Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
[UPDATE]: I have added a discussion of the size of the model error at the end of this post.
Over at Judith Curry’s climate blog, the NASA climate scientist Dr. Andrew Lacis has been providing some comments. He was asked:
Please provide 5- 10 recent ‘proof points’ which you would draw to our attention as demonstrations that your sophisticated climate models are actually modelling the Earth’s climate accurately.
To this he replied (emphasis mine),
Of note is the paper by Hansen, J., A. Lacis, R. Ruedy, and Mki. Sato, 1992: Potential climate impact of Mount Pinatubo eruption. Geophys. Res. Lett., 19, 215-218, which is downloadable from the GISS webpage.
It contains their model’s prediction of the response to Pinatubo’s eruption, a prediction done only a few months after the eruption occurred in June of 1991:
Figure 1. Predictions by NASA GISS scientists of the effect of Mt. Pinatubo on global temperatures. Scenario “B” was Hansen’s “business as usual” scenario. “El” is the estimated effect of a volcano the size of El Chichón. “2*El” is a volcano twice the size of Chichón. The modelers assumed the volcano would be 1.7 times the size of El Chichón. Photo is of Pinatubo before the eruption.
Excellent, sez’ I, we have an actual testable prediction from the GISS model. And it should be a good one if the model is good, because they weren’t just guessing about inputs. They were using early estimates of aerosol depth that were based on post-eruption observations. But with GISS, you never know …
Here’s Lacis again talking about how the real-world outcome validated the model results. (Does anyone else find this an odd first choice when asked for evidence that climate models work? It is a 20-year-old study by Lacis. Is this his best evidence he has?) But I digress … Lacis says further about the matter:
There we make an actual global climate prediction (global cooling by about 0.5 C 12-18 months following the June 1991 Pinatubo volcanic eruption, followed by a return to the normal rate of global warming after about three years), based on climate model calculations using preliminary estimates of the volcanic aerosol optical depth. These predictions were all confirmed by subsequent measurements of global temperature changes, including the warming of the stratosphere by a couple of degrees due to the volcanic aerosol.
As always, the first step in this procedure is to digitize their data. I use a commercial digitizing software called “GraphClick” on my Mac, there are equivalent programs for the PC, it’s boring tedious hand work. I have made the digitized data available here as an Excel worksheet.
Being the untrusting fellow that I am, I graphed up the actual temperatures for that time from the GISS website. Figure 2 shows that result, along with the annual averages of their Pinatubo prediction (shown in detail below in Figure 3), at the same scale that they used.
Figure 2. Comparison of annual predictions with annual observations. Upper panel is Figure 2(b) from the GISS prediction paper, lower is my emulation from digitized data. Note that prior to 1977 the modern version of the GISS temperature data diverges from the 1992 version of the temperature data. I have used an anomaly of 1990 = 0.35 for the modern GISS data in order to agree with the old GISS version at the start of the prediction period. All other data is as in the original GISS prediction. Pinatubo prediction (blue line) is an annual average of their Figure 3 monthly results.
Again from their paper:
Figure 2 shows the effect of E1 and 2*El aerosol son simulated global mean temperature. Aerosol cooling is too small to prevent 1991 from being one of the warmest years this century, because of the small initial forcing and the thermal inertia of the climate system. However, dramatic cooling occurs by 1992, about 0.5°C in the 2*El case. The latter cooling is about 3 σ [sigma], where σ is the interannual standard deviation of observed global annual-mean temperature.This contrasts with the 1-1/2 σ coolings computed for the Agung (1963)and El Chichon (1982) volcanos
So their model predicted a large event, a “three-sigma” cooling from Pinatubo.
But despite their prediction, it didn’t turn out like that at all. Look at the red line above showing the actual temperature change. If you didn’t know there was a volcano in 1991, that part of the temperature record wouldn’t even catch your eye. Pinatubo did not cause anywhere near the maximum temperature swing predicted by the GISS model. It was not a three-sigma event, just another day in the planetary life.
The paper also gave the monthly predicted reaction to the eruption. Figure 3 shows detailed results, month by month, for their estimate and the observations.
