While looking for quotes on an upcoming post about Ocean Heat Content, I ran across the press release for a new paper (in press) by Neely et al, which blames the recent slowdown in global warming on smaller more moderate volcanos.
ADD ANOTHER REASON TO THE NON-CONSENSUS
Many readers will recall the October 2011 article by Paul Voosen titled Provoked scientists try to explain lag in global warming. The article presented the different responses from a number of climate scientists, including John Barnes, Kevin Trenberth, Susan Solomon, Jean-Paul Vernier, Ben Santer, John Daniel, Judith Lean, James Hansen, Martin Wild, and Graeme Stephens, to the question, “Why, despite steadily accumulating greenhouse gases, did the rise of the planet’s temperature stall for the past decade?” The different replies led Roger Pielke, Sr. to note at the end of his post Candid Comments from Climate Scientists:
These extracts from the Greenwire article illustrate why the climate system is not yet well understood. The science is NOT solved.
Judith Curry provided running commentary in her post Candid Comments from Global Warming Scientists. If you haven’t read it, it’s a worthwhile read.
NEW STUDY BY NEELY ET AL PRESENTS ANOTHER REASON
Neely et al 2013 (in press) blames moderate volcanos. According to a press release from the University of Colorado Boulder:
A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight — dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide.
The study results essentially exonerate Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely, who led the research as part of his CU-Boulder doctoral thesis. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet.
The paper (in press) is Neely et al (2013) Recent anthropogenic increases in SO2 from Asia have minimal impact on stratospheric aerosol.
The abstract reads:
Observations suggest that the optical depth of the stratospheric aerosol layer between 20 and 30 km has increased 4–10% per year since 2000, which is significant for Earth’s climate. Contributions to this increase both from moderate volcanic eruptions and from enhanced coal burning in Asia have been suggested. Current observations are insufficient to attribute the contribution of the different sources. Here we use a global climate model coupled to an aerosol microphysical model to partition the contribution of each. We employ model runs that include the increases in anthropogenic sulfur dioxide (SO2) over Asia and the moderate volcanic explosive injections of SO2 observed from 2000 to 2010. Comparison of the model results to observations reveals that moderate volcanic eruptions, rather than anthropogenic influences, are the primary source of the observed increases in stratospheric aerosol.
Bottom line: There’s still no consensus from climate scientists about the cause of the slowdown in the warming rate of global surface temperatures.
And of course, the sea surface temperature and ocean heat content reveal another reason: there hadn’t been a strong El Niño to release monumental volumes of warm water from below the surface of the tropical Pacific and shift up the sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans. Refer to my essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” and my ebook Who Turned on the Heat?
…oh and BTW, you call carbon “Satanic”, which will make all sorts of people wonder all sorts of things about your, uh,, “ideation”, but that aside, carbon is the basis of all known life-forms.
@ur momisugly don easterbrook / March 2, 2013 at 11:28 am
you do it again:
”The cool period ended abruptly in 1978 with no change in either either atmospheric sulfur or CO2.”
here is another link about SO2 emissions:
http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf
Don J. Easterbrook says:
March 2, 2013 at 11:28 am
dje–You’ve overlooked the last part–”The cool period ended abruptly in 1978 with no change in either either atmospheric sulfur or CO2.” The climate reversal from cool to warm occurred within single year–much to abruptly for sulfur changes to have been the cause.
What looks like step change in a single year, could result from what occurs over several years, because of the ‘noise’ of natural variability. In 1976 the USA (which means Canada as well because the auto industries are integrated) mandated catalytic converters all new petrol vehicles as well as other vehicle pollution reduction measures. This would have reduced NOx, SOx, BC and OC emissions. Much of the rest of the world followed soon after.
This would have cause a substantial reduction is aerosols, over say 5 years, in and around urban areas mostly, and the surface stations have a strong urban bias.
There’s the main reason for the late 20th century warming.
