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
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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
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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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.