Figure 3. GISS observational temperature dataset, along with model predictions both with and without Pinatubo eruptions. Upper panel is from GISS model paper, lower is my emulation. Scenario B does not contain Pinatubo. Scenario P1 started a bit earlier than P2, to see if the random fluctuations of the model affected the result (it didn’t). Averages are 17-month Gaussian averages. Observational (GISS) temperatures are adjusted so that the 1990 temperature average is equal to the 1990 Scenario B average (pre-eruption conditions). Photo Source
One possibility for the model prediction being so far off would be if Pinatubo didn’t turn out to be as strong as the modelers expected. Their paper was based on very early information, three months after the event, viz:
The P experiments have the same time dependence of global optical depth as the E1 and 2*El experiments, but with r 1.7 times larger than in E1 and the aerosol geographical distribution modified as described below. These changes crudely account for information on Pinatubo provided at an interagency meeting in Washington D.C. on September 11 organized by Lou Walter and Miriam Baltuck of NASA, including aerosol optical depths estimated by Larry Stowe from satellite imagery.
However, their estimates seem to have been quite accurate. The aerosols continued unabated at high levels for months. Optical depth increased by a factor of 1.7 for the first ten months after the eruption. I find this (paywall)
Dutton, E. G., and J. R. Christy, Solar radiative forcing at selected locations and evidence for global lower tropospheric cooling following the eruptions of El Chichon and Pinatubo, Geophys. Res. Lett., 19, 2313-1216, 1992.
As a result of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo (June 1991), direct solar radiation was observed to decrease by as much as 25-30% at four remote locations widely distributed in latitude. The average total aerosol optical depth for the first 10 months after the Pinatubo eruption at those sites is 1.7 times greater than that observed following the 1982 eruption of El Chichon
and from a 1995 US Geological Service study:
The Atmospheric Impact of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo Eruption ABSTRACT
The 1991 eruption of Pinatubo produced about 5 cubic kilometers of dacitic magma and may be the second largest volcanic eruption of the century. Eruption columns reached 40 kilometers in altitude and emplaced a giant umbrella cloud in the middle to lower stratosphere that injected about 17 megatons of SO2, slightly more than twice the amount yielded by the 1982 eruption of El Chichón, Mexico. The SO2 formed sulfate aerosols that produced the largest perturbation to the stratospheric aerosol layer since the eruption of Krakatau in 1883. … The large aerosol cloud caused dramatic decreases in the amount of net radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, producing a climate forcing that was two times stronger than the aerosols of El Chichón.
So the modelers were working off of accurate information when they made their predictions. Pinatubo was just as strong as they expected, perhaps stronger.
Finally, after all of that, we come to the bottom line, the real question. What was the difference in the total effect of the volcano, both in observations and in reality? What overall difference did it make to the temperature?
Looking at Fig. 3 we can see that there is a difference in more than just maximum temperature drop between model results and data. In the model results, the temperature dropped earlier than was observed. It also dropped faster than actually occurred. Finally, the temperature stayed below normal for longer in the model than in reality.
To measure the combined effect of these differences, we use the sum of the temperature variations, from before the eruption until the temperature returned to pre-eruption levels. It gives us the total effect of the eruption, in “degree-months”. One degree-month is the result of changing the global temperature one degree for one month. It is the same as lowering the temperature half a degree for two months, and so on.
It is a measure of how much the volcano changed the temperature. It is shown in Fig. 3 as the area enclosed by the horizontal colored lines and their respective average temperature data (heavier same color lines). These lines mark the departure from and return to pre-eruption conditions. The area enclosed by each of them is measured in “degree – months” (degrees vertically times months horizontally).
The observations showed that Pinatubo caused a total decrease in the global average temperature of eight degree-months. This occurred over a period of 46 months, until temperatures returned to pre-eruption levels.
The model, however, predicted twice that, sixteen degree-months of cooling. And in the model, temperatures did not return to pre-eruption conditions for 63 months. So that’s the bottom line at the end of the story — the model predicted twice the actual total cooling, and predicted it would take fifty percent longer to recovery than actually happened … bad model, no cookies.
Now, there may be an explanation for that poor performance that I’m not seeing. If so, I invite Dr. Lacis or anyone else to point it out to me. Absent any explanation to the contrary, I would say that if this is his evidence for the accuracy of the models, it is an absolute … that it is a perfect … well, upon further reflection let me just say that I think the study and prediction is absolutely perfect evidence regarding the accuracy of the models, and I thank Dr. Lacis for bringing it to my attention.
[UPDATE] A number of the commenters have said that the Pinatubo prediction wasn’t all that wrong and that the model didn’t miss the mark by all that much. Here’s why that is not correct.
Hansen predicted what is called a “three sigma” event. He got about a two sigma event (2.07 sigma). “Sigma” is a measure of how common it is for something to occur. However, it is far from linear.
A two sigma event is pretty common. It occurs about one time in twenty. So in a dataset the size of GISSTEMP (130 years) we would expect to find somewhere around 130/20 = six or seven two sigma interannual temperature changes. These are the biggest of the inter-annual temperature swings. And in fact, there are eight two-sigma temperature swings in the GISSTEMP data.
