From Roger Pielke Sr’s Climate Science Website
Is There Climate Heating In “The Pipeline”?
A new paper has appeared (thanks to Timo Hämeranta for alerting us to it!)
Urban, Nathan M., and Klaus Keller, 2009. Complementary observational constraints on climate sensitivity. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L04708, doi:10.1029/2008GL036457, February 25, 2009. in press,
which provides further discussion of this question.
The abstract of this paper reads
“A persistent feature of empirical climate sensitivity estimates is their heavy tailed probability distribution indicating a sizeable probability of high sensitivities. Previous studies make general claims that this upper heavy tail is an unavoidable feature of (i) the Earth system, or of (ii) limitations in our observational capabilities. Here we show that reducing the uncertainty about (i) oceanic heat uptake and (ii) aerosol climate forcing can — in principle — cut off this heavy upper tail of climate sensitivity estimates. Observations of oceanic heat uptake result in a negatively correlated joint likelihood function of climate sensitivity and ocean vertical diffusivity. This correlation is opposite to the positive correlation resulting from observations of surface air temperatures. As a result, the two observational constraints can rule out complementary regions in the climate sensitivity-vertical diffusivity space, and cut off the heavy upper tail of the marginal climate sensitivity estimate”.
A key statement in the text of their paper reads
“Surface temperature observations permit high climate sensitivities if there is substantial unrealized “warming in the pipeline” from the oceans. However, complementary ocean heat observations can be used to test this and can potentially rule out large ocean warming. Ocean heat observations are compatible with high sensitivities if there is substantial surface warming which is penetrating poorly into the oceans. Again, complementary surface temperature observations can test this, and can potentially rule out large surface warming.”
By “unrealized warming in the pipeline”, they mean heat that is being stored within the ocean, which can subsequently be released into the ocean atmosphere. It is erroneous to consider this heat as ”unrealized warming”, if the Joules of heat are actually being stored in the ocean. The heat is “realized”; it would just not be entering the atmosphere yet.
As discussed in the Physics Today paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55,
there has been no heating of the upper ocean since mid-2003. Moreover, there has been no heating within the troposphere (e.g. see Figure 7 of the RSS MSU data).
Thus, there is no “warming in the pipeline” using the author’s terminology, nor any heating within the atmosphere! Perhaps the heating that was observed prior to 2003 will begin again, however, it is scientifically incorrect to report that there is any heat that has not yet been realized within the climate system.
The answer to the question posted in this weblog “Is There Climate Heating In “The Pipeline”? is NO.
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foinavon (10:25:46)
Gulev et al JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 20 January 2007
ABSTRACT
Sampling uncertainties in the voluntary observing ship (VOS)-based global ocean–atmosphere flux fields were estimated using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and ECMWF 40-yr Re-Analysis (ERA-40) as well as seasonal forecasts without data assimilation. Air–sea fluxes were computed from 6-hourly reanalyzed individual variables using state-of-the-art bulk formulas. Individual variables and computed fluxes were subsampled to simulate VOS-like sampling density. Random simulation of the number of VOS observations and simulation of the number of observations with contemporaneous sampling allowed for estimation of random and total sampling uncertainties respectively. Although reanalyses are dependent on VOS, constituting an important part of data assimilation input, it is assumed that the reanalysis fields adequately reproduce synoptic variability at the sea surface. Sampling errors were quantified by comparison of the regularly sampled (i.e., 6 hourly) and subsampled monthly fields of surface variables and fluxes. In poorly sampled regions random sampling errors amount to 2.5°–3°C for air temperature, 3 m s 1 for the wind speed, 2–2.5 g kg 1 for specific humidity, and 15%–20% of the total cloud cover. The highest random sampling errors in surface fluxes were found for the sensible and latent heat flux and range from 30 to 80 Wm 2. Total sampling errors in poorly sampled areas may be higher than random ones by 60%. In poorly sampled subpolar latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and