This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970’s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols. With the advent of pollution controls, certainly we have cleaner (and more optically transparent) skies since then.
From the National University of Ireland, Galway comes this:
New research initiated jointly by NUI Galway and the University of Helsinki reveals the true rate of greenhouse gas induced global warming has been masked by atmospheric aerosols (otherwise known as Particulate Matter), through their formation of reflective haze and cloud layers leading to an aerosol cooling effect.
The new investigations show that the present-day aerosol cooling effect will be strongly reduced by 2030 as more stringent air pollution abatements are implemented both worldwide and at the European scale and as advanced environmental technologies are utilised.
These actions are projected to increase the global temperature by 1°C and temperatures over Europe by up to 2-4°C depending on the severity of the action. This is one of the main research outcomes of the recently concluded EUCAARI (European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interaction) project funded by the European Commission.
The EUCAARI project, originally initiated by Professor Colin O’Dowd at NUI Galway’s Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies, who resided on the project’s management team, and led by Professor Markku Kulmala of the University of Helsinki, has provided new understanding of the impacts of aerosols and trace gases on clouds and climate.
According to Professor O’Dowd:“The quantification of the effect of aerosols on the radiative balance (cooling or heating) of the planet has been one of the most urgent tasks to underpin more informed projections of future climate change. Now that we have this data we need to reinforce European political decision-making to develop new strategies and implementation plans for global air quality monitoring and to take Europe a leading role in developing and applying environmental technologies. Furthermore, it is urgent that higher-resolution EU-scale projections are conducted using a new generation of regional models nested within the global models.”
EUCAARI has been the most extensive atmospheric aerosol research project in Europe so far. The total budget of the project was € 15 million, of which € 10 million was provided by the European Commission Framework Programme 6. In all, 48 research institutes from 24 countries participated in this project over the period 2007-2010. The project has led to significantly more information on the whole physics background related to aerosol formation and impacts at all scales; from nanoscale to global, and from milliseconds to centuries.
The project performed extensive studies from ground-based, aircraft and satellite platforms, not only in Europe, but also in China, South-Africa, Brazil and India (i.e. significant developing countries). These studies have improved the theoretical understanding of the aerosol life-cycle, enabling scientists to make major improvements in climate and air pollution models and present new air pollution scenarios over Europe.
Professor O’Dowd added: “The positive impacts of aerosols are partially off-setting global warming while the negative effects impact on public health. Abatement of the negative health impact is complicated due to the diversity of sources, even within Europe.”
EUCAARI found that the reduction in ammonia emissions is one of the most effective ways to reduce aerosol mass concentrations in Europe. Reduction in nitric oxides is also effective, but might lead to higher ozone levels, thereby leading to another negative impact on air quality. Reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions will reduce particulate air pollution especially in the Eastern Mediterranean area.
Reduction of organic aerosol concentrations is a lot more challenging and will require reductions of gas and aerosol emissions from transportation and biomass burning. Furthermore, it is now shown that a large fraction of organic aerosols in Europe is of modern origin (as opposed to fossil fuel origins), for which the main sources are biogenic secondary organic aerosol (boreal forests), biomass burning and primary biogenic aerosol particles.”
Professor O’Dowd concluded: “All these emission sources are expected to respond to climate change, although we are presently unable to gauge the strength of the multitude of feedback mechanisms involved. The uncertainties in feedback highlight the need for improved Earth System Climate models to encapsulate feedback processes generally lacking in current projections.”
-Ends-Author: Press Office, NUI Galway
Peter Taylor says:
July 1, 2011 at 4:47 am
Its frustrating, as a member of the ‘sceptic’ community, to write a whole book on this issue that so few people in this community appear to read!
While I confess I haven’t purchased the book (sorry Peter), I would recommend for readers to check out Peter’s contributions to the debate via his website (and then purchase the book :->). As a dyed in the wool proponent and active campaigner of CAGW a few years back, Peter played a part in triggering my own AHA! experience. It can be extremely difficult for those who would class themselves as ‘progressives/on the left/liberals (in the American sense)’ to recognise confirmation bias when it comes to such a commanding shibboleth as AGW. Through Peter, who has been actively involved in many areas of environmental science, and others, I was able to question, for the first time, some of the tenets that had become a bedrock of my belief system.