A three sigma event, on the other hand, is much, much rarer. It is a one in a thousand event. The biggest inter-annual change in the record is 2.7 sigma. There’s not a single three sigma year in the entire dataset. Nor would we expect one in a 130 year record.
So Hansen was not just making a prediction of something usual. He was making a prediction that we would see a temperature drop never before seen, a once in a thousand year drop.
Why is this important? Remember that Lacis is advancing this result as a reason to believe in climate models.
Now, suppose someone went around saying his climate model was predicting a “thousand-year flood”, the huge kind of millennial flood never before seen in people’s lifetimes. Suppose further that people believed him, and spent lots of money building huge levees to protect their homes and cities and jacking up their houses above predicted flood levels.
And finally, suppose the flood turned out to be the usual kind, the floods that we get every 20 years or so.
After that, do you think the flood guy should go around citing that prediction as evidence that his model can be trusted?
But heck, this is climate science …
KD: I am not saying that climate change is not a monumental and in some ways unique challenge. However, there are potentially large costs either way. The most intelligent thing to do is not to wait until we know exactly what will happen for sure before doing anything but to hedge our bets so that we have maximum flexibility to either speed up or back off on the transformations of our use of energy (and implementation of sequestration). If you think making the transformation will be expensive if we do it gradually over the next several decades, imagine how much more expensive it will be if we continue on our orgy of burning fossil fuels at ever-increasing rates and then have to do a crash-diet once we find out that, yes, the problem is about as serious as most scientists have thought it to be.
Also, the prediction aspect is not as dire as you make it sound. It’s not like we need a weather forecast for a hundred years out. In that case, you would have errors that accumulate in time. Here, we just need (at least as a first understanding of the scope of the problem) to understand roughly how large a perturbation we would be making to the climate system. For that, all we need to understand is if the basic picture of radiative forcings governing things is correct and roughly how large the climate sensitivity is. And, the evidence from Mt. Pinatubo, along with evidence from the glacial – interglacial periods, and so forth tend to confirm this view and to point to at least a moderate climate sensitivity.
Willis,
“Thanks, Mosh. If you take a look at Fig. 3 you’ll see that during the time in question, the control run varied little from zero. As a result, there is little difference between what I show, and the (projection minus control run) that you are talking about.”
I wasnt suggesting that here ( cause you dont have the control run) I’m suggesting that in general. Have a look at the video I linked to. Some interesting stuff in there
WRT this article. If Lacis offers this up as evidence that we should have trust in the models, I’d say its a fairly slim reed, but a reed nonetheless.
willis OT
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1084413?format=flv&quality=high&fetch_type=stream
Not notice if anyone did mention this, but SO2 emissions affect global temperatures only when in the high atmosphere. SO2 emissions in the troposphere has no noticable affect on temperature. It is quickly removed out of the air with precipitation and when in strong enough concentrations causes acid rain. Therefore how much a volcanoe affects global temperatures depends of how many tons reach the stratosphere. Human SO2 emissions never reach the stratosphere and therefore can’t affect global temperatures, but can affect the local environment.
Matt G: Your statement is not quite right. You are right that for the SO2 from volcanoes, it is that which makes it into the stratosphere that has most of the effect because of the quick removal of that which stays in the troposphere. However, human SO2 (and other aerosol) emissions are emitted continuously and thus at any time there is some that is not yet washed out…and this concentration is enough to have an effect on global temperatures too. What is true is that SO2 concentrations in the troposphere are essentially proportional to current emissions, as opposed to CO2 concentrations that are essentially proportional to the cumulative amount of emissions (i.e., the integral of emissions with respect to time).
It is also worth noting that, while there is considerable uncertainty in regards to the radiative forcing due to aerosols in the troposphere, there is less uncertainty for the radiative forcing due to aerosols in the stratosphere. This is primarily because of the so-called “indirect effect” of aerosols in the troposphere due to their effect on the nucleation of liquid droplets and hence on clouds. I think another issue is that to the extent that aerosols absorb rather than reflect solar radiation, this doesn’t really produce a negative forcing when in the troposphere but do when they are in the stratosphere. (This is because the heat produced when the energy is absorbed in the troposphere can mix down to the surface.)
Matt G says:
December 31, 2010 at 6:53 am
“Human SO2 emissions never reach the stratosphere and therefore can’t affect global temperatures…”
Are you sure about this?
