The Discovery Channel has “shark week”. With all the Arctic news items on WUWT, this is beginning to feel like “polar week”. Here’s an article about aerosols having an impact on the arctic from a surprising source.- Anthony
From Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson
Since the 1890s, surface temperatures on Earth have risen faster in the Arctic than in other regions of the world. Usually, discussions on global warming tend to focus on greenhouse gases as the culprit for the trend. But new NASA research suggests about half the atmospheric warming measured in the Arctic is due to airborne particles called aerosols.
Aerosols are emitted by both natural and human sources. They can influence climate by reflecting or absorbing sunlight. The particles also affect climate by changing cloud properties, such as reflectivity. There is one type of aerosol that, according to the study, [reduces] rather than increases in its emissions seem to have promoted warming.
The research team, led by climate scientist Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies used a computer model to investigate how sensitive different regional climates are to changes in levels of carbon dioxide, ozone, and aerosols.
They found that Earth’s middle and high latitudes are particularly responsive to changes in aerosol levels. The model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 % or more of the warming measured in the Arctic since 1976.
Though there are several types of aerosols, previous research indicates two in particular, sulfates and black carbon, play leading roles in climate. Both are products of human activity. Sulfates, which come mainly from the burning of coal and oil, scatter sunlight and cool the air. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed clean-air laws that have halved sulfate emissions.
The models showed that regions of Earth that showed the strongest responses to aerosols in the model are the same regions that have witnessed the greatest actual temperature increases since 1976, specifically the Arctic. However in the Antarctic, aerosols play less of a role.
Researchers with the NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in the April 3 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters that Arctic summers may be ice-free in as few as 30 years.
The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures rise by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F). That makes sense, Shindell said, because the Arctic is near North America and Europe, highly industrialized regions that produce most of the world’s aerosols.
“In the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and in the Arctic, the impact of aerosols is just as strong as that of the greenhouse gases,” said Shindell. “We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide. If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”
Aerosols tend to be short lived, staying in the atmosphere for just days or weeks, whereas greenhouses gases can persist for centuries. Atmospheric chemists thus think the climate may respond most quickly to changes in aerosol levels.
NASA’s upcoming Glory satellite is designed to enhance current aerosol measurement capabilities to help scientists reduce uncertainties about aerosols by measuring the distribution and properties of the particles.
Aerosols account for 45% of the warming, and soot accounts for 94% of the warming.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=impure-as-the-driven-snow
The total for soot and aerosols is 139% out of 100%, which means that you can screw your incandescent light bulbs back in without the Polar Bears or Penguins getting angry at you.
So let me get this straight, now the “death trains” assist in cooling the air and saving us from global warming?
I thought we got rid of that stuff and saved the Antarctic???
Oops, wrong pole. We now have to save the other pole.
No more aerosols in your Burma Shave.
Compressed air only.
Oh, hey, they didn’t say CO2 was an aerosol.
Too late, Steve, they outlawed the Edison bulb, and shipped the entire industry off to China where soot is king.
The global temperature graph AND the arctic temperature graph on display above BOTH show a much steeper warming curve from about 1915 to the early 1940s than from 1970 to present. Also it appears that the arctic began cooling in the early 40s slightly before the global cooling began. Perhaps that cooling of the arctic from about 1940 IS due to the particulates from the bombing in WWII. It certainly appears that WWII and the post war expansion halted and reversed the natural warming . Then, it appears that the Clean Air Act reinstated the natural clear sky warming. Perhaps the industrialization of the third world is our best tactic for halting this warming.
We better get back to capitalism, and make as much money as we can so we can buy all that stuff from India and China.
It’s the sensible thing to do.
I think I see where this one is going. With runaway global warming from man made CO2 coming under attack and the models about to fall apart without documented “positive feedback”, we turn to man made aerosols. Conveniently, the target remains the same; the burning of fossil fuels. “Slippin’ and uh-sliden’ – peepin’ and uh-hiden!””
Typo check, line 12.
“Reduces”, not “reductions.”
Maybe not, could be just strange syntax.
How about “with reductions”?
Please snip ad lib.
Naw, all China needs to do is to put a sock on their smokestacks.
Last time we mentioned it to them, they told us if they wanted something to get done about it, then get over there and pay for it yourselves.
This all has absolutely nothing to do with the Sun.
It operates under cold fusion, don’tcha know?
“Aerosols tend to be short lived, staying in the atmosphere for just days or weeks, whereas greenhouses gases can persist for centuries. Atmospheric chemists thus think the climate may respond most quickly to changes in aerosol levels.”
Hmmmm, I guess the atmospheric chemists have been missing all those trips to Bora Bora and the other nice places that climatologists get to go to.
I expected to see this phrase at the end of the article, “Yes we THINK that the aerosols are problematic, however we could be wrong, and that is why we need much more money for research.”
Actually, I think it reads better “which, with reductions” and a comma after emissions.
Reply: How about you don’t free compose in posts? ~ charles the moderator
The models say one thing, what does the actual physical evidence say?
Do the models make a specific, verifiable prediction – which if it does not come true, will falsify the models.
If no such prediction is being made, is GISS actually doing science?
Charles, I recommend that no one is allowed to be their own grammar nazi. Someone else has to care enough to correct those who post in haste.
I refuse to believe that at the expense of making my bathroom smell all rosey after I’m done reading the Sunday newspaper that I have contributed to rising surface temperatures in the Arctic.
However, if they’d like to ban newspapers in order to increase my toilet-flush turnover ratio, I will register no objection in the public record. Nevermind that modern wireless technology allows a laptop as a perfectly suitable substitute and no decrease in the aforementioned ratio.
By the way….did you guys know I could type this from my bathroom? I may have just added a few thousandths of a degree to the Arctic temperature record while typing this when I should have been flushing.
Maybe based on this research, Dr. Hansen will start lobbying for “Clean Coal” to reduce the soot emisions. However, it is hard to imagine there could be benefits for taking things out of the atmosphere that make you choke?
45% warming in arctic from aerosols, 50% over land from uhi, another 50% from land use changes, close to 100% overall from ocean currents and solar variation.
nothing left for co2. except cooling not warming.
will al gore change the sign of his temperature axis to promote co2 reduction and save us from the imminent ice age ?
wouldn’t that justify another nobel price ?
At the rate China’s placing coal-fired power plants on-line, it souldn’t be too long before their aerosols replace all those the U.S. eliminated with the Clean Air Act. Then we might just see Arctic cooling. This just might make it possible for Obama’s science guy, Holdren, to crow about success in cooling the climate without doing a thing, something that politicians seem to be good at doing.
I had thought with the recent comments of Holdren and a paper published Jan15th 2004 by U of M’s Penner (??) that these aerosols were responsible for cooling? The above paper posted here says:
“Aerosols are emitted by both natural and human sources. They can influence climate by reflecting or absorbing sunlight. The particles also affect climate by changing cloud properties, such as reflectivity. There is one type of aerosol that, according to the study, [reduces] rather than increases in its emissions seem to have promoted warming.” It is clear that sulfates are cooling- which aerosols are promoting the warming the carbon black?
It would seem that as this paper claims most of the warming found is in the artic and 45% of the arctic is the response to aerosols then it also follows AOGW CO2 models are seriously flawed. It is also interesting that this paper shifts the majority of the greenhouse gas problem to Asia.
Does this mean if we want to stop global warming all we need to do is repeal the clean air regulations?
The chart seems to show arctic temperatures starting to rise in 1970 and linked to passage of the clean Air Act. The act was passed in 1971 most of the restrictions were for particulates and it took an number of years after passage of CWA for the control equipment to be installed. The sulfur dioxide controls went in place in the early 1990s so I don’t see how this chart matches up.
It looks to me as if the Arctic temperatures rise pretty steadily until an English Monarch dies. Then a decline will soon begin and last for a decade or two.
Then right back up.
How old is Queen Elizabeth II?
You must have missed the line:
It was only last week I said that the tropics and Southern Hemisphere have remained the same temp for the past 30 years – someday some one will discover the cause of the arctic/NH temp rise.
well – now they have.
BTW – is this also the cause of the rise in temperature of the Antarctic peninsular?
I think regardless of however you look at it the problem with the climate, whether It’s heating or cooling, rising or falling, sooty or clear the problem is Man. There are just too many of the aerosols, according to the leading aerosols on the planet.
Those Arctic mean temps tell nothing about the causes when we have enormous regional differences, e.g.
“…in the late 1930s with anomalous winter (DJFM) SAT, at Spitzbergen, of greater than +4°C….
…SAT in winter (DJF) and spring (MAM) for 2000–2007 show an Arctic-wide SAT anomaly of greater than +1.0°C and regional hot spots over the central Arctic of greater than +3.0°C.”
Ref: Overland, James E., Muyin Wang, and S. Salo, 2008. The recent Arctic warm period. Tellus A Vol. 60, No 4, pp. 589-597, August 2008, online http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/publications/2008/over0682.pdf
They conclude: “Both periods suggest natural atmospheric advective contributions to the hot spots with regional loss of sea ice…The recent dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice appears to be due to a combination of a global warming signal and fortuitous phasing of intrinsic climate patterns.”
My favourite candidate for recent Arctic warming is 30 years of positive warm oceanic oscillations feeding warm water into the Arctic Circle via the North Atlantic resulting in a peak of ice melt in 2007 and now a likely slow recovery of ice following the arrival of a negative PDO and a cutting off of the supply of warm water.