Best wishes, Ian
This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.
————–
I thought climate scientist believed this already. For decades.
If memory serves aerosols were speculated to be the cause of a rate of warming over the USA, Europe and China that was considerably less than expected based on the CO2 increase.
CRS, Dr.P.H. @ur momisugly July 1, 2011 at 9:04 am
As far as I’m aware, the consensus that you assert on the effects of various partially global clean air acts, is based on pure speculation. (unless you could perhaps refer to some empirical data). Regional considerations, increasing world population, and industrialization also complicate the issue.
Also, if you believe HadCru3 temperature records:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
There was a bigger cooling period between ~1880 & ~1910, followed by a bigger pre WWII warming period than that recently.
Are you able to explain that too? Obviously there was no clean air act involved. Looks suspiciously like a predominant natural ~60-year cycle to me
Talk about grasping at straws.
If you follow the IPCC (International Prognostication and Climate Conspiracists) reports over time, they’ve steadily had to reduce their sensitivity estimates or else look like total and complete fools instead of just regular old charlatans. They’ve missed so badly in their predictions, that even if we attribute 100% of the warming in the last century to CO2, the sensitivity and the logarithmic nature of CO2 suggests we could go to thousands of ppm of CO2, let alone an extra hundred or so, and not much would happen.
The only way to restore the “power” of CO2 to alter the climate is increase estimates of negative contributors dramatically in order to then attribute higher sensitivity to CO2. Read this report and that’s pretty much what it says. Their claim is our estimates of CO2 sensitivity are low because they’ve found evidence to increase the cooling effect of aerosols, so CO2 must be….. dare I?
Worse than we thought.
As I understand the article, it is saying that aerosols (particulate matter) in the atmosphere over the past 30 years have caused the atmosphere to be cooler than it would be without them. Thus, part of the reason the measured surface air temperature is lower than model predictions is because they didn’t correctly take aerosols into account in models. And while they project an increase in temperature of 2 to 4 degrees in Europe as aerosols decrease, what they really mean that the DIFFERENCE between what the CO2 models predict and what the measured temperatures show will decrease by 2 to 4 degrees. It is not an increase of 2 to 4 degrees on top of the temperature predicted from CO2 increase.
In the U.S., aerosols have been decreasing steadily since the late 1960s. The recent trends in particulate concentrations in the U.S. are presented at this EPA site:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/pm.html
The EPA figures show a 27% decrease in national average atmospheric concentrations of PM2.5 (particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter) from 2000 to 2009, and a 38% decrease in PM10 (particles less than 10 microns, but greater than 2.5 microns in diameter) from 1990 to 2009.
It should also be noted that the national average concentrations of both PM2.5 and PM10 are below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for these pollutants during the entire period. So, over the past 20 years, even with low, and decreasing, aerosols in the U.S., the U.S. measured temperatures are still well below those predicted by the models
Aerosols, how about these? They cause cooling until they come down, or if they never made it to high altitudes in the first place.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcanocriteria.cfm
Two thirds of the volcanoes are in the northern hemisphere and only about one fifth are between 10°S and the South Pole. The northern hemisphere concentration reflects the fact that two-thirds of the world’s land area is also north of the equator, but nevertheless indicates the greater vulnerability of the northern hemisphere to volcanically induced climate change.
I don’t believe this idea that we are going to get warmer as we clean up the atmosphere although there is probably some truth in the idea that it was cooler when we had industrial smog before the 1950s ,at least locally.Some of us also worry about the effect soot pollution is having on the arctic ice extent which would get worse if we started drilling for oil in the arctic.I have not yet read Peter Taylor’s book but I intend to get it in the near future.
don penman
“Some of us also worry about the effect soot pollution is having on the arctic ice extent which would get worse if we started drilling for oil in the arctic.”
How does drilling for oil produce soot? I thought burning it is what produced soot. Some of us need to put our thinking caps on.
Mark Wilson says:
July 1, 2011 at 11:21 am
“The testing you are refering had to do with contrails from jet liners. Jet fuel has little to no sulfur in it.”