@ur momisugly Latitude / March 2, 2013 at 12:33 pm
10.000 years is too big a timescale when we talk about the sixties and seventies of last century; whats wrong with you?
In many of the entertaining yet disturbing AGW stories, we here the word theory.
What in the hell is happening to our world? “Scientific Theory” is the pinnacle of human knowledge & Universal understanding.
AGW is a “Working Hypothesis” and has been for the past 3 decades. The work consists of a consensus that has acquired donations for the studies and if all goes well (for the scam artists point of view), the working hypothesis will continue for many more decades…
D.B. Stealey says: / March 2, 2013 at 11:11 am
“I have to laugh at Martin van Etten. He so craves runaway global warming, so he can say he was right.”
heya! stealey,
did you do your howework on my questions on Kinnard and Maslowski? see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/
do you know already why the graph of Mr. Rose and Mr Monckton is wrong?
do you know anything about the working of climate since you talk about runaway climate?
so anyway, please be more substantial;
van Etten says:
“whats wrong with you?”
The question, Martin, is: what is wrong with you? The longer the time scale, the better when looking at trends and correlation.
For example, here we see clearly that there is no long term correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.
Any honest scientist would admit by now that the total failure of their predictions means that their conjecture has been thoroughly falsified. So either admit it, or we will know that you are being dishonest. You cannot constantly come up with your ‘say anything’ excuses for the failure of your predictions, and retain any integrity. You are either honest, or you’re not. I think most of us here know the answer to that by now.
You ask: “do you know anything about the working of climate since you talk about runaway climate?”
Note that it is the climate alarmist contingent that made endless predictions of runaway global warming. Scientific skeptics — which you are certainly not — know better. Runaway global warming is nonsense.
You are just a noob who only recently stumbled in here from Pseudo-skeptical Pseudo-science. I’ve been learning here since this site began, and from your comments it’s clear that the only information you have is misinformation.
@ur momisugly vukcevic March 2, 2013 at 12:17 pm
I studied both graphs you provided me;
I dont think they fit the existing temperature records like
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
@ur momisugly D.B. Stealey / March 2, 2013 at 3:06 pm
“There, in his own words: CO2 is a satanic gas. Could Phobos be any less credible?”
Well, I could agree on these words from Phobos:
The uncertainties lie in the *rest* of the calculation: aerosols, black soot, clouds, feedbacks, deep ocean dynamics. Except for the first two — which are negative feedbacks — there is little man can do about climate change unless CO2 is reduced, or scrubbed and sequestered. That’s the bottom line.
Like Wamron says: “these are basic undergraduate principles of science”
As usual van Etten links to a series of zero baseline charts, which are inherently inaccurate. They misrepresent what is happening. The only accurate charts in a situation like that are long term trend charts.
I’ve explained the difference many times here, so I’m not inclined to waste pixels on van Etten, who wouldn’t understand it anyway.
van Etten says: ” there is little man can do about climate change unless CO2 is reduced, or scrubbed and sequestered. That’s the bottom line.”
How incredibly unscientific. There is zero measurable evidence to support such a baseless conjecture. But then, the pseudo-science crowd has no use for scientific evidence. True Belief is sufficient for their cult.
@ur momisugly D.B. Stealey / March 2, 2013 at 4:54 pm
van Etten says: “whats wrong with you?”
The question, Martin, is: what is wrong with you? The longer the time scale, the better when looking at trends and correlation.
——
Stealey, get your act together, you are kidding me! lattitude comes with a graph of 10.000 years of climate change in reaction to two decennia in the last century? we are talking about the post Worldwar 2 cooling matter;
are we making a fool of ourselves?
van Etten asks: “are we making a fool of ourselves?”
The rest of us are not inclined to follow your example, Martin. Run along now back to SkS, where their head-nodders lap up your anti-science. Maybe you can pick up some new talking points; the ones you’re using are old and busted. Unlike SkS, this is the internet’s “Best Science” site.You could learn a lot here, if you would simply open your closed mind.