The most obvious and simple explanation but the very one that AGW proponents cannot afford to consider so they scrabble about for ever less likely alternatives.
A bit OT:
northern Europe is getting an early spring “heat wave”, like almost every year since the beginning of the 2000s. today in Brussels, the temperature is 24C (approx 78 F), which is nothing but 11C above average. Since the beginning of Spring, the lowest daytime temperature we had here was “only” 4 degrees above average.
Justin Rollat the BBCs ethical man is in the USA (In this film Muskegon Michigan)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/04/the_first_ethical_man_film.html
OT but thought it might be of interest.
I’ll translate from NASA to English:
Yes, we need to know more what aerosols do to our climate. Yes, we should have collected more data about this much much earlier. But the point they should be making is “we don’t know chickenshit” instead of running around arm-waving and declaring the end of the world as we know it. The last “help scientists reduce uncertainties” says it all, the rest of the article is dressing up these uncertainties.
What about this lot running around the North Pole all hot and bothered?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168875/Im-just-run-North-Pole-marathon—I-time.html
I am sure I am missing something but where does the global temperature line come from. Looking at the Hadley global average temperatures http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/ I can see very little correlation as the big dip in the early 1900’s is completely missing
Flanagan
I was under the impression that you resided in the Central African Republic, do you have a town called Brussels there? According to! # weather underground,# the average temp. for Brussels Europe over the last 7 days was 12.15c slightly BELLOW normal.
None of the lines in that graph show a decade of recent cooling that is often refered to here, where is the decade of cooling?
Steady on. This is getting pretty close to blaming the warming on man and that is blasphemy.
Save the Antarctic, fry the Arctic.
Save the Arctic, fry the Antarctic.
To aerosol or not to aerosol, that is the question.
The Sun is nothing more than a big light bulb in the sky.
When Earth is lit, it activates the warming bacteria.
To solve Global Warming, turn off the lights when you go to bed.
All of them.
High Pressure Sodium Lights are evil invaders from Mars. Kill them all.
Hmmm. I prepared a post a few months ago that showed that ENSO and volcanic aerosols could explain most of the Arctic surface temperature volatility.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/enso-and-volcanic-aerosols-explain-most.html
The second title was “And High Latitude North Atlantic SST Anomalies Explain the Rest.”
It appears I need to replace EXCEL with a GCM.
Okay…where to start.
“We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide. If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”
Talk about shifting the goal posts. C02! C02! C0…errrrrrr…wha?…it’s getting colder?…err….ummmm….AEROSOLS! OZONE! AEROSOLS! OZONE!
And…I though there was another study a few months ago that said that giant hole in the ozone had nothing to do with us…and that a guy had the color of his eyes permanently change due to the hole in the ozone….and that…wha?….wrong pole?….shoot.
Looking at that graph…and polar-bear with me (I’m still on my first cuppa), but does that graph show that arctic surface temps rose pretty dramatically AFTER passing the clean air act?…looks like without that, temps were plummeting in the Actic??? Boy…did we screw THAT up or what?
More coffee…bbiab
JimB
I saw an ad for that and couldn’t roll my eyes enough (they’re still rolling). I suppose Justin swam to the US, and the cameras and electricity his production crew use are “all natural”… The Ethics Police can’t be far behind.
re: Arctic temps. Considering there are no temp measuring stations in important areas up there, any “arctic warming” is extrapolated from stations thousands of km away. That’s accurate, eh wot? And sat measurements don’t cover the Arctic well, where does that leave us for the so-called most rapid increase in temps?
Rimo Hämeranta,
“Those Arctic mean temps tell nothing about the causes when we have enormous regional differences…”
The paper you cite says exactly the opposite:
“Our main evidence is the spatial uniformity of the +1.0 ◦C or greater background SAT [Spring Autumn Temperature] anomalies across the Arctic … which are consistent with climate model projections from IPCC-AR4.”
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/publications/2008/over0682.pdf
Stephen Wilde,
“My favourite candidate for recent Arctic warming is 30 years of positive warm oceanic oscillations feeding warm water into the Arctic Circle via the North Atlantic…”
Your explanation is not consistent with this uniform warming, though undoubtedly such currents are not helping the situation. The paper above concludes:
“…a revised fast track estimate of summer sea ice loss before 2030 is reasonable.”
The failure of computer models to anywhere nearly reflect the real world draws this unfortunate conclusion: “The AGW campaign has resulted in a seething cesspool of deceit.”
And the pathetic refusal to acknowledge the failure casts each and every contributor to AGW, in a deep and darkening pall.
I think that we cannot have it both ways with these computer models.
Having examined the temperature outputs from these models when they play with CO2 I tend to think that they should be discarded and researched back to square number 1 .
To have someone come up fiddling with parameters in one of these dubious models and just because the output favors non CO2 warming to embrace it whole heartedly will be a big mistake, in my opinion. Until the models give an error band around their predictions, i.e. vary their caboodle of parameters by 1sigma and give us the true error band of their estimates, I am wary. It is still GIGO.
Are they saying they’ve erred with their CO2 assertion?
It’s out, and now it’s manmade aerosols?
Can someone kindly help to flesh out my thinking here?
1) Aerosols depress Arctic temperatures.
2) Some of the recent rise in Arctic temperatures has been due to the decrease in the amount of aerosols.
3) This leaves 2 possibilities:
a) This supports the idea that the sensitivity of temperature to Co2 levels is high because we are now able to see how powerfully aerosols dampen the increases due to Co2 etc.
b) This supports the idea that the sensitivity is low, because if we had not been producing aerosols the temperature would always would have been higher so the rise would have been smaller.
Can anyone tell me which it is?
pmoffitt (21:55:14) :
It is clear that sulfates are cooling- which aerosols are promoting the warming the carbon black?
Yes. From http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
“Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.
At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon — small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels — absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere.”
–Mike Ramsey
Im suspicious… the Co2 thing isnt going so well so they found another bad guy. Hey it worked before… Question is how do you cap and trade aerosols? Im tellin you guys saving the climate has nothing to do with the present administrations interest in the enviornment. Its all about cash flow. Without cap and trade how will they pay for everything?
OT:) Hey I didnt know you guys hired a proof reader:P hehehe
Paul R (22:44:14) :
There are just too many of the aerosols, according to the leading aerosols on the planet.
That would be my choice for quote of the week.
Stephen Wilde is of course correct. The simplest explanation for variations in Arctic ice is more warm water in the Arctic in the recent past which is now reversing.
Paul R is also right (if a little near the knuckle), we have to be made to believe the ‘problem’ is man made because that is the only way it can be taxed.
If a significant portion of the Arctic warming is a result of brightening due to cleaner air arriving from the industrialized nations, what does that say about the cause of the warming experienced by the industrialized nations themselves?
Stephen Wilde (23:30:41) Certainly not as simple as higher surface temps = less ice. See: The Top of the World:
Is the North Pole Turning to Water?
by John L. Daly
NASA GISS suggests aerosols play a large role in Arctic warming
Doesn’t this completely screw the IPCC “Detection and Attribution Studies”. That is, the reconstructions which supposedly explain the climate over the past century. You all know what I’m on about – the reconstructions which can only simulate the 20th century climate by adding in increased GHG concentrations. The mid 20th century cooling was supposed the be due to an increase in aerosols, but, according to the GISS zonal temperature record, it was the Arctic which cooled more than any other region. In fact, the Arctic (64N-90N) cooled at around 4 times the rate of any other latitude band. The NASA findings suggests that, not only were aerosols not responsible for the 1940s-1970s cooling (as I’ve always suspected), but any aerosol effect should have resulted in warming.
Unfortunately, for me, the analysis became very suspect when i saw ” models”.
I don’t have much faith in ” models”, no matter what the purported conclusions. ISTM, there are so many variables, and the relative emphasis is unknown, and may change over time, that models are a fools errand. People, from climatologists to stock market analysts, love to construct models. I got a call recently from a commodities broker touting their “new” trading system. I pointed out to the new, young enthusiastic broker that they had a “new” model because the “old” model didn’t work.They never do. Accurately predicting the past is not particularly difficult. My model shows that UNC will win the NCAA. lol..fm
Flanagan,
Could you kindly send some of that heat over here? (northwest US) We’re frequently 10 degrees F under normal. I’d like to start the barbeque.
A computer model investigation. This is not science and is no substitute for actual physical experimentat or physical data collection. I don’t understand how this garbage ever makes it into print.
Flanagan. Please send some of that warmth to California. We are tired of the cold, with the occasional north wind that makes it even colder. My BBQ is feeling neglected. …fm
The Arctic temp line is labeled 60N – 90N while the Antarctic/Southern mid- latitudes line is labeled 28S-90S. So how are they comparable? I would think one would use the same latitudes to get an equal comparison. Or would that dissprove their point?
Since the argument for CO2 as the sole cause of AGW grows weaker and weaker, those who have invested their time, money and reputations on the CO2 cause must move quickly onto something else or lose everything. Of course the blame is still placed on humans so they can claim they were “right” all along.
Paul R (22:44:14) :
I think regardless of however you look at it the problem with the climate, whether It’s heating or cooling, rising or falling, sooty or clear the problem is Man.
Otherwise known as the doctrine of original sin
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5
To paraphrase the song ” man is the root of all evil” ( from “money is the root of all evil”).
To wax philosophical, the combination of an anthropocentric age with deeply ingrained beliefs in original sin leads to such statements. Some people have to say ” mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”. I just wish they did not have their hands on the grants faucet and the taxation decisions.