throughout much of the Southern Ocean the total sampling uncertainty in the net heat flux can amount to 80–100 W m 2. The highest values of the uncertainties associated with the interpolation/ extrapolation into unsampled grid boxes are found in subpolar latitudes of both hemispheres for the turbulent fluxes, where they can be comparable with the sampling errors. Simple dependencies of the sampling errors on the number of samples and the magnitude of synoptic variability were derived. Sampling errors estimated from different reanalyses and from seasonal forecasts yield qualitatively comparable spatial patterns, in which the actual values of uncertainties are controlled by the magnitudes of synoptic variability. Finally, estimates of sampling uncertainties are compared with the other errors in air–sea fluxes and the reliability of the estimates obtained is discussed
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
Article: pp. 476–486 Toward Estimating Climatic Trends in SST. Part II: Random Errors
Elizabeth C. Kent and Peter G. Challenor
ABSTRACT
Random observational errors for sea surface temperature (SST) are estimated using merchant ship reports from the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) for the period of 1970–97. A statistical technique, semivariogram analysis, is used to isolate the variance resulting from the observational error from that resulting from the spatial variability in a dataset of the differences of paired SST reports. The method is largely successful, although there is some evidence that in high-variability regions the separation of random and spatial error is not complete, which may have led to an overestimate of the random observational error in these regions. The error estimates are robust to changes in the details of the regression method used to estimate the spatial variability.
The resulting error estimates are shown to vary with region, time, the quality control applied, the method of measurement, the recruiting country, and the source of the data. SST data measured using buckets typically contain smaller random errors than those measured using an engine-intake thermometer. Errors are larger in the 1970s, probably because of problems with data transmission in the early days of the Global Telecommunications System. The best estimate of the global average random error in ICOADS ship SST for the period of 1970–97 is 1.2°C if the estimates are weighted by ocean area and 1.3°C if the estimates are weighted by the number of observations.
So clearly the “datasets” are questionable from a historical perspective,especially in the SH where they are essentially little more then guess work in the 19th century,
This is an example where better observation and measurement eg Argo, show some arbitrary assumptions(axioms) were not quite correct.
“Could undersea volcanic activity account for previous ice ages due to heating of the oceans, releasing greenhouse gases etc?”
Well considering what people say the environmental result was of such events as the Deccan Traps and the Siberian Traps and Columbia River flood basalt, and considering that 70% of Earth’s surface is under sea level, it would seem reasonable that similar flood basalt events may have happened under the ocean surface.
foinavon:
The 2000’s are warmer than the 1990’s. No doubt the 2010’s will be warmer than the 2000’s
Each time you roll the die the chances of throwing a 4 or higher is still 1/2.
If you think your belief in AGW loads the die in your favour, fair enough. I think a look at 60 year ocean cycles loads it in mine. I have a $1000 bet riding on it in fact.
The moistening of the upper troposphere…
Moistening?
Got any figures to support your qualitative assertion there foinavon?
(off topic, but we have proof of global cooling and heating just miles apart< you dont have to publish this. just thought it was fun for you.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1159929/BBC-weatherman-warns-people-Kent-prepare-temperatures-99C.html
The BBC gaffe came weeks after viewers in the London area saw predictions of an extreme heatwave 232C (450F) in Windsor.
Forecaster Kirsty McCabe said there would be a ‘few brighter spells’ as the map showed the the inaccurate temperatures. )
I hope I’m not blowing the gaff here, but has anybody considered that maybe Mary Hinge, who blows in early, gets slaughtered and then blows back out, may be a ……… “denier” playing devil’s advocate? Even Joe Bugner (Google it) didn’t come back for punishment like that again and again and ….
Tim Clark (09:59:46) :
5 or 6 years is a very short time and it’s not clear if the oceans have heated or not during this period. The reported cooling from 2003 was shown recently to be an artifact from problems with some of the Argo temperature monitors [***].
