Dr. James Hansen, NASA scientist, advocate, and protestor with a rap sheet released a new paper (non peer reviewed) on his website recently. A video report follows. The paper is titled:
Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications (click for PDF)
Here’s a portion of the abstract:
Improving observations of ocean temperature confirm that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. This energy imbalance provides fundamental verification of the dominant role of the human-made greenhouse effect in driving global climate change. Observed surface temperature change and ocean heat gain constrain the net climate forcing and ocean mixing rates. We conclude that most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols. Aerosol climate forcing today is inferred to be ‒1.6 ± 0.3 W/m2, implying substantial aerosol indirect climate forcing via cloud changes. Continued failure to quantify the specific origins of this large forcing is untenable, as knowledge of changing aerosol effects is needed to understand future climate change. A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols and a deep prolonged solar minimum. Observed sea level rise during the Argo float era can readily be accounted for by thermal expansion of the ocean and ice melt, but the ascendency of ice melt leads us to anticipate a near-term acceleration in the rate of sea level rise.
This line is rather odd:
A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…
Well I don’t know what he’s talking about, but the Pinatubo eruption happened in June 1991, and I doubt much aerosol remained after about 3 years. Maybe in his mind 15-20 years ago was “recent”? In 1999 the USGS report on Pinatubo said:
The aerosol cloud spread rapidly around the globe in about 3 weeks and attained global coverage 1 year after the eruption. The SO2 release was sufficient to generate over 25 Mt of sulfate aerosol, and peak local and regional midvisible optical depths of up to 0.4 were recorded. Global values after widespread dispersal and sedimentation of aerosol were about 0.1 to 0.15, with a residence time of over 2 years. This large aerosol cloud caused dramatic decreases in the amount of net radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.
So what’s Hansen thinking when he says “A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…” ?
But I digress. The good doctor is also talking again about sea level rise, saying that:
…we conclude that the rate of sea level rise is likely to accelerate during the next several years.
And then goes on to talk about Pinatubo aerosols again:
Reasons for that conclusion are as follows.
First, the contribution of thermal expansion to sea level is likely to increase above recent rates. The nearly constant rate of sea level rise since 1993 masks the fact that thermal expansion must have been less in the Argo era than in the prior decade, when ice melt was less but sea level rose 3 mm/year. Solar minimum and a diminishing Pinatubo rebound effect both contributed to a declining rate of thermal expansion during the past several years. But the Pinatubo effect is now essentially spent and solar irradiance change should now work in the opposite sense.
Well…not so sure about that. A recent analysis of tide gauge data published in the Journal of Coastal Research suggests that there’s been no hint of acceleration at all in the past 100 years:
The paper is currently in press at the Journal of Coastal Research and is provided with open access to the full publication. The results are stunning for their contradiction to AGW theories which suggest global warming would accelerate sea level rise during the last century. In fact, the data distribution seems to be slightly towards the deceleration side:
This seem like a perfect time to revisit this story that I did over a year ago that talked about a prediction posted in a salon.com interview where Dr. Hansen said that the “West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 years”. Well Hansen got upset with that report and called up the reporter and told him his memory was wrong, saying that it was actually 40 years.
Willis Eschenbach told me about the disagreement, and I updated the original story about three weeks ago to deal with the shift from 20 years to 40 years. See the corrected title:
The surprise? Even adding 20 years, Hansen’s prediction still doesn’t look promising. Here’s the new additions to that story from October 2009:
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UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from Willis Eschenbach, there’s some developing news in that story from Dr. James Hansen. The Salon interviewee and book author, Rob Reiss that I quoted, now admits he somehow conflated 40 years with 20 years, and concedes that Dr. Hansen actually said 40 years for his prediction. However, as the newest analysis shows, it doesn’t make any difference, and we still aren’t seeing the magnitude of sea level rise predicted, now 23 years into it.
See the relevant excerpt below:
Michaels also has the facts wrong about a 1988 interview of me by Bob Reiss, in which Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount. Michaels has it as 20 years, not 40 years, with no mention of doubled CO2. Reiss verified this fact to me, but he later sent the message:
“I went back to my book and re-read the interview I had with you. I am embarrassed to say that although the book text is correct, in remembering our original conversation, during a casual phone interview with a Salon magazine reporter in 2001 I was off in years. What I asked you originally at your office window was for a prediction of what Broadway would look like in 40 years, not 20. But when I spoke to the Salon reporter 10 years later probably because I’d been watching the predictions come true, I remembered it as a 20 year question.“
Source: this update on Dr. Hansen’s personal web page at Columbia University.