In my opinion man is a part of animate nature, and of as much consequence to the inanimate nature as a mosquito on the back of an elephant.
.
The atmosphere is very complex and yes, we have contributed to Global Cooling by our emissions. Take a look at these pan evaporation rates for the last few decades – Global Dimming has negated much of what might have been an even warmer epoch over the last decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_evaporation
In fact, one of the greatest COOLING agents over the previous decades, has been that evil portent of climate doom – the jet aircraft. Unsurprisingly, contrails limit incoming solar radiation, and prevent infared cooling.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/200720/global_dimming_contrails/
.
“In the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and in the Arctic, the impact of aerosols is just as strong as that of the greenhouse gases,” said Shindell.
Of course, all this is from “models”. So really there is no more need to comment until they measure it. Similar for CO2. When they measure the warming I will look at it.
That’s in addition to the ice-thawing & thinning effects of sootfall on ice that has been modeled play a 90% role in thawing the Arctic region in the past 150 years, with an impact representing 20% of all global warming seen in that time.
See also: V. Ramanathan’s work on brown cloud heating effects. A major surprise was that soot heats the air more than it shades the Earth. When soot & SO2 are adjacent in atmospheric brown clouds they trap heat together as the SO2 drives more NIR into the soot particles, heating the soot more than the soot shades the surface.
The net effect of soot-driven temperature anomalies over the entire Pacific alone is around 40% total, about 50 – 60% of the effect the GCM’s model for CO2 alone.
I am skeptical about the report.
1. I have seen contradicting reports on this subject (also from Nasa).
2. it comes from NASA, not an organization to be trusted in objective climate reporting, let alone the organization broadcasting the “news”.
If you want to hear about climate fraud nonsense, you watch Discover Channel!
3. The emphasis of the article is fully concentrated on the burning of fossil fuels.
4. Higher temperatures in the Arctic Region have occured before we burned fossil fuels.
5. It comes at a moment that the CO2 doctrine is cracking up.
6. The conclusion: Humans are responsible for 45% of the Arctic Warming from 1976 to….makes me extremely suspicious.
The first question I have is that I would like to see a graph that includes the last ten years. This is a recent report and to be honest with you I am fed up with looking at graphs that stop at the year 2000, almost ten years ago.
The second question I have is about the aerosols.
What has been the reason for NASA to concentrate their report on black carbon (sounds nasty) and sulfates?
Is there any difference made between aerosols caused by erosion, the burning of fossil fuels, burning of bio materials (which is the cause of the so called brown cloud in Asia) for cooking, forest fires and volcanic emissions.
In Europe where measurement of fine dust has led to car free zones scientist came to the conclusion that up to 60% of fine dust comes from the Sahara.
Not really a reason to ban cars from the cities. As long as it makes the Grenies happy.
I am skeptical about the report because it takes over the the debunked CO2 hoax and calls for the enforcement of the same measures as the reduction of CO2 emissions.
Therefore I have filed this report under the chapter: “Continuing attacks on Human Civilization and Prosperity based on BS (Bad Science)”.
First comment, as usual, GISS is using some smoothing function to make the data show what they want. The actual Arctic temperatures are much more variable than the above chart shows.
Second, Arctic temperatures are closely correlated with the AMO. [I keep going back to the AMO all the time because it keeps showing up in every temperature series I look at].
Here is Arctic temps versus the Raw AMO index back to 1880. [The actual AMO index has the trend upward removed and I used the Raw untrended data here just to show the correlation a little better].
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6196/arcticamo.png
And Third, a very important point. The vast majority of the change in Global temperatures has, in fact, been changing temperatures in the Arctic.
It is a smaller area but when its anomalies are averaged into the Global temps, the Arctic becomes the big swing factor, the big driver.
Here is the Arctic temp anomaly versus GISS Global (and versus southern hemisphere temps which haven’t done much over the last 130 years).
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/2130/arcticvsglobal.png
Now just a damn minute. Aerosols were suposed to be responsible for the cooling of the 1960s.
http://www.washington.edu/research/pathbreakers/1969e.html
Which is it?!?!?!? Warming or cooling???
On March 26, WUWT had an article about LACK of volcanic dust and Saharan sandstorms causing 70% of North Atlantic warming. We’ve got to be close to 200% of warming caused by particulates in the air. It doesn’t leave much room for CO2 to contribute to warming.
By the way, many of these posts seem to have the oil / coal angle wrong. What they are saying is that to combat global warming we need to burn MORE coal and oil to increase the pollutants and reflect more heat out into space.
I don’t know how the Greens are going to handle the case where we need to pollute more to save the Earth.
Reductio ad absurdem …
Measuring the warming isn’t enough. You have to show the following:
1) That the measurements are valid
2) That any warming is indeed global, and not just regional
3) That said warming is primarily due to CO2
4) That human industrial CO2 is the primary source
As far as I know, none of these have been shown to be true.
Off topic-has UAH been hacked?
http://www.atmos.uah.edu/
Carbon Credits
I have changed my mind about participating in the carbon credit program.
And have resolved to give the money I received to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital
Here is why.
Recently I sat in the fire hall with a few dozen farmers. We had been invited to hear
how we can get paid for carbon credits.
The speaker explained how their satellites can measure the carbon in our land
individually and how much money we could get.
Then asked for questions.
I asked what is the source of this money?
The presenter said it comes from big companies that pollute.
I asked where do they get this money?
He had no answer.
So I answered for him, asking, won’t it come from everyone who pays their
Power bill? He then agreed and said “that could be”.
I then said isn’t this about the theory of man made global warming?
he said “we are not going to talk about that”.
Here they are on the prairie soliciting land for carbon credits
tempting us with free money.
I believe that agreeing to take their money means you agree with taxing cattle gas
also, because methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon.
I believe taking this money without considering its source makes us no better than
the bankers who lent money to people, knowing they could not pay it back.
Collecting their fees then selling the bad loans in bundles to someone else.
They did not care where the money came from either.
Let’s be clear.
Carbon is not a new commodity! No new wealth is being created here!
Is this the way we want to make a living?
Let me ask you, what if their satellites determine that your land has lost carbon?
You will get a bill, not a check, right? If you make a tillage pass you will get a bill
for emitting carbon, is this not correct?
It is also a fact that this income will, in short order, get built into your land cost.
You will keep very little and be left with the burden of another burocratic program.
Let’s be honest, we feel compelled to take this money because of the need to be
competitive, however we also need to hold true to our values
and lead by example that means placing our principals ahead of money.
No good citizen is opposed to using the earth’s resources wisely however
wisdom means a person who has both intelligence and humility.
In my view many of the proponents of man made global warming have the first and lack the second.
We are able to exercise our freedom in this country because we have abundant, reliable and affordable power.
It is ironic that we sat in front of the flag in that fire hall and considered trading our liberty for money.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Roy Disney “Decision making becomes easier when your values are clear to you”
This study reminds me of Sturgeon’s Law – “Ninety percent of everything is crap”.
I try to apply my Sturgeon filter to studies from both sides of the AGW debate and this one (which appears to favor both sides) failed to pass through.
Farmer Steve,
You are a true American.
Mike
farmersteve (06:50:41) :
Amen.
“Since the 1890s, surface temperatures on Earth have risen faster in the Arctic than in other regions of the world. Usually, discussions on global warming tend to focus on greenhouse gases as the culprit for the trend”
As it transpires from many WUWT post NASA data it is not trustful any longer. If artic is warming, how is it that militar buoys report ice increase, as reported yesterday in WUWT?
Farmer Steve,
Please accept this handshake across the digital divide, wherever you are.
Good on you, sir.
Your post is quote of the week, in my view.
Please run for an office. Your community needs you.
You would have thought they would have figured out that relationship from study of the Tambora eruption in 1815 (producing the “year without a summer”).
If such a thing were to happen today, it would be an economic and social catastrophe. We have much less locally grown food these days and more people are dependent on food grown in a smaller area. If that area gets a killing frost in summer, literally millions of people are at risk.
“White House Science Advisor Holdren suggests “climate engineering with particulates”
“NASA GISS suggests [that the lack of] aerosols play a large role in Arctic warming”
I see a connection, but why would the elites pursue this line of reasoning? Are they saying that Greenpeace and other clean air advocates are to blame for Arctic warming?
How strange.
–Mike Ramsey
Maybe the Chinese said shut up about the Global Warming
thingy or we’ll call in our debt!
Sorry, “Climate Change”…..I panicked!
I am not certain which way arctic temperatures are pushed by aerosols. To help confuse maters more we might note the following. The 1960 brought us the beginnings of the serious US-Soviet cold war with massive amounts of soot spewing intercontinental bombers on patrol over the ice packs. Then in 1990 the former Soviet Union began the permitting process to allow commercial air traffic to cross their territory (and the polar regions). This led to a burgeoning traffic increase by 2000. Red herring or smoking afterburners, you decide!
This is also silly, there is NEITHER ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING NOR ANTHROPOGbornENIC GLOBAL COOLING PRODUCED BY AEROSOLS
Watch this picture:
http://www.igp.gob.pe/vulcanologia/Principal/Html/VolcanLadoSur-ImagSatelital-Grande.htm
Do you see any humans down there?…WE ARE TOO LITTLE AND TOO FEW TO CAUSE ANY DETECTABLE CHANGE
I will tell you: You see in the picture several VOLCANOES around a name AREQUIPA, well that is a CITY with a million and a half inhabitants.
Does anybody can think, if not crazy, that those tiny “MOLDS” which grow and die down there can really compete in producing MORE aerosols or whatsoever compared with those gigantic volcanoes?