In any case, we don’t expect a monotonous warming in response to enhanced forcing as the earth tends towards a new equilibrium temperature. For example, the current plateau in warming is quite similar to what was observed in the early 1980’s, the mid 1990’s and so on (see Figure 5 in the blog thread just below:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/05/ipcc-20th-century-simulations-get-a-boost-from-outdated-solar-forcings/#more-6046
Part of the reduction in warming is due to the fact that we’ve been descending to the bottom of the solar cycle during the last 4-5 years. So the enhanced greenhouse forcing has been reducing somewhat for a bit [during the next 5-6 years the increasing solar irradiance will be supplementing (rather than opposing) enhanced greenhouse forcing].
And whenever we have a strongish La Nina (a couple in the last several years), there is enhanced upwelling of cold waters which results in colder than average surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, and the gobally-averaged surface temperature (or temperature anomaly) is decreased for a while. Presumably this is associated with enhanced mixing of warmth into the oceans.
An analogy might be turning up the thermostat in your kitchen so that the temperature rises slowly. If someone opens the fridge and blows a fan into it for a while, the measured warming in the room will be suppressed for a time. This isn’t a perfect analogy, and it’s a better one if the fridge is turned off just before starting the “experiment”. In this case some of the warming will have “gone into ” the fridge, raising its temperature. If the fridge is left on during the “experiment” then the heat is pumped into wherever the heat exchanger of your fridge dumps excess heat, which is very likely to be the kitchen!
[***]J.K. Willis et al (2007) Correction to “Recent cooling of the upper ocean” Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L16601
[1] Two systematic biases have been discovered in the ocean temperature data used in “Recent cooling of the upper ocean” by John M. Lyman, Josh K. Willis, and Gregory C. Johnson (Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L18604, doi:10.1029/2006GL027033). These biases are both substantially larger than sampling errors estimated by Lyman et al. [2006], and appear to be the cause of the rapid cooling reported in that work.
[2] Most of the rapid decrease in globally integrated upper (0–750 m) ocean heat content anomalies (OHCA) between 2003 and 2005 reported by Lyman et al. [2006] appears to be an artifact resulting from the combination of two different instrument biases recently discovered in the in situ profile data. Although Lyman et al. [2006] carefully estimated sampling errors, they did not investigate potential biases among different instrument types. One such bias has been identified in a subset of Argo float profiles. This error will ultimately be corrected. However, until corrections have been made these data can be easily excluded from OHCA estimates (see http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/ for more details). Another bias was caused by eXpendable BathyThermograph (XBT) data that are systematically warm compared to other instruments [Gouretski and Koltermann, 2007]. Both biases appear to have contributed equally to the spurious cooling.
Seems Al Gore is afraid to debate Czech President Vaclav Klaus on global warming.
Mary Hinge (02:07:31) :
“I have used the home page link so you can play with the adjustments your self, but whichever way you play it the sea level is rising, therefore sea temperatures are rising and/or glaciers and land ice sheets are melting.”
Big assumptions Mary Hinge. How about glacial rebound and other tectonic forces? Pressure differences. Squeeze your coffee cup and see what happens to the liquid level. Another interesting tid bit is the Arctic ocean’ sea level is falling the last 20 years.
a record low temperature of 36 degrees was set at Camarillo today.
This breaks the old record of 37 set in 1976.
Did Gore pass that way as he headed to Santa Barbara?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Effect
foinavon:
The reported cooling from 2003 was shown recently to be an artifact from problems with some of the Argo temperature monitors
Incorrect. Josh Willis found the oceans were slightly cooling even after the corrections applied.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
tallbloke (11:19:13) :
Gamblers have a tendency to base betting decision on beliefs that are less than fully rational, and on balance are out of pocket! From the scientific evidence, a warmer future is a pretty well supported likelihood.