In my [original] story, below, I quoted from Reiss here in the Salon interview.
So I’m happy to make the correction for Dr. Hansen in my original article, since Mr. Reiss reports on his original error in conflating 40 years with 20 years. But let’s look at how this changes the situation with forty years versus twenty.
Per Dr. Hansen’s prediction in 1988, now in 2011, 23 years later, we’re a bit over halfway there … so the sea level rise should be about halfway up the side of Manhattan Island by now.
How’s that going? Are the predictions coming true? Let’s find out. Let’s look at the tide gauge in New York and see what it says.
Here’s the PSMSL page http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/12.php
You can see the terrifying surge of acceleration in the sea level due to increasing GHGs in the 20th century. Willis downloaded and plotted the data to see what the slope looked like, and then plotted a linear average line.
Here it is overlaid with the Colorado satellite data. Note the rate of rise is unchanged:
And add to that, the recent peer reviewed paper from the Journal of Coastal Research that said: “worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years”
As of this update in March 2011, we’re 23 years into his prediction of the West Side Highway being underwater. From what I can measure in Google Earth, Dr. Hansen would need at least a ten foot rise in forty years to make his prediction work. See this image below from Google Earth where I placed the pointer over the West Side Highway, near the famous landmark and museum, the USS Intrepid:
According to Google Earth, the West Side Highway is 10 feet above sea level here – click to enlarge
The lat/lon should you wish to check yourself is: 40.764572° -73.998498°
Here’s a ground level view (via a tourist photo) so you can see the vertical distance from the roadway to the sea level on that day and tide condition. Sure looks like at least 10 feet to me.
Image from Panoramio
According to the actual data, after 23 years, we’ve seen about a 2.5 inch rise. There’ s still a very long way to go to ten feet to cover the West Side Highway there.
To reach the goal he predicted in 1988, Dr. Hansen needs to motivate the sea to do his bidding, he’s gonna have to kick it in gear and use a higher octane driver if he’s going to get there.
Thanks to Willis for the two graphs above.
Read the full story here: A little known 20 40 year old climate change prediction by Dr. James Hansen – that failed will likely fail badly
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This story I did is also instructive:
Freaking out about NYC sea level rise is easy to do when you don’t pay attention to history
But while Dr. Hansen is looking for acceleration, the ensemble current plot of satellite measured sea level data seems to have a small hiccup in the last year:
click to enlarge – graph by Roman M – more hereAnd finally, to be fair, I want to show this video. Dr. Hansen produced a video where he briefed colleagues on his new paper, I present it here in full:
Always worth another viewing (“Will this wind be so mighty …”)
Dr. Hansen must be right, because less than 2 hours ago I heard on the Weather Channel that “as the world continues to warm, sea level rise is accelerating.”
So there’s some peer review of his analysis!
To claim that a rebound of sea level rise from the Pinatubo erruption just ended, “20 years later”, should be supported by a noticeable decrease of sea level rise shortly after the Pinatubo erruption. Since there is not it would appear that Hansen is making some outlandish comments that are not based on what the data supports. Oh well, whats new?
Poor science. Poor guy. But good pay. Hope this “kind of science” will bring him the golden hand-shake and a promotion into retirement.
Hansens not the only one who’s predictions have a habit of not coming true but still has a non questioning following of Believers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-preacher-warns-end-of-the-world-is-nigh-21-may-around-6pm-to-be-precise-2254139.html
Douglas DC @ur momisugly
April 21, 2011 at 8:08 am
Asks,
Pamela G. got snow?
I don’t think she has had time to respond. However, if you want snow, you don’t have far to go.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/passes/snoqualmie/default.aspx
A live update: Snoqualmie Pass on I-90 — Snowing, 8:51 AM
Holbrook says:
April 21, 2011 at 7:26 am
How come he get’s anything published with his track record.
REPLY: He didn’t, he simply posted this to his personal website. He’s apparently evolved beyond the need for process. – Anthony
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Not that the process would be any more than an elbow and hand exercising a stamping motion.
The Pinatubo dodge is frankly an obvioius toss of poop against the wall.
There is an interesting article in May’s Readers Digest that first appeared in Chronicles of Higher Education about someone who writes term papers for students for a fee. He writes everything from high school to PHD theses in every subject. I wonder if that’s how Hansen got his PHD.
REPLY: He got his PhD the correct way, Ph.D. (Physics), University of Iowa, 1967, and shame on you for suggesting otherwise. While I disagree with Dr. Hansen’s views on climate, disparaging his education is just a cheap shot. – Anthony
Never forget that our dear James is but “a hectic legman” for climate change! He knows how to play the “technical game” with CO2, the “agent chemical”, and he sticks to the gameplan like a “magnetic leach”
“A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…”
Grasping. At. Straws.