Back to earth you fool NEW AGE scientists!
Talking about aerosols:
Tambora eruption, 194 years ago:
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2009/04/194_years_since_the_great_tamb.php
Sulphates induce cooling by providing a nucleus for water to condense around and form clouds. The top layer of a tropospheric cloud is quite white and reflects inbound radiation in both the visible and infrared. It will not come as a surprise that when this happens, the area underneath the cloud gets cooler. Decrease sulphates, and you decrease the amount of reflected energy. Incoming ionizing radiation also helps to catalyze the formation of these sulphate particles since the sulphates form a rather ionic compound; either sulphurus acid or sulphuric acid when they react with water vapor in the air.
Farmer Steve
You are one of the few who understand what our framers tried to instill in this great country.
Anna V
The sayin is “the love of money is the root of all evil” and that saying is is untrue. The love of money is how wealth is created.
Add solar to the mix; less clouds over the Arctic allowing increased SW radiation contributed to the 2007 Arctic melt.
http://www.arm.gov/science/research/pdf/R00143.pdf
Reduced cloudiness and enhanced downwelling radiation are associated
with the unprecedented 2007 Arctic sea ice loss. Over the Western Arctic
Ocean, total summertime cloud cover estimated from spaceborne radar and
lidar data decreased by 16% from 2006 to 2007. The clearer skies led to
downwelling shortwave (longwave) radiative fluxes with increases of +32
Wm-2 (- 4 Wm-2) from 2006 to 2007. Over three months, simple calculations show that these radiation differences alone could enhance surface ice melt by 0.3 m, or warm the surface ocean by 2.4 K, which enhances basal ice
melt. Increased air temperatures and decreased relative humidity associated
with an anti-cyclonic atmospheric circulation pattern explain the reduced
cloudiness. Longer-term observations show that the 2007 cloudiness is
anomalous in the recent past, but is not unprecedented. Thus, in a warmer
world with thinner ice, natural summertime circulation and cloud variability is
an increasingly important control on sea ice extent minima.
Satellite and ground-based observations show that decreased cloudi
Adolfo Giurfa (08:20:38) :
Does anybody can think, if not crazy, that those tiny “MOLDS” which grow and die down there can really compete in producing MORE aerosols or whatsoever compared with those gigantic volcanoes?
Back to earth you fool NEW AGE scientists!
There has always been an inescapable scale problem
with this issue. Well done Adolfo!
Let them have thier aerosol theory. They can regulate aerosols and stuff some $$$ in their pockets, just like they did with FREON.
Just don’t let them perform Frankentstein/Mr. Hyde experiments on the atmosphere. And they can preserve Gore & Hansen in Acryllic and put them on display in their new church.
So the question is, who will be appointed Particle Czar?
Alan Chappell (01:49:50) :
Flanagan
I was under the impression that you resided in the Central African Republic, do you have a town called Brussels there? According to! # weather underground,# the average temp. for Brussels Europe over the last 7 days was 12.15c slightly BELLOW normal.
And here in the UK (even further north than the Brussels in Belgium) it has been pretty much the same.
Mind you, he has named himself after a 1970’s Charlton Athletic footballer so I think we should cut him some extra slack.
Soot from NH development is certainly in the game. But let us not forget also: “Dee planes, dee planes!”
Lots of planes flying through rather high latitudes on great circle routes in the NH. Almost none in the SH (other than the odd South Africa to New Zeeland flight).
One of the interesting things scanning thru this blog each day is reading various anecdotal comments about ‘the weather here in _____ is hot’ or ‘it’s been colder than average here in _______’. The temps/trends worldwide are so variable geographically, it just seems impossible that anyone could come up with an ‘average’ global temperature with any kind of accuracy whatsoever. It would require thousands upon thousands more strategically placed weather stations than we have. Instead the number is shrinking, and we’re relying on increasingly dubious software extrapolations.
It’s just insane.
It’s still true: garbage in/garbage out. The only change as we go along is that our “in” garbage quality is getting worse as we proceed, instead of better, and the quantity is being multiplied by software manipulations.
Jerry Haney (08:35:57) :
I was thinking of the song:
money is the root of all evil
money is the root of all evil
money is the root of all evil
take it away take it away take it away
It was in some musical I think
“”” Aerosols tend to be short lived, staying in the atmosphere for just days or weeks, whereas greenhouses gases can persist for centuries. Atmospheric chemists thus think the climate may respond most quickly to changes in aerosol levels. “””
Well a surface emitted Infra red photon takes a millisecond to go 300 km and clear the atmosphere into outer space.
So that is how long any sort of absorbing gHG, or scattering aerosol, also including water vapor and water droplets and ice crystals; need to be in the atmosphere for to get the job done of warming the atmosphere.
And note once again that this is a video game computer prediction.
Don’t these “scientists” have anything better to do with their time and budgets than to keep feeding these high school science class exercisesto us as if they are new Nobel Prize worthy discoveries.
We already know dust promotes cooling; aerosol is a fancy word for dust; like anthropogenic is a fancy word for man made.
The polar regions are supposed to warm faster than the equatorial regions, because the cooling efficiency is much higher in the tropics, and almost non existent at the poles.
It’s standard black body radiation and lookalikes theory. Hot things radiate more and cool faster; cold things radiate very little so don’t do much cooling at all.
If cold things cooled efficiently it would not have taken nearly so long to get to liquid helium. Instead it took a Herculean effort by Heike Kammerling Onnes to get that nearly last bit of thermal energy out.
And my tax dollars are being used to dredge up this juvenile “research.”
I’m with anna v on this. As soon as I saw that this study was done with a GCM (which is what I assume “computer model” refers to), I tuned out.
REPLY: Yes, but in the interest of maintaining a broad scope of discussion at WUWT, I chose to publish this. Why not tell us why? – Anthony
Bill Illis (06:12:21) :
Do we have any confidence in the GISS arctic temp data. I haven’t had the time to research this yet, but just some pieces and bits make me wonder. The most recent thing I’ve seen would raise some questions in my mind. In doing some research, I ran across “The Top of the World” by John L. Daly:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
In that site are temp histories for Spitzbergen, Jan Mayer Island and Franz Josef Island dating back to the late 1950’s or earlier. Visually, there is no trend in temps for any of these locations. I think we can agree they are in the arctic. Were they not part of the GISS data base? Were these locations subject to different conditions than the rest of the wildly warming arctic?
60N-90N is NOT Arctic! Almost no region with Arctic climate is as far south as 60N. The southernmost latitude should rather be chosen as 65N or 67N, if yoy really are interested in Arctic temperatures. I suspect that if you do this, the temperatures nowadays would be almost the same as around 1940. By calling everything north of 60N Arctic, you can claim a warming since 1940. Was this the main reason for chosing 60N as the Southern limit?
And in the other end of the world, this diagram mixes Antarctica and Southern mid-latitudes. Why? For Antarctica only, there are essentially no data before 1958, and probably no warming since then either.
On another thread (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/09/was-2007-arctic-ice-really-a-historic-minimum/0 Ron de Haan gave this link:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
There are a couple of graphs showing temperates at arctic rim weather stations which both show no temperature rises over an extended period, so on what data are the current NASA graphs based
Interestingly the references to the “steady state” graphs are to NASA (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/station_data/) and following that link reveals that they are no longer available. Another set of inconvenient data removed from public view?
Basil (09:42:10) :
I’m with anna v on this. As soon as I saw that this study was done with a GCM (which is what I assume “computer model” refers to), I tuned out.
REPLY: Yes, but in the interest of maintaining a broad scope of discussion at WUWT, I chose to publish this. Why not tell us why? – Anthony
I found it interesting to see what GISS, the home of Dr. James E. Hansen, is putting out.
–Mike Ramsey
Peter Plail (09:52:14) :
I saw the same thing and forgot to give a hat tip to Ron de Haan. I’m as curious as you as to how these stations could be so different than the GISS data (or model?)
For anyone looking for some good information and education about the dynamics of the artic, this is a great site:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
So NASA’s officially jumped the shark tank and have lost their last milligram of credibility. Prepare for the switching of gears to ozone depletion needing billions of green dollars we don’t have, for a non existent problem, using REAL pollution and then claiming they saved the planet. Niiice.
So remember folks to invest in those ozone credits, where you don’t have to go to the messy trouble of heating your home with oil. No no, we’ll shoot the particulate right up into the atmosphere for you, with a small tax to cover the cost of course.
I’ve already lived through this same lie back in the 70’s. This maybe worse then AGW rhetoric, more fraudulent and disastrous to more then your income if any of these wing nut ideas are implemented.
Okay. Here’s my thing. If aerosols only stay in the atmosphere a few weeks before they are washed out, how does that affect climate? Because according to the Warmists, climate should and can be stretched over hundreds of years. Plus, as the story indicates, NA and Europe have halved our aerosol output via Clean Air laws since 1986. What 1976, however, does strike me as is the year before the PDO flipped to its Warm mode. So of course the Northern Hemi is warming! Maybe aerosols have increased Arctic temps along with oceanic currents and other things, but they are hardly the mega-player in ‘climate change’ that this article seems to make them out to be. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Surprsing as it may sound, living somewhere leads to better knowledge of local events than looking at internet.
So, as I said, 24C today, 21 tomorrow, and the average temps for this time of the year is 13C. We never went below 16 since beginning of April. My source is the national weather institute…
http://www.meteo.be/meteo/view/en/211797-Forecasts+in+detail.html?newlanguage=true
“The sayin is “the love of money is the root of all evil” and that saying is is untrue. The love of money is how wealth is created.”