The observational evidence supports tropospheric “moistening” in response to warming. Try:
Buehler SA (2008) An upper tropospheric humidity data set from operational satellite microwave data. J. Geophys. Res. 113, art #D14110
Brogniez H and Pierrehumbert RT (2007) Intercomparison of tropical tropospheric humidity in GCMs with AMSU-B water vapor data. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, art #L17912
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/publist.html
Gettelman A and Fu, Q. (2008) Observed and simulated upper-tropospheric water vapor feedback . J. Climate 21, 3282-3289
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/andrew/papers/
Santer BD et al. (2007) Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 15248-15253
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.abstract?sid=69de2578-60e8-45f4-80fe-032e2c5edf9b
Soden BJ, et al (2005) The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening Science 310, 841-844.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/310/5749/841
….and so on…
“Mary Hinge (06:34:49) :
Ron de Haan (04:59:48) :
Have a look at this Dutch Study which presents “real historic data” and know that since 2005 until today no accelerated rise in sea level has occurred.
Why pick 2005? Why pick one data set? I will repeat one of the comments, it seems very appropriate: “I’ll just add the comment that I find it strange how contrarians readily accept a plot such as the one shown here with hardly any details of the original reference, the actual data points, the analysis technique or the estimated uncertainty, while at the same time putting the “hockeystick” of Mann et al. under such heavy scrutiny!”
Also don’t forget on a local level there will always be fluctuations in sea level due to wind, currents etc and land based measurements measure their relative heights, not much good if land is rising (for example Scotland) or falling (for example southern England).
This is the stuff which is put under the carpet because it’s to “inconvenient” for certain religious agenda’s.
I’d be careful about the religious connection if I were you, the sceptic community, whether on this subject or evolution or even as was the case not that long ago, plate tectonics, are firmly wedded to the religious right. The belief being that God created man to basically do what he wanted to the Earth and only God can change the Earth etc. It would be more accurate to describe the contrarians of AGW, using your particular context as a cult, that is of being very much in the minority and oblivious to accepted scientific thinking”.
Mary Hinge,
1. The historical data sets used for the referred publication are the most reliable data sets available on earth.
2. Why pick 2005? Because the report was published in 2005
3. I’ve looked at the report, where the data comes from, it’s conclusions (and in this case my personal observations over a period of 40 years) and I think it’s very accurate.
4. The hockey stick of Mann is a proven fraud.
5. I agree with your remarks in regard of the use of religion.
Thanks to Religion the Age of Industrialization would have started 400 years earlier.
I used this remark to characterize an attitude often found in religions to defend a point of view by constantly repeating a certain statement over and over again without listening to the any of the arguments outside the church.
As you have made the same arguments in earlier postings and even provided the same answers in response to critiques I can only say that in this case it fits you
like a glove.
Since the heavy-hitters appear to be taking a breather, I would like to address a problem on this thread, and others, in which the combatants take a cursory glance a opposing data, and dismiss it with contempt, claiming “cherry-picking”.
I’m skeptical of a lot of things, including the inference that “cherry-picking” might be easy. Then I realized that most of the younger generation don’t draw a fine line between what they have experienced, and what they think they know from television. Cherry-pickin’ ain’t for sissies, now. Here is a paradigm which has proven robust over a non-trivial fraction of a century.
Equipment: one 8 year-old grandson, one lawn chair.
Technique: Grampa sits in the lawn chair and says, “Don’t tell your mother I let you climb that tree by yourself.” Very important.
Data collection: “Grampa, which cherries should I pick?” Wonderful place to explain heuristic analysis.
Data series 1: “Pick a very red one on the south side”, (points south-ish), “and nibble the outside. There’s a hard thing inside, so don’t crunch it, just nibble. Tell me how it tastes.”
Data series 2: “Don’t swat that bee. He’s not guarding the cherries, he wants salt. All God’s creatures gotta eat, so let him have the salt from your sweat. He just tickles.”
