Yesterday, I highlighted an alarming story from the University of Exeter and East Anglia that saw tipping points behind every rock and tree.
Now today comes a peer reviewed study in Nature Geoscience that says no tipping points are expected from CO2 rise.
What we have here, is “settled science” in action.
From the University of Washington
Atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup unlikely to spark abrupt climate change
There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as the atmosphere becomes overloaded with carbon dioxide.
New research lends support to evidence from numerous recent studies that suggest abrupt climate change appears to be the result of alterations in ocean circulation uniquely associated with ice ages.
“There might be other mechanisms by which greenhouse gases may cause an abrupt climate change, but we know of no such mechanism from the geological record,” said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.
Battisti was part of a team that used a numerical climate model coupled with an oxygen-isotope model to determine what caused climate shifts in a computer-generated episode that mimicked Heinrich events during the last ice age, from 110,000 to 10,000 years ago. Heinrich events produced huge numbers of North Atlantic Ocean icebergs that had broken off from glaciers.
The simulations showed the sudden increase in North Atlantic sea ice cooled the Northern Hemisphere, including the surface of the Indian Ocean, which reduced rainfall over India and weakened the Indian monsoon.
Battisti noted that while carbon dioxide-induced climate change is unlikely to be abrupt, the impacts of changing climate could be.
“When you lose a keystone species, ecosystems can change very rapidly,” he said. “Smoothly retreating sea ice will cause fast warming if you live within a thousand kilometers of the ice. If warming slowly dries already semi-arid places, fires are going to be more likely.”
Previous studies of carbonate deposits from caves in China and India are believed to show the intensity of monsoon precipitation through the ratio of specific oxygen isotopes. The modeling the scientists’ used in the current study reproduced those isotope ratios, and they determined that the Heinrich events were associated with changes in the intensity of monsoon rainfall in India rather than East Asia.
The research is published online June 19 by Nature Geoscience. The lead author is Franceso Pausata of the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Norway. Besides Battisti, other co-authors are Kerim Nisancioglu of UNI Research in Norway and Cecilia Bitz of the UW.
The work was funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
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Ryan says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:39 am
References? I was not aware the cod is making a big come back. Good story, if true.
Grumpy Old Man says:
June 20, 2011 at 10:21 am
…(not that it matters me but it will to my children and grandchildren)?
Don’t you see the mistake you are making?
The climate never mattered to us when we were children; why should it matter to them?
Oh my, Will. When you are in a hole, stop digging. When you are making a fool of yourself, stop typing.
“I know California well enough to say that any wet weather will seem cooler because most days are sunny and dry. This is because you are on the West coast and the Earth is turning West to East. Therefore most of your weather comes from the continental interior and contains little moisture.”
Do you not even know such simple facts as which way the Jet Stream in the NH blows? Have you never even looked at a synoptic chart of the North Pacific? Your lack of knowledge about such simple facts is jaw dropping.
Will @10:46 —
Your cold=dry, wet=moist meme has not held up here on the west coast of North America. In Vancouver it has been cold-to-cool since September, and damnably wet. Grey, miserable drizzle almost incessantly. We may need some rethinking of that meme.
Will @ur momisugly 2:47; Orkneygal @ur momisugly 4:40
What Will seems to be describing is the late year Sub-Tropical High Pressure (STHP) that brings Santa Ana winds – dry and warming – to southern California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds
Also see:
http://www.2dpointgraphics.net/site/wind.jpg
Dear Mr. Hultquist,
I wish I could be as charitable toward Will as you. However, his sentence seems to describe more than the Santa Ana winds.
Here in extreme northern California, also known as Oregon, on the West Coast of the North American Continent,
our weather, summer and winter, comes almost exclusively from the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific is pretty cold, and that’s why our West Coast weather is nice, and damp, and cool. Even in LA, the moisture comes from the Pacific to cool things off. And folks in San Francisco, or Sacramento, for that matter, would be greatly surprised to have any weather arriving from the center of the continent.
Cancel that Scientist’s grants pronto!
COD FISH TAILS
A glimmer of hope for the North Sea cod will be delivered by scientists later this week.
After six years of calling for a total ban on the catching of cod to prevent stocks collapsing altogether, international scientists say that the number of young fish has increased.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3310422/Glimmer-of-hope-for-North-sea-cod.html
Don’t you see the mistake you are making?
The climate never mattered to us when we were children; why should it matter to them?
========================================================================================
It matters to them as far as I can tell because they are being indoctrinated in schools about global warming/climate change and it is happening because their parents are causing it. Blame Greenpeace!
A GOOGLE search using the term: Whales making a comeback brings up several links all positive, such as:
Thrilling and unexpected observations published in early January 2009 reported unusually large numbers of North Atlantic Right Whales in the Gulf of Maine off the northern New England Coast (USA). Aerial surveys saw 44 individuals on December 3, 2008 about 70 miles south of Bar Harbor, Maine, when a typical daily observation at this time is 3 to 5 Right Whales. On December 4, 2008, three Right Whales were seen 80 miles east of Gloucester, Massachusetts, (an area east of where this author led whale watches some years ago); and on December 14, 41 Right Whales were observed just west of Jordan Basin.