According to the IPCC Third Assessment, the global mean radiative cooling due to anthropogenic sulphate emissions in 2000 relative to 1750 was 0.5 W/sq. m. By definition, this figure does not include volcanic emissions.
Joel Shore says:
December 30, 2010 at 8:50 pm
KD: I am not saying that climate change is not a monumental and in some ways unique challenge. However, there are potentially large costs either way. The most intelligent thing to do is not to wait until we know exactly what will happen for sure before doing anything but to hedge our bets so that we have maximum flexibility to either speed up or back off on the transformations of our use of energy (and implementation of sequestration). If you think making the transformation will be expensive if we do it gradually over the next several decades, imagine how much more expensive it will be if we continue on our orgy of burning fossil fuels at ever-increasing rates and then have to do a crash-diet once we find out that, yes, the problem is about as serious as most scientists have thought it to be.
Also, the prediction aspect is not as dire as you make it sound. It’s not like we need a weather forecast for a hundred years out. In that case, you would have errors that accumulate in time. Here, we just need (at least as a first understanding of the scope of the problem) to understand roughly how large a perturbation we would be making to the climate system. For that, all we need to understand is if the basic picture of radiative forcings governing things is correct and roughly how large the climate sensitivity is. And, the evidence from Mt. Pinatubo, along with evidence from the glacial – interglacial periods, and so forth tend to confirm this view and to point to at least a moderate climate sensitivity.
——————
So no example the? Falling back on the precautionary principle? Assuming there is no consequence or opportunity cost to the path you propose?
Wish there was enough wealth in the world to throw $s after the POSSIBILITY that there may be a problem, but in the world I know there isn’t. Just a bit of a financial crisis these days.
Love your last paragraph. Don’t need to project out 100 years, just a few. But the model has shown us a 100% error in just a few years. So why should we believe it? Better still, why should we base policy decisions on it?
I find your arguments to be lacking of facts and circular in nature. Given that, I’ll keep my money and my carbon fuels for now, thank you.
Joel Shore says:
December 30, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Well, you know, speculation is fun, but I tend to look at the numbers. So I got the El Nino numbers from here, and I regressed the GISSTEMP temperature on them, and subtracted the regression from the GISSTEMP temperature. That left me the temperature without El Nino effects.
The surface air temperature (GISSTEMP) dropped from June of ’91 to September of ’92. Without considering the El Nino the drop was slightly more (by 0.04°C) than when the El Nino effect was removed. So the effect, rather than being “perhaps a significant underestimation”, is actually a slight overestimation.
It is an exemplar because he has chosen to use it as an example (in fact the first example) of a demonstration that the models can accurately model the climate.
Joel, I’ve added an update to the head post to discuss this issue as it has come up several times. I am not “demand[ing] high precision” in any sense.
The history of carbon in our fuels is one of constantly decreasing carbon ratio. We started with wood and coal, lots of carbon. We moved to diesel and gasoline, less carbon. Now the planet is moving to natural gas, less, carbon still.
Can we reduce our carbon emissions beyond the reduction shown above? Kyoto argues against it. Changes in EU emissions under Kyoto were not significantly different from US changes, despite billions spent on Kyoto.
However, the real problem lies elsewhere. Your argument above is another version of the “Drake Equation“. It says that you multiply the odds of an occurrence (however small) times the cost of the occurrence (however big) and you get a meaningful number.
Here’s how I’d put the odds and the cost:
Odds of a 2°C temperature rise this century if CO2 is stabilized – one in ten
Odds of a 2°C temperature rise this century if CO2 is not stabilized – one in nine
Cost of a 2°C temperature rise this century – zero ± hundreds of trillions of dollars
Mathematical Expectation – zero ± tens of trillions of dollars
Now, we can argue about the numbers. But for every cost of a warmer world, I can point you to a corresponding benefit to a warmer world. We simply don’t know the answer. About the only thing we can point to is a slower rise of a similar size since the Little Ice Age. And reports are that life outside the tropics was much tougher back then … which as a man who likes tropical climes I can surely believe.
So you can’t simply claim that we have to assign infinite weight to burning fossil fuels in order to choose a different path than yours. That’s the problem with the “Drake Equation”. You get very different answers, depending on the numbers you pick.
I advise, as always, the “No Regrets” path. All of the foreordained horrors of the climate Thermageddon are with us now. We have storms and droughts and floods and cyclones wreaking untold human misery today.
So if you think those are going to be worse tomorrow, start fixing them today. Either way you win.
As for carbon reduction, the EPA regs are about to kick in. They will cost untold billions of dollars. The EPA itself says that by 2030 the regs will make the world cooler by three hundredths of a degree …
Joel, can we at least agree that climate modification via carbon control is not cost effective, and move on from there?