@ur momisugly stealy,
I was just providing Don Easterbrook with some links about SO2 concentrations and the relation with warming when the SO2 started to decline; these links were just two normal American organisations, the pnl.gov and http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net
D.B. Stealey / March 2, 2013 at 5:13 pm Unlike SkS, this is the internet’s “Best Science” site;
Stealey,
yes I noticed that when I saw you publishing Monckton and Cfact stuff;
sorry that I wrote are WE making a full of ourselves?
I meant are YOU making a fool of yourself by defending lattitude’s remarks by sending the same graph to explain a multdecadal event with multimillenial tendency;
well, this I don’t buy;
D.B. Stealey / March 2, 2013 at 5:06 pm
van Etten says: ” there is little man can do about climate change unless CO2 is reduced, or scrubbed and sequestered. That’s the bottom line.”
please be accurate, I supported Phobos who said that;
No Phobos, these so called scientists are emphatically NOT doing exactly what scientists are supposed to do.
I fully agree with the philosophy that “when
resultsobservations don’t agree with predictions, look around and figure out why not. Revise theory, test again.” However, that is not what these researchers are doing at all.Climate politics aside, the abstract and press release (I am not willing to waste good money to read this paywalled paper) indicate that the objective of the study are to quantify the optical depth of the stratospheric aerosol layer between 20 and 30 km, and to attribute the contribution of volcanic and anthropogenic sources to this increase. These are interesting and potentially important questions. Unfortunately, the methodology selected to investigate the question – trying to infer aerosol layer optical depth and sources from GCM predictions – is risible.
Aerosol concentrations and optical depth are physical parameters that can be observed directly. Attempting to infer the optical depth, let alone the source of the aerosols based on predictions from GCMs that are known to be inaccurate (i.e., don’t agree with observed climate) and which include a huge number of confounding factors and poorly quantified feedback processes is useless from a scientific standpoint.
Martin van Etten says:
March 2, 2013 at 5:03 pm
‘Like Wamron says: “these are basic undergraduate principles of science”’
Yes and, how many undergraduates would you trust with design of a complicated mechanism, with potential for grave injury, or worse, to themselves and others?
Undergraduate study is where they teach you basic mechanisms. Graduate work is where you learn the limits of the theory. You don’t really learn how things actually work until you start applying what they teach you in the real world – design it from scratch, experiment with it in the laboratory, and make it into a finished product for others to use.
The people on the alarmist side never had to make anything actually work. That is why they are flailing so desperately now. They bit off more than they can chew, and they are choking on their own bile. I would be lying if I said I was not enjoying the denouement. Pass the popcorn.
van Etten,
Yes, this is the internet’s “Best Science” site. If you would read the articles here you could learn a lot. Instead, you repeat the nonsense you get from blogs like RealClimate. Note that they are a small echo chamber of head nodders, with one-tenth the traffic of WUWT.
The alarmist crowd always claims to have the ‘consensus’. So by that standard, WUWT is the ‘best science’ consensus. But you don’t agree with the science here, so according to your own claims, you are wrong.
I would recommend that you start paying attention to what most commenters are saying. You could learn a lot. But your religious true belief does not allow you to understand the difference between ‘best science‘ and pseudo-science. Too bad for you.
Martin van Etten says:
…
“Well, I could agree on these words from Phobos:
The uncertainties lie in the *rest* of the calculation: aerosols, black soot, clouds, feedbacks, deep ocean dynamics. Except for the first two — which are negative feedbacks — there is little man can do about climate change unless CO2 is reduced, or scrubbed and sequestered. That’s the bottom line.” (emphasis added)
———–
Seriously? If both you and Phobos acknowledge that clouds, feedbacks, and deep ocean dynamics are uncertain, then why are you arguing that AGW is real? What are you doing here trolling? I mean, you just threw the AGW baby out with the bathwater, once you acknowledge that you don’t really know how the clouds, feedbacks, and ocean dynamics are going to behave in the system. If you don’t really know, then you’re guessing that AGW is real in an important way. Is this in fact your position?
