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.
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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