Results: cherry pie. Grandson not afraid of cherry trees, sweat bees, jumping out of cherry trees after Grampa says don’t (not necessarily a good thing) or The Cherry Tree Theory Of Relativity.
“Grandson, did you know that cherry trees get smaller with time?” “That can’t be, Grampa!” “Okay, take a hard look at this tree. Remember it real good, now. When you come back here as a grown-up man, that tree will look a lot smaller, I betcha!”
Acknowledgements: Thanks to my Grampa, and thanks to my grandson.
Sorry Frank, you’ve got it wrong (again). I think you are forgetting that the oceans are made up of salt water.
Why don’t sceptics ever check their facts? The bouys actually measure to a depth of 2,000m, average ocean depth is around 3.8km. Here is the link to the home page so you can read up about the project. http://www.argo.net/
Kinda leaves a lot of the oceans temperature unmeasured doesn’t it?
….and prior to that? You skeptics love the cherrypickin’ don’t ya! The La Nina in 2007 and 2008 caused the cooling you see on the graph (increased wind+increased evaporation etc etc.) Do you notice how the levels are now increasing again?
“The warming “in the pipeline” relates to the fact that an enhanced forcing produces a response that takes some time to achieve equilibrium. In this case the slow equilibration time relates to the massive ocean sink, and the fact that the full response of an enhanced forcing will only be realized once the oceans themselves come towards equilibrium with the forcing.”
Show the mechanism…or are you merely invoking magic couched in academic speak?
Foinavon,
thanks for the stock in trade list of papers desperately trying to talk up local incidences of a phenomenon which isn’t happening in line with GCM predictions, but I’ll rest content with my $1000 bet thanks. I’m not normally a gambling man, but this one was too good to pass up when it was offered. The bet is running from 2005-2020 and it’s a simple one. If the temperature trend on an average of the four major indices is up from 2005-2020 I lose; if down, I win. Here’s how it’s going:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2005/trend/plot/wti/from:2005
As you can see, we’re down a couple of decades worth of global warming already.
tallbloke (12:04:19) :
There’s nothing in the page that you linked to that indicates that the oceans were “still slightly cooling even after the corrections applied”. Did you mean to link to another web page?
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the evidence doesn’t indicate that the ocean surface hasn’t warmed much in the last few years. There’s nothing too surprising about that, and we’ve seen temporary cooling periods right through the large warming of the last 30-odd years (see Bob Tisdale’s Figure 5 in the blog thread just below). No one expects a constant steady monotonous warming as a result of enhanced greenhouse forcing. The solar cycle and stochastic elements of the climate system (El Nino’s/La Nina’s and so on) are always going to provide some noise on any trend. One should be a bit more relaxed about the science. There’s no need to attempt to trash every last thing!
Ron de Haan quotes Mary Hinge, who says:
It is one of the supreme ironies of the modern world that those of us who would have formerly been labelled as unbelieveing heathens are now regarded as members of the religious right by those with the current religious fervers.
foinavon,
I think you misunderstand Pielke’s point.
You are correct to say that the delayed response of the system does not mean that the energy has already entered the system. It only means that the rate at which energy can enter system is limited by the system.
However, if the oceans are in fact limiting factor then there must be evidence of additional energy being stored in the ocean. Pielke notes that there is no evidence of this so one cannot conclude that the oceans are significantly limiting the response of the system to additional CO2.
Pielke has actually calculated the number of joules that would have to be accumulating in the ocean in order to be consistent with the IPCC claims of CO2 sensitivity. The difference between the expected and actual accumulation is so large that it casts signicant doubts on the IPCC claims.
As for your papers on moistening: it is clear that the humidity datasets available are so bad that it is possible to make any number of claims that appear to be compelling if one ignores the data that does not fit one’s conclusions. That is critique applies to skeptics who claim that water vapour feedback is negative. IOW – they don’t really provide much supporting evidence for the models.
foinavon (11:28:57) :
Please stop patronizing us. Are you an academic or just an academic wannabe? It doesn’t seem you have actually done any work in the field or data gathering yourself, am I correct on that? Your arguments can be addressed on their own either way, I’m just curious is all.
