Open Thread

Pamela Gray,
Here is a paper that discusses the moistening of the upper troposphere as detected by satellites: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;310/5749/841
And, here is a paper summarizing the evidence on the water vapor feedback: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5917/1020
Smokey says:

The log response of warming to increased CO2 shows that almost all the warming from CO2 occurs in the first 20 ppmv.

The property of a logarithmic function is that each doubling of CO2 concentrations produces the same effect. Yes, each constant increment of 20ppm produces less effect but that is why scientists talk in terms of a doubling (or any given FRACTIONAL change in CO2 levels) rather than an absolute change. So, in other words, this fact doesn’t tell anybody anything that they don’t already know…and doesn’t answer the question of how sensitive the climate is to a doubling.

The temperature of the oceans regulates CO2. The atmosphere follows the oceans, not vice versa.

If you believe that the oceans are emitting CO2 in net, then why does the empirical evidence show them to be acting as a sink, absorbing H2O and acidifying. And, what is happening to the CO2 that we know we are emitting from fossil fuel burning?

Bermuda has seen accelerated erosion of its coastline over the past decade. By understanding the impact of anticipated sea level rise on the island, a more effective means of adaptation can be implemented to minimize the effect of climate change.
Gurnet Rock Drowned Forest: The interlocking root system and lower stump sections of four Red Cedar trees are located in 30 feet of water just inside Gurnet Rock off the southeast of Bermuda. The roots and stumps are the remnants of a Cedar forest that grew in the area prior to 7,290 years before 2000 when the sea level was at least 30 feet lower than the present day level. The investigation of the drowned forest is part of the Bermuda Sea Level Study conducted by the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, the Geological Survey of Canada and the New England Aquarium.
The latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change confirms that global warming induced by human activity is a real phenomenon and not simply perturbations in natural climate variability. Sea level rise due to global warming is estimated to be about 0.5m or more over the next century. When coupled with increased storm severity (also a consequence of climate change) sea level rise will have enhanced adverse effects on coastlines around the world. The United Nations has declared that the impact on small islands will be most significant in terms of environmental, social and economic adversity.
So sea level was 30ft lower 7,290 years ago, did it rise steadily, did it suddenly rise, did it rise at 0.5m or more over a century or two, who knows.
http://www.buei.org/page/view/name/1,sea+level+project

Pamela Gray:
Science is available at any reasonable local or college library. The best measurements of upper tropospheric water vapor are made by remote sensing from satellite observations, like Soden uses. And, yes, they compared their observations to models…That is how science works. You compare empirical data to the theories that you have.
The data on the web that you seem to be alluding to that I know about is radiosonde data which, for humidity, is known to be extremely unreliable.

Here is a fun clip. Phelim McAleer tries to ask Al Gore about the errors in “An Inconvienient Truth” and after a short banter has his mic cut off.

From Aug 97 to Aug 98 the atmosphere added 3.90 ppm CO2.
From May 1999 to May 2000 the addition was 0.60 ppm.
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
From June 92 to June 93 the increase was 0.24
Several times in the late 50’s, and sixties there were 12 month periods of Decreasing CO2. There was one 18 month period of decreasing CO2.

Joel Shore (13:53:07)
I don’t have a problem with any of that and I’m sure it’s correct in principle.
The thing is though that it all assumes an absence of internal (within the Earth system) variability at the sea/air interface and at the air/space interface.
Once one realises that there is variability in the rate of energy flow at the sea/air interface then the scenario must change. The assumption that the air controls the temperature of the Earth only holds good if there is no variation in the rate of energy release from the oceans. I thnk we now have enough evidence to indicate that that assumption is no longer helpful. The oceans really do vary in their rate of energy release to the air on at least 2 and I would say 3 timescales.
The sea surface temperature controls the surface air temperature so the whole temperature profile from surface to the top of the troposphere changes in tune with that sea surface variability. In order to maintain an energy balance the hydrological cycle changes speed to accelerate or decelerate energy to the top of the troposphere as appropriate to try and even out the disequilibrium caused by the oceanic variability.
At the top of the troposphere the variability in energy flow induced by the ocean variability comes up against a requirement that energy leaving the system cannot exceed energy entering it so the air circulations in the stratosphere have to change to ensure that that requirement is also met.
Those air circulation changes in the stratosphere regulate the rate of transfer of energy from air to space so that equilibrium is maintained.
Climate variability is the consequence of those constantly shifting and mutually incompatible parameters and is mostly an internal Earth system phenomenon not properly reflected in the ideas of Tyndall et al or in current climate models.
Large astronomic (solar or solar orbital) influences or large long term geological events (redistribution of land masses) might establish a new long term equilibrium but on the time scales we are concerned with the oceanic variability (perhaps backed up by some solar variability) is enough to explain climate events which we have observed during recorded history.
Severe volcanic outbreaks or even meteorite strikes do not seem to produce permanent consequences so the system is clearly very robust and independent of changes in the composition of the air.
If the system was not independent of changes in the composition of the air then the large changes in the rate of evaporation from changes in ocean surface temperatures would be setting frequent new equilibria on a regular basis and we would be well aware of it. Instead we see gradual changes over time as the system adjusts to changes in oceanic forcing.
The truth is that the oceanic variations try to upset the global equilibrium temperature and the air circulations in troposphere and stratosphere change to cause an energy flow effect in an equal and opposite direction.
The same system deals with changes in the proportion of GHGs in the air whether they be water vapour, CO2 or anything else. The sea surface temperatures control the global air temperatures and changes in the air alone cannot change the ocean temperatures so all that happens as a result of more human produced GHGs is a miniscule shift in the tropospheric air circulation systems which is wholly unmeasurable as compared to the natural shifts caused by oceanic variability.