I disagree with this. I think it should be more properly stated that the pursuit of happiness is how wealth is created. Money is a byproduct.
To condense, for water, is to change from a vapor state to a liquid state. Clouds, since they are visible to the naked eye, are made up of tiny particles of water which has already been “condensed”. What particulates and and the like do is provide a means that these fine water particles can collect on, not condense. The meaning of words is important.
Bobby Lane (10:43:47) :
Okay. Here’s my thing. If aerosols only stay in the atmosphere a few weeks before they are washed out, how does that affect climate?
Volcanic eruptions can put massive amounts of SO2 into the stratosphere where it can stay for years.
–Mike Ramsey
Flanagan (10:52:00) :
“So, as I said, 24C today, 21 tomorrow, and the average temps for this time of the year is 13C. We never went below 16 since beginning of April. My source is the national weather institute…”
You’re never shy about correcting someone, so I’ll take a lesson from you
Data from Weather Underground for Brussels. Dispute it if you wish:
Max C Min C
1-Apr 14.4 2.2
2-Apr 17.8 4.4
3-Apr 20.6 5.0
4-Apr 12.8 6.7
5-Apr 16.1 7.8
6-Apr 20.6 5.0
7-Apr 11.7 8.9
8-Apr 11.1 7.2
9-Apr 17.8 10.0
10-Apr 23.3 11.7
So it would seem that your claim that it never went below 16 rings a little hollow. BTW, “isn’t it just weather”
How can you trust, really trust an organization thet comes up with this kind of BS:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=37992&src=eorss-iotd
I am a big fan of the sat images they make but their comments!
This organization needs a “Green Scrubber” to get rid of the green minded AH that threaten this organization.
Flanagan (10:52:00) :
23C was the maximum temperature for Brussels on the 10th. 17C was the average. Only the 10th had an average temperature above 16C.
All the rest of the average temperatures for April were 13C or lower. Look half way down this page at “Observations”.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/EBBR/2009/4/1/CustomHistory.html?dayend=10&monthend=4&yearend=2009&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
anna v (03:01:16) :
“I think that we cannot have it both ways with these computer models.”
Anna V, it is the computer models that enables them to have it both ways. The data from computer models is very adaptive and flexible. Nature’s empirical data is inflexible.
anna v (09:37:23) :
Jerry Haney (08:35:57) :
I was thinking of the song:
money is the root of all evil
money is the root of all evil
money is the root of all evil
take it away take it away take it away
“It was in some musical I think”
The song “Money Is The Root Of All Evil” was composed by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer in 1945. The song was popularized by the Andrews Sisters with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.
Archeologist are on our side too:
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2009/04/archaeologists-recognize-past-climate.html
looks like NH ice going to reach “normal” LOL
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
BTW: SH ice WAY ABOVE normal AGAIN so again global above anomaly. THis is going to be one hell of an interesting year for the AGW crowd
This is very funny guys. You actually consider “weather underground” a better source for Brussels temperature than the Belgian national weather institute?
And you actually tell me the temperature it was here, eventhough I live in this city and you were thousands of miles away?
No I see what a “sketpic” is…
Ron de Haan (12:22:56) :
This organization needs a “Green Scrubber” to get rid of the green minded AH that threaten this organization.
If you only knew what kind of image that conjures up to an English person with a handle like mine …
Flanagan (13:31:35) :
This is very funny guys. You actually consider “weather underground” a better source for Brussels temperature than the Belgian national weather institute?
And you actually tell me the temperature it was here, eventhough I live in this city and you were thousands of miles away?
No I see what a “sketpic” is…
I freely admit I googled the temperature in Brussels. And I freely admit I looked at lots lots of data. An I also freely admit that one of the sites wasn’t “weather underground”. I paid very careful attention to the BBC website ( me actually living here, it seemed like a reasonable idea) and frankly, I think you are probably full of … (ahem) … sitting in your cosy greenhouse reading your thermometer that you’ve just taken out of your microwave.
It’s not that warm here in “northern Europe” and, since I also live here (actually further north), you are not going to convince me that it is.
Flanagan, if you would provide a link for your assertions maybe people could check them. In the absence of said link, they go to the link they know.
These people deserve credit for reducing their carbon footprint in many ways.
1. They are recycling a theory discredited in the 1970s, rather than attempting to create a new one. This will clearly result in fewer dead trees, conferences, etc., since the science was clearly settled prior to being discredited in the interest of AGW. (I know this is muddled, but it isn’t my fault if these post-science scientists can neither construct nor follow a coherent chain of reasoning.)
2. They performed this valuable research using virtual experimentation, rather than actual experimentation. Virtual experimentation offers the opportunity to perform all research using sustainable energy, as well as repeating the experiment until the desired answer is obtained. This dramatically reduces the need for field work to take measurements, and reduces the time to settle the science since theories never have to be reformulated in light of new data.
I’m sure there are many other benefits as well. I think you should all be ashamed of yourselves for being so snarky about their valiant efforts to stave off the end of all known life.
:^)
I’ll go with weatherunderground. They have a station about 200 yards from my house, and the accuracy with my readings is extremely good.
Mr Green Genes (13:32:37) :
Ron de Haan (12:22:56) :
“This organization needs a “Green Scrubber” to get rid of the green minded AH that threaten this organization.
If you only knew what kind of image that conjures up to an English person with a handle like mine …”
Mr. Green Genes
It’s rather funny isn’t it.
Flanagan:
“This is very funny guys. You actually consider “weather underground” a better source for Brussels temperature than the Belgian national weather institute?
And you actually tell me the temperature it was here, eventhough I live in this city and you were thousands of miles away?
No I see what a “sketpic” is…”
LOL!
A good example of a “sketpic” would appear to be the Belgian National Weather Institute:
“Belgian weather institute (RMI) study dismisses role of CO2” http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelid=B18307176070801
(Translation)
Excerpt: “Brussels: CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer. The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth. “But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it”, climate scientist Luc Debontridder says. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore’s movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.” said Luc Debontridder. “Every change in weather conditions is blamed on CO2. But the warm winters of the last few years (in Belgium) are simply due to the ‘North-Atlantic Oscillation’. And this has absolutely nothing to do with CO2. (Belga) Translation provided by Theo van Daele
http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/nieuws/wetenschap/540607?wt.bron=homeArt2
Now THAT is funny, guys!
Flanagan (13:31:35) :
You haven’t given us a link to the data. Until then your honesty is in question.
Yes, isn’t it a wonderful world we live in these days. I remember the days when all we had was semaphore. Gosh! Now I’m giving my age away.
A skeptic is usually a lot better informed than you are; Here’s a graph of the April temperatures for Brussels going back to 2001.
2007 is going to be hard to beat.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/BrusselsAPR.jpg
Flanagan (13:31:35) :
“This is very funny guys. You actually consider “weather underground” a better source for Brussels temperature than the Belgian national weather institute? ”
Having seen a lot of your posts, the answer is yes!
BTW, the link you provided presents only current and forecast information, no historical info. So what’s a skeptic to do but look for info where it’s available. None at the Belgian National Weather Institute, none at UK Met, none at GISS, NOAA, NCAR
As the saying goes, “should I believe you or my lying eyes”
Comments by Icecap.us:
Icecap Notes: “This is a another attempt to blame man and our evil ways for the natural changes we see in the arctic. If not CO2, then carbon soot or aerosols. Willie Soon in 2004 showed how well arctic basin temperatures (Polyakov) correlated with total solar irradiance (Hoyt/Schatten) and how poorly it correlated with CO2.
I have found the Atlantic and Pacific temperature cycles (PDO and AMO) also matched very well with the arctic temperatures as shown below. Water intrudes into the arctic beneath the ice through the Bering Straits or the North Atlantic near the Barents Sea. When the water is unusually warm, there is more melting, cold less.
Both Willie and I used the Polyakov data set for the arctic basin available to 2000. Craig Loehle has shown how the RSS satellite analysis of the arctic shows a cooling since 2005, consistent with the global trend.
How does their model explain this? You must understand there is an effort to discount any natural factors from influencing climate or the crack in the dyke that would create could open up the theory to increasing questions, more holes in the dyke than they have fingers or model answers to fill. With every new model explanation, they sound less convincing, more desperate”.
In short, it’s another scam.
For anyone interested, Prof. Lindzen has sent Anthony a reply in answer to some minor alarmist criticism he received regarding his guest post on 3/30: click
Flanagan,
I’ll see your mildly-warm, itty-bitty Belgium and raise it with the coldest temperature ever recorded in April for Austin, Texas (2° C). Overall the beginning of April was far below normal for Texas.
Basil / Anthony:
Here’s why:
Up until recently there was a lack of field data on the effects of airborne soot, so the GCMs downplayed the air-heating effects of soot-ladened brown clouds and ozone. It’s crucial that this new data on the heating effects of smog & brown haze gets broader recognition as it has only been grudgingly received by the IPCC in the past couple of years.
Some backstory:
During the period 1998 – 2004 there were those outside NASA/GISS that kept noting that more temperature anomalies were occurring near renown brown clouds, including drought conditions downwind from the thickest brown cloud plumes. These observations didn’t get much credit at NASA/GISS or the IPCC, but were noticed by the the Bush administration which saw the Asian Brown Cloud as a sign of serious global policy skew, leading Bush to back off even further from Kyoto.