Thanks as always for your thoughts,
w.
BlueIce2HotSea says:
December 30, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Interesting. I looked at the data here, which kind of agrees with that. Also, there’s a global database (Excel) here.
Yes, there is a drop … but it’s not in the same class as the volcanoes. A single big volcano causes a huge spike in the stratospheric SO2, the equivalent of ten times the emissions, that should affect the temperature. It doesn’t seem to affect it as much as Hansen thought, however …
Steven Mosher says:
December 30, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Actually, we do have the control run, Scenario B. The two Pinatubo scenarios are variations on Scenario B.
I don’t find someone predicting a thousand year, three sigma event that winds up being a quite frequent, once every twenty years event much of a reed at all, but I guess YMMV …
Regards,
w.
I still don’t see how this simulation is representative of the capability of climate model predictions.
The Pinatubo forcing change was a reduction in solar radiation of -4.1 watts/m2 (eventually OLR fell as well as we ended up with a net forcing change of -2.9 watts/m2).
Temperatures declined by 0.4C or 0.1C/W/m2 to 0.14C/W/m2
The climate models are saying +3.7 W/m2 in GHG forcings eventually results in +3.0C in temperature increases or 0.81C/W/m2.
How exactly does a short-term climate response of 0.1C/W/m2 confirm 0.81C/W/m2.
If anything, Hansen had 5 or 6 volcanoes from history which could be used to guess at a 0.4C or 0.6C decline. So, when the first GISS Model runs were done (in the 1980s) and came back with -2.0C for a Pinatubo-like valcano – they just adjusted the forcing by two-thirds to get them closer to the -0.5C (see GISS “efficacy of forcings” paper – they just changed it).
So, it does not validate the basis of the climate models. It invalidates them.
Willis Eschenbach says:
But, September 1992 is a rather special point…It falls in the one short period of time between mid-1991 and mid-to late-1993 when the ENSO indices were close to neutral. In fact, only 6 months before that, they were STRONGLY positive and 6 months later, they were reasonably strongly positive again. The primary discrepancy between the temperature data and the prediction appears to be in both of these regions of time when the ENSO index was quite strongly positive.
…Which is good and suggests that it is not necessary to have high carbon ratio to have prosperous economies. However, there is also a lot of coal that will be used. The market system at present is blind to the fact that there are other significant potential costs associated with the use of carbon, and with such blindness comes a system in which such sources of energy remain artificially cheap. On the other hand, the costs associated with getting off fossil fuels are going to have to be borne eventually since they are finite resources. The only question is whether we get off fossil fuels before or after we have caused major changes to our environment. (If sequestration is cost-effective enough to become a significant component of the solution, we don’t even have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as quickly but can go through a stage of using them but sequestering the CO2, giving us more time to develop the alternative energy sources. These, of course, are questions that a free market, given the proper signals to account for externalized costs, can decide.)
Yes, we can. Those numbers are nowhere close to where most of the scientists in the field would put those numbers. Do you really think that the world’s policymakers should base their decisions on Willis Eschenbach’s view? Now, you can try to argue your view in the scientific literature and try to get the scientific consensus to move in your direction, but that’s not where it is now (and I would say for good reason although I recognize that you will disagree).
This is only a “no regrets” path if one believes that the only thing we would ever want to do is adapt to climate change rather than make any attempts to mitigate it.
That is because they are…
(1) not aimed at making a significant difference to the temperature in 2030 but rather in getting us on a path that will (in concert with the actions of other countries) help make a significant difference in the latter part of the century. We are pretty much stuck with what warming we are going to get over the next 20 years or so.
(2) not aimed at solving the problem without participation from the rest of the world too. It is a global problem. It is like voting…Why should I ever vote in elections when my one vote makes such an infinitesimal difference to the outcome that it almost never matters. Even in Florida in 2000, it did not come down to one single vote.
Happy New Year’s, Willis!
I had a random thought for your thunderstorm hypothesis Willis. Have you considered that changing radiation may change the residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere?
Hotter water vapor will rise faster, release its energy to space, and fall. This would mean that warming can actually shrink the amount of time that water vapor resides in the atmosphere.
Likewise, colder water vapor will rise slower, releasing less of its energy to space, and precipitate less.