(for the record, I object to the distinction between clouds and feedbacks – clouds ~are~ feedbacks, but I don’t want to obscure the issue with details that aren’t relevant to the point I’m making, so I’m sticking with Phobos’s original phraseology).
Martin, where is the severe drop in temperature between 1940’s and 1970’s in that graph? You know, the temperature drop that was so significant that some scientists were concerned about it being a start of the next ice age? Somehow that just disappeared in the numerous GISS adjustments. Redraw the chart in your mind with the late ’70s about a half a degree cooler, and then tell me there’s still a reason to be concerned.
Interesting Martin is wanting to focus on the short term graphs rather than the long term context. Once you study the many varied Paleo Climate graphs then the context shows the 4 major warming periods since the end of the last ice age. Each warming period is not as warm as the prior one. The overall trend, sadly, is still downward towards the start of the next ice age.
The so called skeptics on this site believe in global warming. They believe in climate change.
What they do not believe in is this fictitious idea the climate is not steady state unless humans mess it up. This statement of faith is what the propaganda hockey stick was all about.
Staring at models that do not follow observations, have been falsified, relegates the warmists to the realm of faith based religion. I’m all for people believing what they want – in their personal lives. But when their beliefs affect the well being of the worlds poor to such an extent that we burn food for fuel and deny billions low cost energy, then, as often happens, these people of the new religion are by any objective definition Pure Evil!
So its a phobia, dark satanic gases leaving a black carbon fallout.
This year is young, so may laughs at the cultists of carbon so far.
Don’t you demonizers of carbon, hate it when your idiocy and lies are here for all to admire?
Given any thought to how to escape “useful idiot” branding?
Let me guess, first you never use your real names, which reflects on your integrity.
And you’re probably using your parents IP address.
Hats off to Bofill, Wamron, Shaw, Stealey, and all you older guys who know who you are. Looks like there is no need for me to post any longer. That’s good. (Don’t spend too much time on the trolls.)
Phobos
The radiative part of the calculation of climate sensitivity is among the best known parts of climate science, since it depends on quantum mechanics, which is known to be a very good theory.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seriously? From IPCC AR4 WG1 2.2:
Since the TAR a number of studies have investigated the relationship between RF and climate response, assessing the limitations of the RF concept;
In fact, it also says:
Figure 2.1 shows how the RF concept fits within a general understanding of climate change comprised of ‘forcing’ and ‘response’
Does a “concept” with “limitations” that results in a “general understanding” sound like they have it precisely nailed down? If so, why do they go out of their way to say:
Surface forcing has quite different properties than RF and should not be used to compare forcing agents (see Section 2.8.1).
Do you even know what their definition of radiative forcing is?
Ramaswamy et al. (2001) define it as ‘the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus longwave; in W m–2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values’.
Do you understand that they are defining a temperature change at the tropopause that they think will result from a change in CO2 if the troposphere and surface temperatures DON’T change? That they provide no way to extrapolate this sensitivity to an eventual surface temperature change? That their entire methodology from their relies on a linear extrapolation of the lapse rate while ignoring that this is impossible given that water vapour is the dominant ghg and is NOT uniform and so PREVENTS the possibility of a linear extrapolation being accurate? That they provide no less than FOUR different scenarios as to what MIGHT happen based on their definition?
Hey that’s not me, that’s THEM. Read it yourself:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-2.html
@John Robertson
Phobos is just a troll.
Martin van Etten runs a ‘blog’ in the Netherlands which, in essence, just translates the talking points and flawed ‘science’ on SkS.
Martin van Etten believes in global warming caused by man made CO2.
He uses the same straw man (Climate Change deniers) and other fallacies (plurium interrogationum)to advance his point of view as other ‘believers’.
He has been preaching doom and gloom on the internet since 1999.
What do you expect him to do, suddenly stop now that the tenets of his belief system are looking rather shaky?