An important player in research of the Asian Brown Cloud is V. Ramanathan & his team at Scripps Oceanographic Inst (UC Irvine, if memory serves…). Ramanathan is pretty much a warmist, so he’s part of the “In Crowd.” This didn’t protect his research into airborne soot and the Asian Brown Cloud, however, he saw how global politics play havoc with science. In 2002 – 2003 his work in studying the drought-causing Asian Brown Cloud led to his funding getting yanked by the IPCC for a year or so because Chinese & Indian politicians objected to his research into the climatological effects from their massive air problems.
Being Indian himself it was a bit a harsh rebuke for Ramanathan. His funding later got restored but it was instructive how Asian countries feel they are entitled to enjoy an exemption from global air and environmental concerns.
In 2007 V. Ramanathan’s field teams discovered something startling: The soot within the brown clouds heats the air more than it proportionally shades (cools) the surface. This was a major climatology upset & has been spelling trouble ever since.
Following in Scripps’ footsteps, NASA jets trolled across the Arctic last summer collecting real field data on the air-heating effects of brown clouds and ozone. Even last summer the data they were getting was surprising. The data are showing that the tropospheric combination of airborne soot & ozone heat the Arctic air more than the GCMs model for CO2. And better yet: Soot melts snow & ice as well.
The point to all this is that *if* human activities are influencing the thinning of the Arctic ice and it poses any threat whatsoever to the natural environs of indigenous species or people, then the first way to defend the natural habitat of the Arctic is through soot mitigation.
Green Peace, WWF all know about the soot research and have been conspicuously mum on the topic. Would it be disingenuous to scream about polar bears and CO2 when soot could be a far more likely threat to the Arctic habitat?
*That’s* why this is important, because the question of soot has shown that contemporary temperature anomalies have had less to do with CO2 than the IPCC/warmist gang have been willing to consider. It took *REAL* field data on soot to overturn some wrongly held notions about its role in temperature trends in Asia, the Pacific, the Arctic and No. America.
leebert,
Great post! CO2 is no problem at all, in fact it’s beneficial. The atmosphere has been starved of carbon dioxide for a few millennia.
But soot. Now there is the real problem. I recall all the complaints from U.S. energy producers that had coal-fired power plants, when they were required to install stack scrubbers to eliminate the soot. This was back in the ’70’s or maybe early ’80’s.
Scrubbers are expensive. But they eliminate about 99.9% of particulates [soot], which is the problem from an environmental standpoint.
Now the U.S. has the world’s cleanest emissions from coal fired plants. So what’s the problem?
In a word, China. They insist on an exemption, a free pass, so they can continue to coat the Arctic with soot. See, it costs extra money to install scrubbers, and they don’t feel like paying to mitigate their pollution. Even though they hold about a $Trillion in U.S. Treasuries.
The problem on our end is the feckless environmental lobby, which turns a blind eye to China, and blames all the world’s ills on the West; on America, in particular. That suits the Chinese just fine.
China is ruining the Arctic environment, folks. Word up.
Relation between AMO and Arctic ice (from CA)
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8510/nhse72anomamo.png
Sorry guys, but I already gave the link to the source I mentioned, including the history of temperatures, you only need to 1) read and 2) admit what I’m saying.
It’s now 11am here, temperature is 20C and should go above 23C in the next hours. The normal is 13C. Monday will be the “coldest” day of the decade with “only” 18C in Brussels, i.e. 5 degrees above normal.
Re Flanagan
Here in Central Europe we have the second warm week (~20°C) as well. However, the blossom period is well 1-2 weeks behind usual time. I remember March 1990 to be especially warm, when the trees here were in full leaves during its third week.
Smokey,
There are other source point assaults on the Arctic. China may be the biggest point source, but Russian oil drilling rigs (directly in the Arctic), cargo ships (now enjoying passage through the Arctic) and regional diesel (Europe, Russia, N. America) are also big culprits. Ozone pollution finds its source predominantly in the industrialized countries.
China’s trying to clean up the mess but this will take time. For every unit of production we offshore to Asia we increase CO2 by 40% (on average) and untold increases in aerosol soot. The irony here is that flat carbon taxes in the West will only lend to accelerating this trend for the foreseeable future, defeating the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions while we further eliminate domestic production (read: tax base, etc.).
Following a very dirty trickle-down model of wealth accumulation and industrial start up China has been raking Western consumers while underpaying her workers for almost two decades. This led to a giant pool of money that in turn fueled our debt bubble that went demonstrably bust. I could give a very long explanation as to how and why, but our corporations and gov’t have been complicit in this. What’s notable is that neither the Repubsnor Dems are being forthright about their role in the negative aspects of globalization.
anna v: In my opinion man is a part of animate nature, and of as much consequence to the inanimate nature as a mosquito on the back of an elephant.
Anna, you underestimate mosquito power! When I hear that drone at night… 🙂
Here’s Flanagan’s ref (he did give it) http://www.meteo.be/meteo/view/en/211797-Forecasts+in+detail.html?newlanguage=true – but I’m not going to do that piece of homework.
I followed Smokey’s ref to Lindzen replying to alarmists, and posted – late as it is on that thread, I got inspired.
Leebert, interesting story of Ramanathan. Do you have a reference?
Does anyone have a link to the source paper that is public access?:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n4/abs/ngeo473.html
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/arctas/docs/presentations/Russell_P3_GoalsPayload&FlightPlans.pdf
This is how they did the study.
Lucy,
http://www.junkscience.com/may03/wsj-Asian_Brown_Cloud.html
So much could be said about globalization & the politics of soot.
Sounds like the solution to the Arctic “problem” is more coal-fired power generation without stack scrubbers.
leebert (04:25:46) : Look at the sky, clear blue, we are at the brink of cold space.
Gases if heated do not do any other thing but to raise up and deliver their heat to the stratosphere. The air, I don´t know if you know, can not hold heat enough as compared with water, the volumetric heat capacity of air is 3,227 times less than that of water, so that stupidity of considering a trace gas (385 ppm as measure in a volcano) in atmosphere as CO2 to keep the earth warm is just nonsense. Sea water keeps the warm and that is why you and me are alive.
Flanagan (01:29:33) :
You have done nothing of the kind. You gave the front end to the forecast. That is not the same as the historic data.
Try again.
[snip no discussion of “chemtrails” on this website, period. Zero, none, nada, end of discussion – Anthony]
[snip no discussion of “chemtrails” on this website, period. Zero, none, nada, end of discussion ~ charles the moderator]
[snip no discussion of “chemtrails” on this website, period. Zero, none, nada, end of discussion ~ charles the moderator]
Adolfo:
Indeed, so it’s a good thing we have a greenhouse effect. It’s warmer at night in Louisiana than it is in Arizona. Why? Water vapor. Humid air has a higher specific heat content than dry air. And warmer air can hold more water vapor. This is generally an accepted fact, but the $1T question is whether it’s broadly applicable to Earth systems in terms of amplified global warming.
This is the proposition behind global warming: That a bit extra CO2 is enough to create an additional feedback loop that the additional water vapor magnifies CO2’s warming effect. That is, the “warmists” scenario is that an additional +1 degrC warming caused by a doubling of CO2 will be amplified to a net +3 degrC warming from water vapor feedbacks, particularly overnight when radiative cooling takes place. So far evidence for this hasn’t been borne out by climate trends.
The counter arguments are that afternoon maxima shouldn’t increase much, only the overnight minima, likewise that average summer high temperatures haven’t changed, just that winters are shorter and not as cold. In other words average minima are higher, but average maxima are not. There’s evidence to bear this out.
So the worst-case scenario of a near-parabolic response to increased CO2 levels has not been demonstrated yet – instead the climate sensitivity to CO2 *so far) appears to be logarithmic (a generally accepted principle), which means that the first doubling of CO2 will only net +0.8 degrC, the next doubling only +0.38, the next doubling only +0.175, etc.
Unless aerosols or an ongoing solar minima are eventually shown to be masking a more severe climate sensitivity to CO2, the observed climate response is acceptable. The seas don’t appear to be heating at a dangerous rate, so it seems there’s no hidden heat lurking from below.
As I’ve always said, none of this exculpates CO2 for some warming, the question is concerning water vapor feedbacks and aerosol maskings. As this & other field data regarding soot are concerned, there’s more going in air-heating aerosol clouds than was anticipated by the warmists’ computer models. The moral of the story: Don’t sit too close to your computer screen.
Quoting myself:
I don’t want to miss the significance of these field data: This demonstrates something important about past global warming trends, that easily 1/3rd to nearly 1/2 of observed temperature anomalies can be attributed to either airborne soot or sootfall on ice (causing loss of ice & snow cover, and with them, lowered albedo). It shows how the extra heating from soot was exaggerating the climate signal from CO2, and that local soot-driven anomalous data points probably should be thrown out in interpreting net global climate sensitivity to CO2.
Up until Ramanathan’s field data all previous temperature anomalies had been ascribed solely to CO2 (& some methane). The problem here is that CO2 & methane warming should be smooth & spread out as they disperse and accumulate into the atmosphere, but that’s not the pattern we see.
Instead ongoing anomalies are all lumpy (consistent with soot), but the overall temperature trend globally hasn’t smoothed out: The far less sooty SouthernHemisphere has shown a much more modest warming trend consistent with logarithmic CO2 warming.
But, even now, the warmists won’t concede that they might have been letting soot pin extra heating onto CO2. Some are going back to the drawing board, yes, but not the loudest and most alarmist – not even a modicum of equivocation.