Observations bear this idea out, but the idea of changing the residence time of water vapor hasn’t been factored into any discussion I have been a part of. Stephen Wilde’s assertions about speeding up the hydrological cycle seem to be a grasp at this concept, and are part of what made me think of this. I’d like to see what you make of this, given that you have the time/patience I lack to tinker with the models. What happens when you assign a variable to, what I assume to be constant in models, the constant of residence time for H2O that increases the residence time when colder, and decreases the residence time when warmer? This would be a great mechanism for maintaining energy in=energy out. And a new wrinkle for the man behind the curtain.
The claim that little continuous human SO2 reaches the stratosphere is based on aerosol data that in low levels has not been distinguished between different types until the 21st century.
While there has been a large reduction in SO2 human production from the 1970’s until 2000’s. In USA, Europe and other cities around the world with a significant reduction in fuel and industrial based sources. Depsite this there has been very little change in stratopshere levels so far and it is not having any noticable affect on the stable tiny rise. Just a few links below showing examples.
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/Fact_Sheets/Key_Stage_4/Air_Pollution/pdf/Air_Pollution.pdf
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/enz07-dec07/chapter-7.pdf
http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pdf/suldiox.pdf
http://www.cleanair.hamilton.ca/default.asp?id=22#Sulphur
Over recent years developing countries have increased SO2 production, but still some cities there have reduced SO2 levels. There are exceptions with especially China having had significant rises in SO2 levels.
http://ww2.unhabitat.org/istanbul+5/68.pdf
http://www.ess.co.at/GAIA/CASES/IND/CAL/CALpollution.html
“According to the IPCC Third Assessment, the global mean radiative cooling due to anthropogenic sulphate emissions in 2000 relative to 1750 was 0.5 W/sq. m. By definition, this figure does not include volcanic emissions.”
Satellites have only being detecting aerosols in the stratosphere since the late 1970’s/early 1980’s and up to 2004 were not able to distinguish low amounts of SO2 compared with ozone.
http://denali.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/so2/article.html
That IPCC claim was based on SO2 levels detected near the surface and all aerosol data in the stratosphere over recent decades. (with low levels of SO2 not distinguishable from ozone) Hence, it was a guess with little scientific evidence.
This changed in 2004 with the launch of a new satellite.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/aura_update.html
Overall the rise and fall of human SO2 production is not detected in the stratopshere aerosol levels.
Just testing, can’t get my post to work?
“According to the IPCC Third Assessment, the global mean radiative cooling due to anthropogenic sulphate emissions in 2000 relative to 1750 was 0.5 W/sq. m. By definition, this figure does not include volcanic emissions.”
Satellites have only being detecting aerosols in the stratosphere since the late 1970’s/early 1980’s and up to 2004 were not able to distinguish low amounts of SO2 compared with ozone.
http://denali.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/so2/article.html
That IPCC claim was based on SO2 levels detected near the surface and all aerosol data in the stratosphere over recent decades. (with low levels of SO2 not distinguishable from ozone) Hence, it was a guess with little scientific evidence.
This changed in 2004 with the launch of a new satellite.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/aura_update.html
Overall the rise and fall of human SO2 production is not detected in the stratopshere aerosol levels.
The claim that little continuous human SO2 reaches the stratosphere is based on aerosol data that in low levels has not been distinguished between different types until the 21st century.
While there has been a large reduction in SO2 human production from the 1970’s until 2000’s. In USA, Europe and other cities around the world with a significant reduction in fuel and industrial based sources. Depsite this there has been very little change in stratopshere levels so far and it is not having any noticable affect on the stable tiny rise. Just a few links below showing examples.
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/Fact_Sheets/Key_Stage_4/Air_Pollution/pdf/Air_Pollution.pdf
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/enz07-dec07/chapter-7.pdf
http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pdf/suldiox.pdf
http://www.cleanair.hamilton.ca/default.asp?id=22#Sulphur
Over recent years developing countries have increased SO2 production, but still some cities there have reduced SO2 levels. There are exceptions with especially China having had significant rises in SO2 levels.
http://ww2.unhabitat.org/istanbul+5/68.pdf
http://www.ess.co.at/GAIA/CASES/IND/CAL/CALpollution.html
One of the unintended consequences of not understanding assumptions raised in probalistic forecasts is that they can get very wrong,very fast,at great cost to both business and consumers.
The information is often considered to have predictive qualities,when in reality it is a odds based wager.
As we see here by Niwa
December 17, 2010
La Niña conditions are likely to continue through to autumn of 2011 and then to ease. Such La Niña conditions have been indicated by NIWA since mid-2010.
La Niña conditions tend to be associated with below-normal inflows into the main hydro-electricity generating lakes. The graphic below shows the range of total summer inflows (in terms of generation capacity in MW) for non-La Niña and La Niña years. In the summer of 2007/08, La Niña conditions prevailed, much as they do now, and the total inflow was almost exactly the median value indicated for La Niña years in Figure 1.