They are absolutely getting desperate. That is horrendously lame and does not pass the sniff test…
If one remembers Darwin’s Dilemma, the person will note that Darwin said that if scientists did not find thousands of intermediate transition forms in the next years, then his theory would be summarily falsified (ref: “Origin of Species”).
Although he primarily preached gradualism by interspecific mortal combat, the rapid appearance of species seemed to counter his claims, and statistical analysis showed that there was not enough time to account for speciation.
Then Gould and others proposed “Punctuated Equilibria”, whereby species lay dormant for unknown reasons, for millennia, and the consensus (consensi?) immediately jumped on this as the solution to Darwin’s Dilemma.
Therefore, I propose that Hansen will be bailed out by the warm-earthers in a similar wise. I propose the following name for his inevitable resolution of the dichotomy: “Punctuated Tsunamism”. PT occurs as the missing “Trenberth Heat” bursts forth from the seas, instantaneously melting all polar ice, producing a wall of water that will inundate all continents within a period of weeks, even days. (Brits will propose the name “Trenberth Effect”, a more puffy and supercilious attribution, but the Yanks will win Big Media’s endorsement by dint of the more alarming moniker).
Michael Mann will possibly be the first to corroborate, to the envy of Phil Jones, who has a more antiquated computer and would have been asleep when the news happened in the States.
I propose that this will occur at the eleventh hour, perhaps in December 2028 (The Gai-Mayans may propose the earlier date of Dec. 22, 2012, so be prepared! But when the date comes and goes, Hansen the Hack will be back on track), thus vindicating him.
In 2028, when all the grain has become converted to ethanol, hunting and gathering of food will upstage PT, I predict, so Jimmy and PT will have been forgotten, like Y2K.
This Pinatubo thing is just silly.
And how come the decrease in solar activity is a cooling factor, but the abnormal activity from 1990-1998 is not a warming factor?
In addition to sticking poo, his brain is sticking too.
COMPARISON OF HANSEN ET AL, 20-AUG-1988, WITH OBSERVED DATA
http://bit.ly/hDGUJJ
The 5-year running global mean temperature anomaly of Hansen et al, given in Figure 3 of the paper, are listed below.
5-Year Running Mean of Hansen et al, 1988,
for various emission scenarios A, B & C
Year=>A=>B=>C
1990=>0.5=>0.4=>0.3
1995=>0.7=>0.4=>0.4
2000=>0.9=>0.5=>0.5
2005=>1.0=>0.7=>0.6
2010=>1.1=>0.9=>0.6
The scenarios were defined in the paper as follows:
We define three trace gas scenarios to provide an indication of how the predicted climate trend depends upon trace gas growth rates. Scenario A assumes that growth rates of trace gas emissions typical of the 1970s and 1980s will continue indefinitely; the assumed annual growth averages about 1.5% of current emissions, so the net greenhouse forcing increases exponentially. Scenario B has decreasing trace gas growth rates, such that the annual increase of the greenhouse climate forcing remains approximately constant at the present level. Scenario C drastically reduces trace gas growth between 1990 and 2000 such that the greenhouse climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000.
Here is the comparison of the predictions with observations (gistemp)
http://bit.ly/hp590C
Year=>A=>B=>C=>observed
1990=>0.5=>0.4=>0.3=>0.24
1995=>0.7=>0.4=>0.4=>0.39
2000=>0.9=>0.5=>0.5=>0.48
2005=>1.0=>0.7=>0.6=>0.55
2010=>1.1=>0.9=>0.6=>
Scenario B has decreasing trace gas growth and Scenario C has drastically reduced trace gas growth. As a result, the actual trace gas growth is Scenario C with continuous yearly average growth.
The above comparison shows that the observed temperatures match scenario C where there is drastic reduction in trace gas growth. Since there was no actual reduction in trace gas growth rate, the above comparison shows the predictions of Hansen et. Al, 1998 is completely wrong.
(Hat tip to Goddard Institute for Space Studies for making the data still available in its web site. When predictions and observations mismatch, the relevant data usually disappear into the black hole)
An 1850 tide gauge for New York? Are you sure it isn’t a reconstruction? This is the norm in Chapter 5 of Ar4 of the IPCC
Very few tide gauges even in Europe are from continous and unchanged locations and can claim to have a reliable output.
tonyb.
I love anecdotal stories like this. It proves that there is hope for man – not a lot as the result is usually denial and fingers in ears all the while yelling “lalalalala”. But they are fun to read.