And WRT to shorter winter times, I’m wondering if the albedo-lowering effects of snow-melting soot could be far more widespread with a general continental shortening of winter temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s already been demonstrated that sootfall from Asia is darkening the glaciers in the American Rockies, leading to gradual decimation of ice packs in the Sierras and Rockies. If this effect is more widespread there could be net albedo reduction leading to earlier melts across Russia, Mongolia, the Himalayas, the Rockies, Canada and Northern U.S.A.
The moral of the story: More field data, please.
Sorry to be conversing with myself, but one more thought for those who are still following this thread. There’s something I’m not aware that the aerosol soot research has established, is how much tropospheric soot contributes to overnight heat retention, elevating overnight temperatures.
In other words not only do brown clouds drive extra heat during exposure to the sun, but as these particles settle at night I would be curious to know how much extra specific heat is contributed by soot in general during the overnight hours.
Tony, as a meteorologist, would you know? Is smoggy air warmer during the overnight hours than clean air? If that’s the case couldn’t tropospheric brown clouds also generally lead to higher overnight temperatures?
We’re still following leebert. Keep it up. I think aresols will be easier to control then CO2 and cheaper to reduce. The question is how much of a negative feedback helps or hurts the climate. Additionally what effect do they have on the bio and chemical side of the atmosphere.
During night hours sometimes the atmosphere close to ground heats up, this is when atmosphere has cooled down before and equilibrium has been lost , then it goes the other way: the absorbed heat, during the day, from the ground and buildings starts to be irradiated to the atmosphere and from it, all that heat, goes up again and it is lost by irradiation “up, up and away”… it doesn´t matter if it is the gas we exhale, CO2 and plants breath or water vapor. In the water vapor case, this gives up its heat and falls down as rain or condenses as dew, when dew point is reached.
The case of sea water it is different: When you heat up, say a 10m3 tank filled with water, as it is usual in any chemical plant, to 80°C, it will take more than 48 hours to reach the isotherm with room temperature (if this is about 20°C). Can you imagine trillions (now that this figure is popular for bankrupting countries) of cubic kilometers of heated water?. It has taken from 1998 to at least 2007 to cool the pacific ocean enough for the Nina to reappear.
If somebody wants to use the telltale of global warming or climate change to terrorize people, OK, but to be fooled by such ideas I find it just naive.
leebert: Have you seen my post above?
Watch this picture:
http://www.igp.gob.pe/vulcanologia/Principal/Html/VolcanLadoSur-ImagSatelital-Grande.htm
Do you see any humans down there?…WE ARE TOO LITTLE AND TOO FEW TO CAUSE ANY DETECTABLE CHANGE
OK..what we can do and what we have done already is to contaminate alimited space around us, as with soot from chimneys, if a certain town or city it is not well vented by winds, but, eventually, we and that soot will go UNDER the ground.
Pass the word: Now it is not about CO2 anymore, now it is Aerosols and vapor.
BBC is already on it already.
Please don´t make it hard to digest it…just tell us what do you want from us, who knows, if you tell straigthly the truth we can even comprehend you!
RE: Rubber and Asphalt Dust
I ask this simple question: Since 1900, where have the many billions of pounds of rubber and asphalt dust as well as brake dust gone? The short, simple answere is anywhere and everywhere.
A passenger car tire with an A tread wear rating will lose about a pound of rubber during its lifetime. Can you imagine how much rubber is shed from the tires of an 18 wheeler, many of which are on the road 24/7/365? Mega lots.
These fine particles of rubber and asphalt will be a great accelerant for brushfires such as those occur in So. Calif and Australia.
Here is simple method for checking for these particle. Take a Post-it note and dab it on the any flat surface of a car that has a layer dust until it fails to stick. If you examine the strip of particles the black one lok rubber. You will also see small nearly clear ones that look like sand. These are from concrete road sufaces.
These particles probably cause excess warming in So Calif since thesre is little rain to wash these from exposed surfaces such as the roofs of houses. The folks there should probably wash of the roofs of their house before the start of fire season
in the late summer and fall.
Aerosols are anything that is sprayed in the air, look up in the sky for more than a minute and you can watch the CHEMTRAILS being sprayed almost daily and clouding up the sky . what effect do you think they are having ?????
This blog post kind of resonated with me, when I read it:
I was really getting tired of playing the research game — and it is a game. Success as a researcher ultimately boils down to how successful you are at getting proposals funded, and that ultimately depends on this bizarre mix of technology and politics. Because NASA research budgets were shrinking the competition was getting more intense. As a result, every CFP (call for proposals) would get more and more applications. Ostensibly, the review boards were looking for the highest quality proposals, but in fact what they were looking for were the proposals that, if funded, would get them in the least amount of trouble. If you have two proposals and one of them comes from CMU and the other one comes from Podunk U. it’s a lot less likely that the president of Podunk is going to call their Congressman and complain if you send the money to CMU than the other way around.
Its sad, but that’s the way science (in part) is.
This hypothesis is purely bogus.
From 1920 to 1970 manmade aerosols certainly increased a great amount, yet the temperature dropped during that period.
The correlation is bad. NASA is confused.
HINT: Try looking at solar activity!
I would personally see it as a good news… If the short-term evolution can be controlled by playing on the aerosols, then we could get back to a pretty normal situation quite rapidly. Of course, longer-time forcing would still be present, but this study suggests their effect could be less than expected.
Only problem: the source of black carbon and CO2 is the same – fossil fuels. So I suppose “skeptics” won’t like aerosols even if they turn out to be important.
BTW, Pierre, there is absolutely no problem with the period you mention. At that time, aerosols were much richer in SO2 than now – SO2 has a colling effect. You really thought they didn’t think about it when writing their paper?
Flanagan:
That’s not accurate.
The source of soot [black carbon] is not really “fossil fuels.” The source of soot is the uncontrolled pollution emitted by China, Russia, and other countries that deliberately refuse to use scrubber technology because of its expensive sunk cost.
The U.S. emits almost zero soot, and that is a fact. We use scrubbers. They are mandated by law. They are expensive, but the cost is passed on to utility users — in contrast to command economies, which arbitrarily set utility prices rather than using the free market to set prices, and in the interest of keeping export prices low, they do not mandate pollution control measures.
The soot that is deposited in the Arctic comes almost entirely from China and Russia. That is a fact. It certainly does not come from the U.S.
It is also a fact that the enviro movement goes through endless contortions trying to avoid pointing the finger at those major polluters. Which means, of course, that there is more going on behind the scenes between Russia, China, and the enviro lobby than the general public is aware of.
How else would you explain the current situation, in which America and the West are on the receiving end of all the criticism and hostility, and the really big polluters get a perpetual free pass?
Smokey (04:21:31) :
It is also a fact that the enviro movement goes through endless contortions trying to avoid pointing the finger at those major polluters (China and Russia).
Socialists and authoritarian types wouldn’t point fingers at their comrades. Besides, they aren’t even allowed to actively campaign or protest in China and Russia 😉
Smokey – agree re: scrubbers/clean stack technology apart from I don’t think the cost is really so high. Especially in the context of revenue flows in utility provision.
Also I think shipping and diesel vehicle (esp. in urban areas) make a significant contribution to particulate emmission. Vehicle emissions (in europe) are improving but I think shipping suffers as it is outside of regulation boundaries.
Aron,
There is more to it than simply being like minded socialists. The fact is that no environmental group stands up and publicly condemns the world’s big polluters for ravaging the planet. When an individual in one of these groups occasionally dares to express the opinion that the world’s major polluters are the real problem, that person is quickly marginalized, and we rarely hear from them again.
The U.S. enviro lobby incessantly criticizes its own country, which has done more than any other country to mitigate pollution — while the same critics always turn a blind eye toward the world’s really major polluters.
There’s more to it than being philosophically sympathetic to the world’s worst polluters. After the Berlin Wall came down the Economist reported that the Venona papers showed that every Western agent in the Warsaw Pact countries had been turned into a double agent, working for the Soviets. Every one of them. No exceptions.
The KGB [now the FSB] knows human nature and unlike the West, they have no scruples. They get results. The fact that the enviro lobby uniformly attacks the U.S., while giving a free pass to the really egrigious polluters, should be enough to convince any unbiased observer that the enviros are not as concerned about pollution as they are about taking sides — as their actions and statements clearly show.
slowtofollow: scrubbers are expensive. I recall back in the ’70’s or maybe the early ’80’s when they were being mandated by law. Cost was the big objection.
Maybe the cost has come down somewhat since then, but the fact is that China and Russia won’t pay the cost to have them installed. And as pointed out above, the country that uses stack scrubbers gets criticized, while the polluters get a free pass by the so-called “environmental” groups to cover the Arctic with soot.
But you are right about shipping. That’s why shipping companies register their vessels in countries like Liberia, which are only interested in the revenue generated, not in emissions.
Smokey wrote:
The cabal of characters like Maurice Strong, Al Gore and myriad other fellow travelers points to something disconcerting about globalization. American nationalists (generally the Republicans) have been griping about this as well, but unfortunately they and their cronies are as mired in globalization games as the Internationalist Democrats.
It dawned on me two – three years ago (and I posted a short missive about this on Benny Peiser’s mailing list) that the so-called problem of “exporting emissions” was worse than firms merely shifting production, the truth is that carbon taxes actually increase CO2 emissions as well. This is because for every good produced in China CO2 emissions are – on average – 40% higher than most other places in the world.
That, on top of the economic reality that additional CO2 taxes would lend to an even greater competitive advantage for Chinese producers, off-shoring yet more critical industries like steel, cement and other industries prone to high CO2 emissions.
