarranted) pretentious moral superiority.
The precautionary principle must itself be applied to the precautionary principle.
Leif – your link to Palle’s recent paper gives a 404 error!
My take on the satellite data:
1. GISS data shows an excess of SW radiation reaching the surface during the global warming years 1980-2000 and this is about 5x the computed ‘warming’ due to carbon dioxide’s infra-red radiation (extra CO2 over the same period);
2. Only the ocean surface waters can store this as heat;
3. The excess occurs in ‘pulses’ that correlate roughly to the 11 year solar cycles;
4. There are also pulses in the cosmic ray flux – and variations in amplitude though not overall trend – look at the pattern not the trend line – as it bears relation to the solar cycle;
5. Over this period 1980-1995 Svensmark found a correlation between the cosmic ray flux and low-level dense reflective cloud – but not all cloud; he had to work the data a bit but he thinks that correlation held for the next cycle too – others disagree;
6. Other workers, Usoskin, found a latitudinal effect as expected;
7. Earthshine data shows a decrease of albedo over this period, and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project shows a long term 4% reduction of low level cloud from 1980-2000 – there is less agreement on what happens after 2001 – but could be higher albedo, less SW, cooler oceans.
The key thing is to look at the patterns, the pulses and the oceans reworking the heat stores – because there are phase changes and time lags.
However controversial these data sets may be (IPCC regard them as contradictory – but I don’t think they are) – they do not support the carbon hypothesis – rather they point to cloud changes. One could argue that ‘global warming’ thins the clouds – but the models do not incorporate such cloud feedbacks.
Peter Taylor (05:49:46) :
Leif – your link to Palle’s recent paper gives a 404 error!
http://www.leif.org/research/Palle_Earthshine_2008.pdf works
Apropos of TSI and computations therewith its worth remembering 40% is in IR only 1% of which reaches the ground. A variable ~30% of TSI is reflected outright back into space thus start with something less than 525 W/m^2 for your cursory surface calculations.
“” Leif Svalgaard (21:57:31) :
George E. Smith (16:54:51) :
But I am suspicious of earth albedo reports. We don’t have a total global network of satellites that can continuously monitor the whole globe (continuously), and the process of measuring albedo from lunar “earthshine” is also an intermittent measurement technique that is not continuously available.
The Earthshine measurement do come from a [small] global network and do integrate over the whole Earth and the total albedo [and cloud cover] over the globe does not change significantly from minute to minute. Neither does the cosmic ray count. The Earthshine technique works. “”
Then I clearly don’t have any understanding of either orbital physics, or earthshine.
Why am I under the impression, that “earthshine” is spectrally modified solar radiation that is first reflected off the sunlit side of whatever portion of the earth is currently sunlit; in whatever oblique direction the moon happens to be, and then reflected off the moon, in whatever oblique direction the night side of the earth happens to lie, and that process can be monitored continuously while accounting for the portion of the earth that is sunlit, and its oblique albedo in the moon’s direction , and the oblique albedo of the moon’s earthlit portion taken into account etc etc; and they can do that without interruption ?
So what happens regarding the detection of the cloud coverage on the non sunlit side of the earth, given that those3 clouds aren’t going to be there in the same place, when that region eventually becomes sunlit.
What remains within the constraints of orbital mechanics, is a sampled data system that doesn’t even come close to satisfying the Nyquist sampling criterion.
It seems to me that earthshine must always exclude monitoring of cloud coverage on the night side of the earth.
Oh I’m sure that it “works” in that you can detect some double bounce radiation coming off the moon; but it gives no monitoring of cloud coverage on the nightside of the earth.
And of course it gives no clue to the state of precipitation going on, from any of that cloud cover anywhere.
George
Bob Tinsdale 13:22:43
I agree that you said nothing to imply that these findings directly challenged AGW theory. I was merely trying to clarify that this was the case.
You said you limited your analysis to post 1979. My comment regarding warming throughout the century was based on your graph 21 which summed anomalies from 1915 to 2007. Did I misunderstand this graph?
Let me say that I was really impressed by your paper and my comments were in no way meant to diminish the impact of what you had to say. I am sorry if I gave that impression. I found the clear factual presentation very refreshing.
George E. Smith (14:57:22) :
It seems to me that earthshine must always exclude monitoring of cloud coverage on the night side of the earth.
They monitor the Earthshine continously with dedicated telescopes that do nothing else. They are setting up a global network to make sure that they have measurements at all times. Preliminary measurements [Big Bear, CA, and Tenerife] are in good agreement. Things don’t change on a timescale of minutes.
You can find more here: http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/
and here: http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/calibration.html
The measurement is of the albedo or rather of (1-albedo) which is [next to TSI itself] the most important variable in the radiation budget of the Earth. Googling Earthshine Goode will get you a lot more [plus a lot of repetitions]. The trick to precision measurements in spite of the ‘double bounce’ is that the Moon is constant [the small variation due to libration is measured and compensated for]. These measurements are good.
Cal: You wrote, “Bob Tinsdale…I agree that you said nothing to imply that these findings directly challenged AGW theory. I was merely trying to clarify that this was the case.”