“A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…”
An interesting phrase. It seems to me that a decrease in ocean heat uptake is not a ‘rebound’ effect since the aerosols caused a decrease in radiation reaching the earth’s surface. Wouldn’t a decrease in ocean heat uptake be an effect of the aerosols, and an increase in heat uptake when radiation increased be a ‘rebound’ effect. That and he offer no explanation as to why the ‘rebound’ effect was delayed for almost 15 years, unless he’s implying it is part of a feedback cycle seeking equilibrium (of course, if that’s the case the ‘rebound’ wasn’t ‘delayed’, it’s just part of the feedback cycle).
Back to aerosols and RC, I went there to discuss aerosols 3 years ago and was pretty much shutdown by the moderators (I have a PhD in Chem Eng and my thesis was on SO2/NOx reduction from coal-fired power plants, so I knew a little about aerosol emissions in Europe and NA since the 1960’s). It was clear to me back then that they were making it up as they went along. The fact that they wouldn’t allow any dissent shows how shallow and egotistical these guys are. Seriously, if these guys were unknowingly standing on railroad tracks and you pointed out that a train was coming, they would insist you were incorrect until the final second of their lives! People like that deserve to go down, and hard (which usually happens anyway, so I wouldn’t worry about it).
dccowboy says:
April 21, 2011 at 10:16 am
The simplest way to show this is rubbish, is the fact that heat flows from hot to cold, not the opposite. Physics. Cold cannot “rebound”. Heat aggressively seeks lower enthalpy value, and does not stay in reserve for 15 years! That is absurd, Alice in Wonderland physics, perpetrators being charlatans or idiots (or a combination of the two).
There are, in climate, very brief occasions of inversions, very true, where warm air is overlaid by cold. These brief occurrences resolve themselves quickly, usually violently.
“Delayed rebound effect,” yeah, that’s the ticket.
In his presentation Hansen fails to identity the set of independent observed statistical events that underlie the claims which are made by his theory. If they exist, these events provide the evidentiary basis for the claims. If there are no such events, an evidentiary basis is missing.
An event has a starting time and a stopping time. As the events are statistically independent and Hansen’s study is longitudinal, the starting time of an event must be the stopping time of the preceeding one. What are the starting and stopping times? How are the outcomes defined? Hansen doesn’t tell us.
A prediction is an extrapolation from the condition of a system at the starting time of an event to the outcome of this event at its stopping time. Where is the list of the predicted outcomes from Hansen’s theory? Where is the list of the observed outcomes? Hansen doesn’t provide them. Perhaps an evidentiary basis is missing!
Rather than provide us with the means for determination of whether there is a scientific basis for belief in his theory, Hansen provides us with comparisons of projected to observed temperatures. These comparisons provide us with none of the required information. If we confuse the idea of a “projection” with the idea of a “prediction,” they may seem to provide this information.
C’mon, can’t you see the hockey stick in there? It is edge-on, is all. /snarc
“From what I can measure in Google Earth, Dr. Hansen would need at least a ten foot rise in forty years to make his prediction work.”
Correction: Hansen would now need at least a ten foot rise in seventeen years to make his prediction work (given that we’re already 23 years into his original forty-year timeframe).
Let’s be fair to Hansen. He probably did say 40 years, not 20 years. And dramatic CO2 driven global warming looked like a much better theory 23 years ago than it does today. Still though, 23 years ago, Hansen had nearly a century of tidal gauge data and 30 years of good CO2 data to work with. How in the world he could have projected a doubling of CO2 and 10 foot rise in sea level in the following four decades eludes me. Pretty obviously, barring a dramatic state change in Earth’s climate, Hansen was wrong. Based on current trends, a 10 foot/3meter sea level change might happen in about a thousand years, not 40.
I made it through the perfectly awful video. What I take away from it is that there is a whole lot we don’t know. A frankly I think that much of what Hansen thinks he knows is dubious. Solar radiance changes outside the recent past have been small? How the hell does he know that? CO2 as a primary driver for climate is consistent with ice core records? Based on what little I know, I don’t see how that can stand up to scrutiny. Foraminfera provide a usable deep ocean temperature record? Lots of folks are dubious about that. But Hansen may have learned a bit in the past few decades as he doesn’t seem to predict imminent doom in the video.
BTW, I know a bit about computer modeling. Not a lot, but some. If what Hansen is telling me is what climate models are based on — and I imagine that it is, you don’t need supercomputers and elaborate code to get bad results. With a framework like that, a clever 14 year old could produce equally dubious answers on any personal computer. Might be a good Science Fair project.