“The reported cooling from 2003 was shown recently to be an artifact from problems with some of the Argo temperature monitors..”
We actually know all about this, so don’t try to imply that we may be using false information when we state that there has been no warming and perhaps even a slight cooling over the past few years. That’s the conclusion Josh Willis himself came to AFTER he found the errors and made the adjustments. In fact he is quoted farther up in the thread saying exactly that.
“In any case, we don’t expect a monotonous warming in response to enhanced forcing as the earth tends towards a new equilibrium temperature.”
Tell that to the IPCC then. Their projections actually did show monotonous warming. See Lucia. And you know that, so why are you attempting to state otherwise?
“Part of the reduction in warming is due to the fact that we’ve been descending to the bottom of the solar cycle during the last 4-5 years.”
Oh please. It’s too late in the game for you to invoke the sun NOW. The same with La Nina. You would have to rethink your analysis of the temp trends for the entire 20th century first before you can claim any credibility with attribution NOW.
We’ll wait.
foinavon (12:07:48) said:
The observational evidence supports tropospheric “moistening” in response to warming.
Response:
The latest paper [discussed elsewhere on WUWT] argues that mid- and upper- tropospheric relative humidity has been DECREASING contrary to all model predictions.
See:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m2054qq6126802g8/?p=e209f4ac50044f93a421b19e0a636d4b&pi=0
Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data
[ Water vapor feedback in climate models is positive mainly because of their roughly constant relative humidity (i.e., increasing q) in the mid-to-upper troposphere as the planet warms. Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.]
or, on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/05/negative-feedback-in-climate-empirical-or-emotional/#more-6036
foinavon (11:28:57) :
So, help me on this. Approximately, by your own admission, in the last 5-6 years the oceans are not heating, nor are they rising. Gisstemps have plateaued (albiet at an elevated level), arctic and indeed global sea ice extent has increased in that time arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg but atsmospheric CO2 has increased in agreement with trend. In terms of “still to come due to the slow equilibration times of various elements of the climate system”. where is the heat to come from, or, where has the heat gone?
5 or 6 years is a very short time and it’s not clear if the oceans have heated or not during this period.
Your argument, as I understood it, is CO2 causes heating-heating goes into sink(ocean), but when temps aren’t rising in sync with CO2, (which they aren’t)-heat stored in sink causes sea level rise (which they haven’t since late 2006). My (and apparently Pielke’s) contention is: based on your climate construction, if sea level is static (link above), and sea ice is greater now than two years ago and CO2 is rising, then the ocean must be warmer, or CO2 doesn’t cause warming. So you argument against Pielke boils down to your belief that the ocean temp data is suspect. That makes you a denier in a similar fashion to my disbelief of GassTemp. And about the suns influence, better hope Leif isn’t reading :~).
Frank Mosher (08:01:54) :
“Anthony. I think a lot can be learned by observing the “tenor” of comments. IMHO, people that are confident of their analysis, remain calm, confident that their conclusions will be born out in subsequent observations of real data. Conversely, see “Mary Hinge”, when the debate seems to be going badly, personal attacks, and adherence to ” the models show”, does more harm to their cause than they realize. In this debate, the ” undecided “, will undoubtedly come down on the side of polite, rational discourse.”
As a non-scientist who is unable to evaluate the validity of the scientific statements made on each side by scientists I think that this statement by Frank Mosher is very true. I also think that statements made about religion don’t help the credibility of the person using them when they are trying to win over people like me who are unsure who is right. Firstly the statements made about religion are not, as a rule, polite and, secondly, they are generally based on prejudice and/or ignorance and not inclined to help rational discourse. I just wonder why, in blogs to do with science, some people feel the need to refer to religion so much. Ladies and gentleman: please keep to the science!