I didn’t make that statement nor did I imply it. Please do not agree with something I did not write. Either I have a problem communicating, or you’ve misunderstood something I’ve written, or you’re blatantly misrepresenting what I’ve written to you above. Let me try again. My findings illustrate that El Nino events (those that are not impacted by volcanic eruptions) are the major driver of global ocean SST. Since global LST temperatures mimic SST, it would seem logical that those same El Nino events drive global combined LST and SST. But since you doubt that, stop by my website tomorrow (1/16/09) or Saturday (1/17/09). Here’s the link:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/
I’m examining Mid Latitude Lower Troposphere Temperature for the Northern Hemisphere. I’ve segmented it by continent and ocean. All the graphs are done. All I have to do is write it up. My illustrations clearly show that the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Ninos are the dominant cause of TLT change for the Mid Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere since 1979. The step changes are very clear. After that, I’ll look at the low latitudes for the Northern Hemisphere in the same way, then move down to the Southern Hemisphere low latitudes and then mid latitudes.
I’ve illustrated why those El Nino events are so dominant in the posts here at WattsUpWithThat very clearly.
What part of illustrating that El Ninos are the ultimate driver of climate on this planet is not a challenge to the AGW hypothesis? According to It, anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the primary driver, BUT they’re not.
BTW, there’s no “N” in Tisdale.
George E. Smith (14:31:31) :
I suspect that earth orbital changes, including the effect of every known planet, can be computed using a computer to a quite high precision;
And it has already been done for you. Though the graphs are presented to lower human scale precision.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
We have the present set of conditions of the planet plus long term history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milankovitch_Variations.png
and the projection of where we go from here at finer detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orbital_variation.svg
Ed Scott (15:48:45) :
We have not considered the position of the Solar System position in the Milky Way Galaxy which is subject to cycles analogous to the Milankovich cycles.
This guy does: http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
Roger (11:33:43) :
“Why wouldn’t it be prudent, considering the possible consequences, to error on the side of caution, when it comes to global warming?” The reason is that there is no rational response for this question.
And that, IMHO, is why no one bothers answering. AGW is paranoia. Paranoia is not sane. There can be no rational response to insanity. Best to ignore it and walk on past…
Bob Tisdale 13.33.12
Sorry about the spelling.
I am also sorry that we seem to be in disagreement because I do not see why this is happening. I appologise if it is my poor communication skills.
Let me make it clear up front. I do not believe in CO2 being a significant driver of global warming. So please do not see my points as being a challenge to you or a support for the views of the AGWarmers.
I accept that your analysis does show that LSTs follows SSTs which follow El Nino events. However as a physicist I am interested in the global energy balances. One of the reasons the AGWarmers tend to dismiss this kind of argument is that even if the conceded that the oceans governed climate over the medium term they would argue that over the long term the extra energy trapped by CO2 will always win out. This is my only point. I can find nothing in your argument which necessarily changes the cumulative overall energy balance taking all sources and sinks into account.
For example the release of warm water onto the surface will increase the temperature of the air. This will increase radiation and evaportation and, in all probability, would lead to increased energy lost to space. In other words increased global temperature might actually correlate with a negative energy balance.
The reason I found your article so exciting is that it does show how recent patterns of climate change do not need to reflect recent changes in the energy balance. In other words you provide a mechanism by which small changes in the energy balance can be stored and released much later. Or indeed how a constant energy balance can result in an oscllating surface temperature. This implies that the AGWarmers cannot use recent data to justify or calibrate the amount of warming that CO2 generates. This is important because we know that the laboratory evidence only supports a 1degree F increase for a doubling of CO2 (I personally do not accept even this as proven in the real world).
My blog was trying to address the issue of the huge energy inbalances that occur over the 100,000 year cycle. The amount of energy needed to freeze and melt the thousands of cubic miles of extra ice seen during the ice ages is staggering, The so called interglacial periods are the most astonishing because they always seem to occur straight after the coolest periods. So the swing in energy balance is extraordinary, Since this occurs when the CO2 and methane concentration is at a minimum we know it is not caused by greenhouse gases.
I do not know the answer to this but the fact that the ice ages are synchronised to the Milankovitch cycles convinces me that the sun is the dominant influence. The problem is, as the AGWs constantly point out, the variations in insolation are very small. However this is like saying that a 1% change in rainfall will not have a big effect on river flow. What if this was stored as snow and then released as water during a thaw. We know that happens with dramatic effects. So small changes can have big effects if there is time to accumulate.
I had never realised how large the warm pools could be. I guess it is also possible that with ice forming near to the tropics even more dramatic warm pools might occur even possibly under the ice? So such accumulation of energy might be possible and with its release the sudden and dramatic rise in temperatures observed is no longer so perplexing.
cal: I finished that post, “El Ninos Create Step Changes in TLT of the Northern Hemisphere Mid Latitudes”, discussed above.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-ninos-create-step-changes-in-tlt-of.html
The closing remarks include:
“Each segment of the mid latitude TLT data showed different:
-Response Times to El Nino Events,
-Response Times to Volcanic Eruptions,
-Rates of Response to El Nino Events,
-Rates of Response to La Nina Events, and
-Rates of Response to Volcanic Eruptions.
And there appears to be little consistency in the responses with a given dataset. For example, in some data sets, the earlier El Nino response is greater than the later response, and in others, the reverse is true. In some data sets, the time lags from a El Nino event or a volcanic eruption to the response from the mid latitude data is about 2 years before 1991 but then within months after 1993.”
http://i40.tinypic.com/s0vfqe.jpg
Regards