As outlined in the NIWA seasonal climate outlook, there is a significant risk of below-normal inflows over the summer, especially for the South Island alpine region. The outlook states: seasonal rainfall is likely to be below normal in the western South Island [including the Southern Alps and the headwaters of the main South Island rivers]. River flows and soil moisture levels are very likely to be below normal in the west and south of the South Island.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/la-niAa-and-hydro-electricity-supply,-summer-20102011
The consequences were the electricity market (who had both forecast prior to public release) reacted by pricing spikes in December seen here.
http://www.electricityinfo.co.nz/media_releases/261210.pdf
Around the same time 19th heavy rain started falling in the hydro catchments in inflows reached record levels by the end of the month.
http://www.electricityinfo.co.nz/comitFta/ftaPage.hydrology
And as we see pricing fell again to record lows.
Joel Shore says:
January 1, 2011 at 10:04 am
Joel, if you think that makes such a big difference, run the numbers. I ran them, and I didn’t find the difference you speak of. Per your request, I looked at not just September ’92, but at the difference in the total impact over the time period.
From above:
I adjusted the GISS figures by regressing on the ENSO index. The result over the period 1991 – 1995 (when temperatures resumed their pre-eruption levels) was a slight increase in the total temperature drop in degree-months, but it was only 0.22 degree-months. Using the MEI index rather than the ENSO index gave a similar result, a very small effect overall.
In any case I say again, if a man predicts a greater temperature drop than has ever occurred in 150 years of records, a three sigma event, a once in a thousand year event, and what happens is a once-every-twenty-year event, going “It wuz the small El Nino what did it” doesn’t cut it. The El Niños of that time were not very significant.
Whenever someone starts talking about “externalized costs”, I reach for my wallet. Funny how folks like you never talk about “externalized benefits” … probably just a coincidence that each and every one of you people that wants to reach into my wallet never talks about the externalized benefits of any action, only the externalized costs …
For each externalized cost you name for a slightly warmer planet, I can point to an externalized benefit of a slightly warmer planet … and how is the market supposed to deal with that? It’s the same problem as in your next issue, to wit:
Most of the scientists in the field would put the numbers where they wouldn’t affect their funding … are we supposed to be surprised that people who make their living off of climate change believe in climate change?
However, you are merely trying to avoid my point. You had said:
In other words, you’d have to be a greedy idiot not to take action now.
I presented the numbers in direct response to that over-the-top claim of yours, to show that infinite weight was not necessary, simply because our assumptions are different. You assign different values to the probabilities in the Drake Equation than I do, and neither one is falsifiable, or even close to falsifiable. But you can’t claim I’m a greedy idiot just because I don’t like the values you assign to the Drake equation. I think a couple of degrees warmer world would be a boon, not the catastrophic Thermageddon you imagine. And at least I have the history of the warming since the Little Ice Age to back up my claim. The Little Ice Age was not a fun time by contemporary accounts … wat’chu got to show that warming causes human misery? My point is simple. You don’t need to assign “infinite weight” to burning fossil fuel to think that spending billions on your cockamamie schemes might not be the very best of plans …
So now you are diverting attention from my falsification of your “infinite weight” claim by saying that I brought up these numbers to convince the world’s policymakers or something, viz:
I really think you should work on your reading comprehension. Point me out one place that I’ve said that the world’s policymakers should base their decisions on my views, or take it back. I’m getting tired of saying it, but I’ll say it again. If you object to something I said, QUOTE IT!!! You are merely trying to obscure the fact that your “infinite weight” claim was incorrect.
Say what? You claim “infinite weight” is needed. I show it doesn’t need to have infinite weight. Your response is that I am free to argue my view in the journals???
I’m not trying to convince anyone of those particular numbers, I only brought them up to show “infinite weight” was nonsense. Stop trying to change the subject.
Overall, I have argued my views, both in the scientific literature and here. Climate scientists in general seem to be moving towards a much more skeptical view of climate science, although as someone once said, “Science progresses one death at a time”. This doesn’t mean I wish anyone’s death. It means that James Hansen and his ilk are impervious to scientific reasoning. They are driven by ideology, pure and simple, and until they die, they will continue to ignore their errors just like Paul Ehrlich and Stephen Schneider and John Holdren, the other kings of the failed prediction.
So I invite you to believe Ehrlich and Holdren and the “scientific consensus” all you want, and I encourage you to bring up the “scientific consensus” frequently to try to buttress your view. Doing so just loses points for your side, you’d think you guys would have noticed that by now, but why should I care? Me, I go with Michael Crichton, who said:
Exactly.