Mike Jonas (23:33:34) ”
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/DRAFT_VaughanPL2009CO_TPM_SSD_LNC.htm
[…] Is some of it in line with Landscheidt?”
Landscheidt, Charvatova, & others got me thinking about some of the temporal components, but you will note a marked departure from even Landscheidt’s most recent ideas.
Landscheidt did not stop consistently-refining his work (review it chronologically); rather, he died (in 2004).
Two things I think are important to keep in mind:
1) Landscheidt was aware of wavelet methods near the end of his life, but he had not yet used them (to my knowledge). (I base this point on an e-mail of his, which I found on the net, in which he seemed excited about the potential (then-future) utility of wavelet methods as an aid in his investigations.)
2) Landscheidt did not have the benefit of access to Yu.V. Barkin’s more recent work. (You will note that my arguments in the draft are not centred around solar cycles.)
Charvatova has been instrumental to my awareness of features of solar system dynamics worthy of deeper study, but some of the possible mechanism-pathways discussed in some of her papers leave me with the instinct to retain an open mind and pursue further investigation without drawing conclusions.
Studying Charvatova & Landscheidt is a healthy mental exercise – and I would caution their students to be skeptical about the role(s) they assign to solar variation. I have no doubt that solar system dynamics affect terrestrial oscillations, but if there are also pathways of solar system dynamic influence via solar-variation cycles, that is not a simple matter to elucidate due to the confounding (if one is even willing to assume there is an effect via solar variation).
So, in short: I advise studying the works of Charvatova & Landscheidt as an exercise in thinking about the rhythms of the solar system, but I would not advise assuming they have been on the right track with their speculations about mechanisms.
Landscheidt & Charvatova are pioneers. The work they have pursued is very difficult, particularly due to all the potentially-seemingly-paradoxical phase-reversals that go with derivatives & integrals-over-harmonics of trigonometric functions of multi-period waves, etc. [It’s not very intuitive to most people what happens when you differentiate iteratively and integrate incrementally over different classes of multi-period waves.] Even if Landscheidt & Charvatova got some stuff wrong, enormous respect is in order; they dared to venture into a complex & difficult land and endure it with tenacity.
–
A note in relation to your max-temp study [Mike Jonas (06:00:03)]:
I can caution you that I found some phenomenally funky discrepancies between TMax & homogenized TMax for a site I study. I cannot underscore “phenomenally funky” enough. This is among the most ‘weird’ data discrepancies I’ve encountered. The only other thing comparable would be the fake CO2 ‘data’ (not actually data) I found (that was massaged as though someone used a trowel to make the mortar of all the years have identical structure). I’ll wait for an opportune moment before I write to the homogenizers; timing will be important if there’s to be any hope of getting anything other than a useless admina-response.
–
Mike Jonas (23:33:34) ”
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/DRAFT_VaughanPL2009CO_TPM_SSD_LNC.htm”
[…] please tell us about it in nice simple English!”
Is (all of) the draft really so hard to follow?
Note: In the “Further Discussion” section I presented what you might call a “layman’s view” of the harmonic relationships (basic graphs of angles) to supplement preceding arguments based on wavelet analysis …but the organization of the document as-a-whole is (so far) just whatever I could manage in one sitting — and (!) I’m not inclined to invest more on presentation until the authorities appear willing to acknowledge that 2+2=4.
Thanks for sharing your interest Mike.
Regards,
Paul.

Kum Dollison (14:20:53) :
“From Aug 97 to Aug 98 the atmosphere added 3.90 ppm CO2.
From May 1999 to May 2000 the addition was 0.60 ppm.
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
From June 92 to June 93 the increase was 0.24
Several times in the late 50’s, and sixties there were 12 month periods of Decreasing CO2. There was one 18 month period of decreasing CO2.”
Yes. The yearly CO2 record correlates with yearly global temps. Hence ’98, “hottest year on record” and ’98, largest out-gassing in the recent CO2 record.

Some thoughts for warmists
Lowest max so far for october
Total Number of Records for October 2009
(out of 62,520 stations with at least 30 years of data)
New: 1,310 + Tied: 284 = Total: 1,594
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/index.php?ts=daily&elem=lomx&month=10&day=0&year=2009&sts%5B%5D=US&submitted=Get+Records#recs
Lowest Min for October
Total Number of Records for October 2009
(out of 62,486 stations with at least 30 years of data)
New: 729 + Tied: 279 = Total: 1,008
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/index.php?ts=daily&elem=mint&month=10&day=0&year=2009&sts%5B%5D=US&submitted=Get+Records#recs
All with CO2 rising and Lisa Jackson declaring CO2 as a pollutant. Congress and the Obama team sure have not looked out the window. They believe in Briffa’s YAD06 and as such it is an unprecedented hot October in North America.

tallbloke (15:12:15) :
Except for boss-eyed Brown, who will have no problem keeping one eye on the sandalistas, and the other on his payoff-parliamentarians.
I thought his eyes are messed up?

Latest publication of Dr. Roy Spencer:
Hotspots and Fingerprints
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/10/hotspots-and-fingerprints/