I don’t know where you get the idea that jet fuel has little to no sulphur in it. The limit is 3000ppm (0.3% by weight) for jet fuel. Compare this to the 15ppm limit for highway diesel in the U.S. Historically the limit was 0.5% for highway diesel which was lowered to 0.05% in 1993 and to 0.0015% in 2006. No such reductions were imposed for jet fuel. Your mileage may vary.
The Russian high flier volcanoes were pretty active in the early and middle 1970s and the solar cycle was lower. Does that remind you of the eruptions since 2008? Just how active we don’t really know. The monitoring was poor back then.
steven mosher says:
July 1, 2011 at 1:43 am
tallbloke. I imagine you are referring to my criticism of your chart that uses NCEP reanalysis data for specific humidity ( and sun spots.. oy vey)
So you’re not going to discuss error bars then dad?
HenryP says:
July 1, 2011 at 1:20 am
1) do you agree with me that my findings so far support the argument that the observed warming of the past 3 or 4 decades was natural?
2) where do you think does the difference between NH(apparently warming) and SH (apparently cooling) originate from? Any idea??
Henry, I like your empirical approach to the issue, and it has helped you put your finger on the issue of importance. Co2 is ‘well mixed’ globally, yet it seems to have a bigger effect in the northern hemisphere. Odd that!
It all gets easier to understand when you look at the movement of energy in the oceans and disregard the alleged effects of increased co2 on the ‘back radiation’ levels worldwide. These alleged effects are swamped by natural variations in the convectional transports of heat-energy, and the variation in cloud albedo as the Earth responds to changing external stimuli (Sun and space-weather environment). My tentative hypothesis is that multi-decadal changes in ocean tidal currents inducxd by Lunar nodal cycles, and the fact that the southern ocean is free to circulate through the strait between Cape Horn and Antarctica may have a lot to do with it.
Seems to me we need to work towards a more integrated understanding of cyclic oceanic changes driven by polar sea level pressure changes, in turn caused by Solar and Lunar variation if we are going to get to the bottom of the mystery.
“This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.”
And the contribution that the sustained levels of GCR’s had on those aerosols.
“This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.”
Wow, Watts is where Stephen Schneider was 40 years ago. Keep going, maybe you’ll catch up eventually.
“Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate” (Science 173, 138–141)
“…If this increased rate of injection… should raise the present background opacity by a factor of 4, our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 °C. Such a large decrease in the average temperature of Earth, sustained over a period of few years, is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
Peter Taylor says – in my book Chill…
Great book, Peter, but why do you keep trying to inject science into the argument?
This one reminded me of a stunt the geniuses at California’s South Coast Air District pulled in the early 90’s. After having forced all the large corporations in the district into funding expensive “car pooling” plans to reduce the number of vehicles on the freeways, the Air District abruptly issued a press release breathlessly announcing their new calculation that “fewer cars going fast” created more air pollution that “more cars going slow”.
The most frightening sound on earth is a government bureaucrat on your doorstep saying, “I’m here to help you.”
Chris G @ur momisugly July 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm wrote in part:
Chris, I’m not sure what you are suggesting. Do you claim that the late Stephen Schneider was correct in his hypothesis 40 years ago?
Perhaps too, you could respond to a question I asked of a wise Dr above, in which he is tardy in clarification. I repeat it in full for your convenience and consideration:
CRS, Dr.P.H. @ur momisugly July 1, 2011 at 9:04 am
As far as I’m aware, the consensus that you assert on the effects of various partially global clean air acts, is based on pure speculation. (unless you could perhaps refer to some empirical data). Regional considerations, increasing world population, and industrialization also complicate the issue.
Also, if you believe HadCru3 temperature records:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
There was a bigger cooling period between ~1880 & ~1910, followed by a bigger pre WWII warming period than that recently.
Are you able to explain that too? Obviously there was no clean air act involved. Looks suspiciously like a predominant natural ~60-year cycle to me
Please feel free, either of you, to ask for aditional explanations if you no understand
From Chris G on July 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm:
Well, the paper is paywalled but the abstract and the opening paragraphs are available on John Daly’s site:
http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm
Here’s two:
Note: This wording is significantly different than the blurb you posted, for example your bit uses Celsius while this quoted section uses Kelvin. However this section from John Daly’s site is the same as that which was verified by Gavin Schmidt as coming from the Rasool and Schneider 1971 paper (link to Google cached version, see comment 1), thus its authenticity is confirmed. If your blurb comes from elsewhere in the paper then please provide a link to an un-paywalled viewable copy for confirmation, as among other things a switch from Kelvin to Celsius in the same paper seems somewhat unlikely.