Anthony Watts comes across as someone who is polite and rational. Would that that could be said about all the entries on climate science blogs. I’m not one of the very limited group of scientists who take part in these debates. Nor am I one of the committed people on either side who rail about higher taxes and increased government activity, on the one side, or go on about ‘the green agenda’, on the other side. I just represent Joe Public in the middle trying to make sense of the crossfire. So, to take up Frank Mosher’s point, I can’t make judgements about the science but I’m more likely to be on the side of those who discuss the science in a polite, rational manner – and keep to the science.
Thank you to the many contributors who have explained things plainly and have, at least, let me see what are the main areas of debate between the scientists. I may not fully understand things like climate sensitivity but I can see that the science is anything but “settled”. The next time someone comes to the school where I teach (because someone from the local Council already has) and starts off by saying that there is a scientific consensus will get short shrift and a few very pertinent questions. Unfortunately I hadn’t read any of the contributions on WUWT before the first person came – so he got away with it. But not the next time!
At the moment, every department in my school is being asked how they are including “sustainability” in their teaching. That stems from the visit by the man from the Council. It is taken that AGW is here and real. At least we haven’t been made to show our pupils AIT so thankful for small mercies. But it’s probably in the schools that the climate sceptics most need to get their message across.
foinavon (11:28:57) :
“In any case, we don’t expect a monotonous warming in response to enhanced forcing as the earth tends towards a new equilibrium temperature. For example, the current plateau in warming is quite similar to what was observed in the early 1980’s, the mid 1990’s and so on”
If the net forcing increases monotonously I think “we” expect energy to be accumulated more or less monotonously – if not in the atmosphere then in the oceans. What is interesting here is that unlike the plateaus in the 80’s and 90’s the current plateau cannot be attributed to stratospheric vulcanos. See these data from GISS – dramatic dips in net forcing occur at those times:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
The current plateau happens in a period without stratospheric volcanos…
I would like to add another small observation of some relevance here. In a blogpost in October of last year Tamino takes account of the current understanding of TSI as almost invariant by attributing the warming in the first half of the 20’th century to a volcanic lull in the mid-century.
But where is the warming of the present volcanic lull, then? Taminos data do not extend beyond 2003 but the continued lull since 2003 should have a large effect on temperatures according to Tamino: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/volcanic-lull/
No??
“”” Jim Steele (11:37:18) :
Mary Hinge (02:07:31) :
“I have used the home page link so you can play with the adjustments your self, but whichever way you play it the sea level is rising, therefore sea temperatures are rising and/or glaciers and land ice sheets are melting.”
Big assumptions Mary Hinge. How about glacial rebound and other tectonic forces? Pressure differences. Squeeze your coffee cup and see what happens to the liquid level. Another interesting tid bit is the Arctic ocean’ sea level is falling the last 20 years. “””
“”” Another interesting tid bit is the Arctic ocean’ sea level is falling the last 20 years. “””
Yes that interesting tidbit was reported around June 2006, by a British/Dutch team of climate scientists, using a European polar satellite to gather that data. In their report; they said they were very confident of their data; but didn’t know why , and they would wait for the theoreticians to catch up to the data.
But go to “Physics Today” Letters, for Jan 2005, in a letter about a review of Spencer Weart’s book; “The Discovery of Global Warming”, where it was predicted, that the ocean sea level should fall when the floating sea ice melts. More specifically, it was predicted by George E. Smith (moi, and written circa June 2004).
Weart’s response essentially said; nonsense, when the ocean warms it expands and the sea level rises; quite true but bearing no relevence to the question of what happens when the floating sea ice melts; which is what I predicted fully two years before these Brits, and Dutch Scientists published their satellite study results.
So yes the arctic ocean has been falling; which by the way, does confirm that the arctic sea ice had indeed been melting during that 20 year period. Of course sea ice real data only goes back to around 1979 when the first polar satellites were launched (roughly).
George