The “no regrets” path exists and is being followed by many people today, including people who think mitigation might work. I have received plenty of support for my advocacy of that path from people who would prefer to mitigate.
I absolutely love this argument, it’s brilliant, and AGW supporters keep bringing it up. It is that we should ignore the huge costs and problems in someone’s brilliant solution to Part 1 of a problem, because this is just the first step towards fixing the much larger problems in Part 2.
So you want to get us on a path of reduction that will cost us, well, let’s see. I can’t find any but Heritage Foundation numbers right now. They say it will cost about 8 trillion by 2029. Now that’s for a reduction of 0.03°C. I know you say the temperature reduction is not the point, but at the end of the day that is the point, n’est-ce pas? So let’s cut their eight trillion way down, call it a trillion dollars by 2029, and 0.03°C.
So the big desire is to get a degree or so of cooling to keep the planet from meltdown. At one trillion dollars per 0.03°C, under the EPA plan (if adopted worldwide by all countries) we’ll be paying about 35 trillion dollars for a one degree reduction.
Or look at it another way, Joel. The planet has warmed about six tenths of a degree in the last century. At the EPA rate, would you advise that we should pay twenty trillion right now to take us back to where the temperature stood in 1900? Would it be worth it? Is it even desirable? If you could push a magic button that would return us to the climate eden of the year 1900, free from all of the vicissitudes and evils that warming brings, would you push the button? Would you say we should pay ten trillion to push the button?
In any case, with the first step of the EPA whiz-bang solution on line for costing hundreds of billions of dollars to cool the earth by 0.03 degrees by 2029, you know what, Joel?
I’m not interested in the second step of the brilliant plan. Not in the slightest. It’s not worth it.
Let me be clear. My objection to the plan is that it is not cost-effective, so saying “That’s fine, the cost is no objection because it’s only the first part of a much larger plan” just make me more nervous, not less nervous.
Do you truly think that the US beating itself up and fining itself for using carbon will bring China, India, and the rest of the developing world to do the same? I was not unhappy to see the EU fine themselves for using carbon and hobble their economies by making energy more costly. because it was in the economic interest of the US. In the same way, China is laughing all the way to the bank over this EPA idiocy. China’s cleaning up on the stupidity of the carbon activists. Of the CDF monies raised by Kyoto in countries where environmentalists would never ever allow a dam to be built, most of it was given, given I say, to China to build dams. Hey, those Kyoto designers really knew what they were doing, all right. I advocate for dams in the US, and I get abused by self-righteous folks as some kind of ecotard … and meanwhile they applaud the idea of me paying for dams in China. Me! Pay for dams in China that they won’t let me build here! Me pay for that! The mind boggles.
So please, spare us your brilliant plans, I don’t know if we could survive another one. Obviously, you haven’t thought them through any better than Al Gore thought through the ethanol scam he repudiated the other day. Al Gore likens action on carbon to buying insurance … but the EPA plan is like a billion dollar insurance policy with a maximum payout of $100,000 per occurrence. And you know what? I buy fire insurance because I’ve seen a few fires. I buy life insurance for the same reason, I know they are real threats, I’ve seen them. But some kind of huge catastrophe from a couple degrees of warming?
Never seen that … and come to think of it, I’ve seen decades where I’ve lived that have been a couple of degrees warmer than other decades and you know what? No catastrophes. Imagine that. The temperature went up by a couple degrees and stayed that way for ten years. The plants and animals and people didn’t die. And that’s a two degree change in a couple of years, not a century. Isn’t that what they call “rapid climate change” that everyone worries about?
Sorry for the bitterness, Joel, but truly I thought you were enough of a scientist to do an honest cost-benefit analysis of a couple degrees of warming, and not just go on about “externalized costs” without mentioning “externalized benefits” even once. That whole “externalized costs but no benefits” schtick is straight advocacy, not science, and bad advocacy at that.
I also thought you might see spending hundreds of billions of dollars to possibly maybe achieve 0.03°C of cooling as a less-than-cost-effective plan … foolish me.
Ah well, like they say “YMMV”. And clearly yours does. I’m just glad that the US public is no longer buying what you and “the consensus” are selling. And with any luck, the Congress will point out to the EPA that there is nothing that authorizes them to unilaterally decide to impose a nationwide carbon taxation scheme …
At least a man can hope.
My best to you, Joel, you frustrate me immensely but I’m sure you feel the same about me, always a pleasure to see your postings.
w.