So 40 years ago Schneider knew that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations eight times would only yield a less than 2K increase. And you want Anthony Watts to “catch up” to Schneider? Well, the way the real climate science, that not pathologically certain that increasing CO2 will unquestioningly lead to CAGW, has been evolving in our understanding of how the climate really works, you just might get your wish.
Ed Mertin @ur momisugly July 1, 2011 at 10:20 pm you wrote in part:
Yebbut, the really really big ones have been down south, like Krakatau (1883) and Pinatubo (1991). But anyway it is just complicating noise, along with ENSO and stuff on top of the topic of this thread.
However, there are some interesting comparative considerations. Big volcanic eruptions eject particulates high into the atmosphere and it is generally agreed that they mix across both hemispheres because of their long suspension life. On the other hand, industrial particulates tend to have a short suspension life what with their modest max altitudes, and have rather regional effects predominantly in the NH (Northern Hemisphere) affected partly by wind patterns etc.
If you believe HadCru3 temperature records:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
Perhaps you could gander at the differences between NH and SH?
Ahh,, Bob, CET is the only one that’s not a monkey puzzle.
Well it’s looking more and more like the 1930’s extreme volcanic activity … there’s a new one in Indonesia, possibly to 46,000 ft. Unless we do get a big stratosphere honker I do believe our turn at dust bowl could be coming in the next 5 years, because I do believe the low altitude gasses and particulate do cause warming in summer. And cause cooling at the poles related to the dimming of the distant sun. Russia had their scorcher last summer so … what 2005 or ’06 we looked a bit like a dust bowl. The volcanoes have been more active since Pinatubo & Cerro Hudson in 1991. There was a decade or so lull before them.
New eruption at Indonesia’s Soputan | Eruptions | Big Think
http://bigthink.com/ideas/39129
kadaka;
nice commentary but … you embarrass me as a supporter when you demonstrate that you don’t know that one degree K is the same as one degree C. Only the zero points differ; the former is absolute zero, the second is water’s freezing point.
In the spirit of KISS, a rise of 1K is the same as a rise of 1°C. (And yes, the placement of the degree symbol is deliberate. A “Kelvin” is a degree Celsius. It’s a noun. A “Celsius” is meaningless, unless referring to a person. It’s an adjective, otherwise.)
From Brian H on July 3, 2011 at 5:21 am:
I’m sorry, but the only one who has embarrassed themselves is you. My comment referred to the style of the writing. If one has deliberately selected the “more scientifically formal” Kelvin units when degrees Celsius will suffice, then why switch mid-paper to the “less formal” Celsius scale? Moreover I had just previously talked of both scales in a comment on a different thread where I demonstrate that I do know what you have claimed that I do not know.
You also just said “degree K” so no smiley for you.
Curious to see if, for example, there is a corelation in a world economic downturn realizing a hotter worldwide climate and economic uptake resulting in a cooler climate?
thanks to you all for your comments to me, I will come back to you a bit later with individual responses
I just wanted to throw another piece of wood (log) on the fire:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/ooops-global-cooling-is-coming
What do you think of this?
15 million and they still don’t get it.
The warming that has occured since 1970 is mostly in winter minimum temperatures and this is almost certainly an artifact of reduced near horizon particulate pollution from domestic burning of coal (and in some places peat).
The reason is simple. Daily minimum temperatures usually occur some time after dawn when solar heating exceeds radiative cooling. 50 years ago it would have been a morning ritual to light a coal fire around dawn in winter in a couple of hundred million households in Europe alone. Creating a thick smoke haze blocking early morning sunlight. Thus allowing longer for radiative cooling to exceed solar heating.
For those of you who have not seen an open hearth coal fire lit, it is an incredibly smokey operation.
Domestic burning of coal was progressively banned across Europe and elsewhere starting in the 1960s.