That is, CO2 taxes threaten to accelerate job losses in the West while increasing CO2 emissions, both. Welcome to globalization.
Another curious irony: Kyoto Annex B countries (India, China, etc.) who generate most of their electricity from coal can get “flexible mechanism” credits (IPCC / UNFCCC money) for “clean coal” projects. The problem is that although these power plants generate less CO2 per kilowatt of electricity (reducing rate of increase), they also scrub reflective, Earth cooling SO2 aerosol. Under the warmist scenarios, “clean coal” projects *could* cause more global warming per unit of CO2 as a result. Ooops, the IPCC / UNFCCC are suffering an internal contradiction? Who could’ve guessed!?
I could go on at length about IPCC chicanery and Al Gore’s carbon arbitrage firm, but the bottom line is that if anomalous climate variations are a problem then soot mitigation is a better place to start because it is feasible.
Pierre:
I can understand the objection, but realize that we don’t know the real mix of aerosols during that period or other intervening factors, like PDO, AMO, etc. Some historical trend artifacts are going to remain unresolved.
The big revelation about soot comes from current field data taken in situ via robotic aerodrones. These new data show that given the right mix tropospheric brown clouds retain more heat than they reflect back into space.
Makes me think of that weird, stifling heat in hot summer smog. It seems to come from the smog, not from the sky.
Yes, US and UK emit far less soot than other countries, including alas many European countries. Among the big soot emitters I would also place India, which breaks down any kind of world-scale-communist plot.
Again, if BC is responsible for most of the NH warming, that would be the best news of the year… And of course regulations should have to be implemented at the world scale to make sure emissions are kept below some acceptable level.
For God’s sake you people on this forum need to wake up ! Snap out of the matrix. As you debate about the factories in China or hummer drivers, you ignore the elephant in the room.
The Arctic ice will indeed be melted in order to loot the resources, while the rest of us in supposedly temperate zones will be freezing our butts off. Does anybody see something WRONG with the Arctic being warmer than those of us living 2000 miles SOUTH of there ?
It’s called geoengineering/terra forming/ENMOD ( environmental modification ) . Aerosols are being sprayed daily over our heads ( chemtrails ). ~snip~ The barium and aluminum in the aerosol sprays are dessicants – they absorb the atmospheric moisture – so expect widespread drought,
And, yes, NASA is well aware of this evil aerosol program. Why aren’t you ???
True story : There was once a famous professor who, standing in front of his classroom of medical students, raised a beakerful of urine , dipped his finger into it , and put the finger into his mouth so he could taste whether the urine was acid or alkaline.He passed around the urine and instructed his students to perform the same test. Despite their repulsion, one by one, they dipped their fingers into the urine and put them into their mouths. When they were finished their prof burst out laughing. ” Well,” he said ” you’re all obedient students, but you’re not very observant. Had you paid attention, you would have noticed that I did dip my finger into the urine but the finger I put into my mouth was from my OTHER hand . ”
Observe, learn to see. ~snip~ ( aerosols ) are so obvious.
Smokey – yes, but industry always moans about the cost of change etc etc.!
This 2007 doc:
http://www.air.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/BF0CA3C9-69DD-4099-A2D2-D19258D999C3/0/V06053RBasis4507.pdf
suggests approx $50m retrofit cost of new ESP PM control system on an 800MW coal set.
Very rough and simple sum for illustration:
Not sure what the US avg. wholesale elec price is – UK is approx £50/MWh. Say allow $50/MWh in the US? This plant generates $40000/hr. So 1250 hours gives a revenue payback. Say profit is 10% ? 12500hrs = approx 18months profit. Life of the kit? Say 20years? So less than 1% impact on margin? Rough and quick sum but IMO the point is this plant is not costly in terms of the money going through the energy system and is a good illustration of the role of direct regulation instead of abstract derivative mechanisms. As you point out – US generatation is pretty clean and Clean Air regs are the reason. Please check figures in case I’ve made obvious booboo!
If somebody is to scrubber any amount of SO2 or CO2 will have to use milk of lime, which in turn has to be obtained by calcining chalk (Calcium Carbonate) and so producing a same amount of CO2. Funny, isn´t it. Then and again, if not morons, the purpose is quite different.
Adolfo – does that apply to ESP for particulate too?
Has the aerosol data for this study been measured or fabricated?
I suspect it was fabricated. There should be a clear answer to this question.
If fabricated (or’inferred”, from industrial emissions) rather than measured, then don’t waste your time – just throw out this study.
Please see Douglas Hoyt’s post below. He is the same D.V. Hoyt who authored/co-authored the four papers referenced below.
Source:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=755
Douglas Hoyt:
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:37 am
Measurements of aerosols did not begin in the 1970s. There were measurements before then, but not so well organized. However, there were a number of pyrheliometric measurements made and it is possible to extract aerosol information from them by the method described in:
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. The apparent atmospheric transmission using the pyrheliometric ratioing techniques. Appl. Optics, 18, 2530-2531.
The pyrheliometric ratioing technique is very insensitive to any changes in calibration of the instruments and very sensitive to aerosol changes.
Here are three papers using the technique:
Hoyt, D. V. and C. Frohlich, 1983. Atmospheric transmission at Davos, Switzerland, 1909-1979. Climatic Change, 5, 61-72.
Hoyt, D. V., C. P. Turner, and R. D. Evans, 1980. Trends in atmospheric transmission at three locations in the United States from 1940 to 1977. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1430-1439.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Pyrheliometric and circumsolar sky radiation measurements by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1923 to 1954. Tellus, 31, 217-229.
In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly. There are other studies from Belgium, Ireland, and Hawaii that reach the same conclusions. It is significant that Davos shows no trend whereas the IPCC models show it in the area where the greatest changes in aerosols were occurring.
There are earlier aerosol studies by Hand and in other in Monthly Weather Review going back to the 1880s and these studies also show no trends.
So when MacRae (#321) says: “I suspect that both the climate computer models and the input assumptions are not only inadequate, but in some cases key data is completely fabricated – for example, the alleged aerosol data that forces models to show cooling from ~1940 to ~1975. Isn’t it true that there was little or no quality aerosol data collected during 1940-1975, and the modelers simply invented data to force their models to history-match; then they claimed that their models actually reproduced past climate change quite well; and then they claimed they could therefore understand climate systems well enough to confidently predict future catastrophic warming?”, he close to the truth.
****************************************
slowtofollow
For particulate are commonly used water washing towers, electrostatic retention or filters. But particulate matter it is quite a different problem, what we are dealing here is with gases which could originate some weather or climate change.
Adolfo – thanks. Have I misunderstood? From above article:
“Though there are several types of aerosols, previous research indicates two in particular, sulfates and black carbon, play leading roles in climate. ”
Wouldn’t sulfates would be dealt with by FGD and black carbon by ESP?
We also have a new volcanic eruption in the southern hemisphere going on now.
Not much news on it except very brief notes that it is happening. So we can add one more to the normal background noise of volcanic sources right now.
Larry
Adolfo:
True, but the most problematic of aerosols is the blackest of soot from coal-fired industry, black carbon aerosol. It’s far blacker & more heat absorbent than other soot from wood fuel, forest fires or vulcanism. And SO2 reflects heat back into space whereas soot, in conjunction with SO2, retains heat from near-IR advection.
The effects of soot within brown clouds are variable, ranging from air heating to cloud seeding (when the brown clouds don’t cause drought downwind) but the effects of soot on snow are consistent and well known. The Nazis considered using soot to melt snow packs in N. America, hoping to cause flooding, etc.
ref. Allan M R MacRae (12:20:26) :
Anthony,
Is there value in assisting Doug Hoyt to compile and publish his historic aerosol data?
How could this be best accomplished?
I do not have Hoyt’s email address but think you do, from a recent h/t on wattsup.
Please advise.
Thanks and regards, Allan
Important Point:
At first glance the Shindell study appears to contradict this wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_haze which includes the following paragraph.
But then I remembered the 3 basic laws of climate change physics.
1. When the world is warming then human pollution is causing the warming.
2. When the world is cooling then human pollution is causing the cooling.
3. The same pollutant can cause both warming and cooling.
I forgot to add the more recently discovered corollary to the above laws, i.e.
It is possible for a reduction in pollution to cause warming (See Shindell) and an increase in pollution to also cause warming (See wiki), and for these 2 states to co-exist simultaneously.
I noticed a correlation between the slow warming of the Artic and Mao’s Great Leap Forward in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Peasants had their own mini iron forges in their backyards. The sheer volume of the giant Asian Pollution cloud is choking the planet. It girdles the globe. There’s a NASA Earth Observatory shot of the cloud over NJ and heading east. It’s a small world and we’re all downwind from somewhere.
Just curious, and I know it’s late in this discussion, but
“Arctic temps. Considering there are no temp measuring stations in important areas up there, any “arctic warming” is extrapolated from stations thousands of km away. That’s accurate, eh wot? And sat measurements don’t cover the Arctic well, where does that leave us for the so-called most rapid increase in temps?:
There are actually quite a few weather stations up there, some with up to 60 years of observations, Alert is a Canadian Military post and has daily data back to July 1950, Eureka goes back to 48, don’t really know about the rest. Even knowing that there could be issues with siting, observational bias, etc, they should show something close to the model output. I don’t see it when I look, but perhaps some else will.
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/menu_e.html?timeframe=1&Prov=NU&StationID=9999&Year=2009&Month=4&Day=12