We can cautiously smile. The North Atlantic Right Whale has proven more resilient than whale biologists thought but this is no time to relax. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/north-atlantic-right-whales/8091
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=979&bih=475&q=whales+making+a+comeback&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
Will
I also praise you for using observation. But it has its limitations, and UK weather patterns are not a useful model. Here in New Zealand, for example, we have a largely maritime climate but the degree of variation – compared to the UK – would make your head spin. Almost without exception, however, when it is warm, it is dry. The cooler, winter months are by far the wettest. Or should I say ‘have the highest precipitation’, because they bring metres of snow to the southern Alps. The summers in alpine Central Otago are very hot and very dry. Where I live, in the north island, the climate is maritime sub tropical but the pattern is the same. 2010/2011’s combination of La NIna and PDO has lead to a strange divergence between us and Aus. They’ve had awful weather – cold and wet – while we have had the longest Indian summer on record. It’s midwinter’s day tomorrow and I’m going fishing – it’lll be 17C, sunny and still.
Which brings me to fish. Not sure about the comeback Cod or even whales. But I do know exactly why the cod and other species disappeared around the British coasts from when I fished for them as a boy.
Anyway, here in NZ, the sea fishing is getting better and better. (trout fishing is the opposite due to the dairy boom and pollutions, but that’s another story). And it wasn’t bad to start with. Snapper numbers are unbelievable, and many are good 2kg+ fish. Huge numbers of juvenile KIngfish (can’t wait till they grow over winter). This summer, the number of blue penguins floating around the Hauraki Gulf was astronomical, with fledglings in tow. (Anecdotally, they appear to have eaten themselves out of existence, with a lot of dead and sick young ones getting washed up. Nature takes no prisoners.)
All this, just out from one of the biggest cities in the southern hemisphere. If we’ve reached a tipping point, it seems to be upwards.
Not one but two models coupled together!! All these guys in climate science are so good with the models, why don’t they use those modeling skills and build a stock market model and make some real cash?
Wayne Richards says:
June 20, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Mike Fox says:
June 20, 2011 at 10:48 pm
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-10/940285087.Es.r.html
Orkneygal says:
June 20, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Who is talking about Jet streams?
The only fools are those with no questions.
Ross says:
June 20, 2011 at 3:10 pm
I appreciate your response, thank you. Unfortunately you have completely missed my point. Please see the link above.
It is a fact that warm air can hold more water vapour than cool air, which I feel, exposes a weakness in the Svensmark hypothesis resulting from a misunderstanding of cause and effect.
As I understand Svensmark:
Increased solar output = fewer cosmic rays which = fewer clouds and therefore less albido.
My understanding is:
Increased solar output = warmer atmosphere and ocean which = increased evaporation which = increased precipitation and cloud cover / albido.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/futurepsc.html#precipitation
Here is Svensmark confusing cause and effect.
@ur momisugly 2:30 in.
If warming slowly dries already semi-arid places, fires are going to be more likely.”
until there is nothing that grows that can burn.
So I am assuming this is good modelling?
Will, UR witless. More water vapour in the air does NOT lead directly to more precipitation, etc. Ever hear of Relative Humidity? Warmer air holds more water quite happily. Doesn’t dump it unless hit by a large mass of COLD air.
Clouds form preferentially when there are little thingies for the water vapour to condense onto. More cosmic rays make more little thingies in the air. Less CR makes less thingies. Does ums git it yit?
Brian Hall says:
June 21, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Cloud formation, or condensation of water vapour if you prefer, is caused by a lowering of temperature and pressure. Which is why clouds predominantly form at around 5000m.
Is there a large dense band of little thingies that has formed at 5000m Brian?
I see your logic has not improved much since I last spoke with you Brian. Neither has your ability to communicate.
Of course this is mostly based on models. If we don’t believe models that don’t give us the results we like, we shouldn’t believe models that give results we DO like, without validating all the models. I take this with as much a grain of salt as any other model simulation.
To Peter D. Tillman
I’m Francesco S.R. Pausata. You can find the title in the list of publication in Battisti website! It’s an online advance publication and here is the link
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1169.html
We barely mention the CO2 in our paper in the last sentence and anyway as a speculation:
“That dynamics internal to the climate system can create changes in the Indian monsoon comparable to that associated with large orbital forcing makes us reconsider what the climate system may be capable of doing in response to more modest forcing, such as increasing greenhouse gases.”
Our study doesn’t have anything to do with tipping points!!! David was only presenting our work saying that CO2 rising is slow(er) compared to the abrupt climate change we studied …etc etc …
—
It also true that from the geological record we are not aware of mechanism link to CO2 increase since we never experienced on the Earth history (as far as the records go back!!) such a fast co2 increase!
FSR
On the last paragraph I meant:
We are not aware in case of such a rapid CO2 increase during interglacial condition …. since we never had a similar case before on Earth … it doesn’t mean we can exclude an abrupt climate change …we just don’t know from geological record!
Will says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:42 am
As I understand Svensmark:
Increased solar output = fewer cosmic rays which = fewer clouds and therefore less albido.
My understanding is:
Increased solar output = warmer atmosphere and ocean which = increased evaporation which = increased precipitation and cloud cover / albido.
The two processes aren’t mutually exclusive.
Gilbert says:
June 24, 2011 at 2:28 am
Just one year prior to Hansen testifying to congress in 1988, that he was 99% certain that manmade global warming was occurring, from the New Scientist:
Title: Towards a cold greenhouse
Bottom left of the page.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0uLgn2nma4EC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=toward+a+cold+greenhouse&source=bl&ots=hIVERC4gSO&sig=ccrvey1IXQhWlAJUK4L4s7XEO_o&hl=en&ei=HlPuTdjXIrLTiALs7K31AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false