Over 2000 cold and snow records set in the USA this past week

TB (December 15, 2013 at 2:14 pm) “However you neglect other effects on the air-mass. When cold advection takes place there is often a descent in the upper air it now being on the confluent region of the jet (Anticyclonic building area) and due descent it warms. There can also be advection over the top of the cold air by warm – making the average air-mass temp higher. Similarly, elsewhere in the hemisphere, warmer air moves north and moisture within it will condense into cloud preventing radiational cooling, especially if over a snow-field.”
All those things are possible but they are all irrelevant. You admit it yourself, there is a possibility of radiational cooling (or in your example, a lack of radiational cooling). When there is radiational cooling where does the energy go?

Not a lot of bright sparks in this thread. AGW causes greater extremes – more intense rainfall, more intense droughts, more intense hurricanes, and heaven forbid, more intense snow storms. And no, a once in 112 year event is still weather, and not proof that climate change isn’t occurring. As a simple example, though not necessarily correct in explaining the snow in the Middle East: AGW melts the Arctic, the melted ice becomes cold water, that cold water travels south and interferes with weather patterns producing freak snow storms.
Taking this further, one great risk of global warming is that the cold waters flowing south will interrupt the Gulf Stream, and do you know what you get from that? You get the relatively temperate UK and Europe dropping 10s of degrees to have similar climate to the coldest places in Canada. The world may have warmed, but those places will have dropped in temperature.
I wish people would read and think more. The planet needs it.

eric1skeptic says:
December 16, 2013 at 3:46 pm
TB (December 16, 2013 at 11:29 am): “There are changes in thermodynamic balance in spatial terms but the net energy in the climate system remains in balance (actually not quite unfortunately) with Solar absorbs and IR emitted.”
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“Sounds like you’ve decided to include the surface ocean, and IR to space fluctuates greatly in the short, medium and long term, so the “balance” means nothing.”
No it doesn’t, in quantitative terms at the required time-scale it’s a constant – IR photons don’t “stop” leaving to space on any meaningful times-scale (the 24 hour rotation being the greatest reduction in photon flow). We do not need to look at changes below that scale (surely obviously!) As we are working out changes over ~Century. You seem unable to appreciate the Solar in Vs IR out fundamental. The heat does NOT get trapped and refuse to leave, other than being stored in the Oceans (which IS where some of it is going). It’s radiation, and the Earth has an AVERAGE temp which requires it to emit IR to maintain it. If it can’t then it will heat. I’m sorry but you deny the basics of radiative theory, and that is a body MUST radiate constantly or ELSE heat up. The effect with GHG’s is small but very meaningful especially as it is building.
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“TB: “Look at that link I gave – you will never find a situation where the reds/blues will be anything other than closely matched.”
“Absolutely not justified by any physical principles, nor demonstrated by empirical data. There are plenty of predominantly red or predominantly blue frames from short term coincidental warming or cooling.”
Eric, you are LOOKING at empirical data – if you don’t like that, look for it elsewhere, it will show the same. There is NO significant change on a seasonal basis for a hemisphere to fluctuate from the norm. Regions do but the fluctuations add up to near zero. I’m sorry if that destroys your world-view but the “empirical data” says so. As well as basic meteorology. If you think it’s “absolutely not justified by any physical principles” then the only answer is you are not knowledgeable of the physical principles.
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TB: “He (Spencer) then shows a chart for 14000ft….measure just a thin slice of the water in the pan”
“Wrong, channel 5 measures a deep layer from the surface to about 500 mb, see the bell curve depiction here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/how-the-uah-global-temperatures-are-produced/”
No I’m right, sorry – AMSU’s sample data over depth but use weightings so that the sounding (ch 5) picks up the lower Trop at 550- 600mb – hence the 14000ft level (says clearly at the top of the graph) The graph shows temps around –21C (to be expected at 600mb). It is NOT a thickness average. So it is not showing the energy across the whole system and there will be variations.
http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature
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TB: “…when deep cold air moves south (necessarily lead by a jet ) – that physically causes the jet to turn back north and push a warm front northward.”
“True. But that is complicated by surface feedback. For example the mountains on the N. American west coast cause a predominant trough over the continent in winter. That trough inevitably migrates to the east coast and the northerly component is enhanced by surface feedback from the warm waters in the Atlantic. We can have a mostly zonal flow across the US and still have a northerly turn in the jet due to feedback from east coast surface lows.”
Mountain ranges do often start the train of events in the Rossby wave wavelength – especially the Canadian Rockies (the whip of the washing line) but it matters not to the meteorology as the jet is still be under the same physical constrains and will turn north again as it losses absolute vorticity. In short it’s the movement relative the Earths rotating surface that governs the jets movement. A trough will NOT inevitably “move to the E coast” at all – it depends on the wavelength of the Rossby wave-train. It often can retrogress – though this is most likely where the ridge does not have a mountain and on it’s western side. This process is common in Europe where a high either forming over Scandinavia , or even migrating there from Siberian will retrogress towards Greenland in response to a downstream wavelength change. Yes, there is often a “back-wash” behind Lows that will turn the surface flow to N or NE – but these are short-wave features that pass through quickly and are not driven by long-wave troughs.
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TB: “For the whole hemisphere the anomaly from average is slight. Regionally of course variations can be very large.”
“Regional differences are larger than the world-wide average (or hemisphere if you like that better) but both have large swings in the short, medium and long term. These result in some simple facts such as the ability of the planet to cool or warm as much in two weeks as the global warming from a decade of CO2 increases. It is these swings that matter, not the long term benign warming from CO2. Only thermal inertia prevents short ice ages from being very common.”
Regional climate does have large swings, yes, as we all observe, but hemispherically there is not, as I have shown you, but you bizarrely refuse to accept as “empirical data”.
No, the planet does not cool/warm as much in 2 weeks as a decade of CO2 increases. That is NOT happening because you are neglecting the full climate system – the temporary sinks or storage – ie the oceans ( which store >90% of climates heat). You are neglecting the main recipient of solar energy! Which will take every much longer to shed it. When we see these (atmospheric fluctuations) it is because either the heat is being stored or it is being reflected (given we KNOW it’s the Sun – we just do). The –ve PDO/ENSO cycle since ~2005 has taken much of the absorbed solar (as has the Arctic). Just because the atmospheric temp fluctuates does NOT mean that the absorbed energy does. It doesn’t and Temperature is not entirely a function of radiation which is what governs the balance (specific heat/mass oceans and LH uptake). It is that that is stable (radiative flux) – though out of balance at TOA. Look, things happening within ocean/atmosphere only moves temperature around the system it does NOT change Solar in V IR out.
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TB “There is a delicate balance being changed by GHG’s. Because of the GHE (which Roy does not deny) nor anyone else who is credible. Of course the Planet is delicately balanced. It has to be, as the laws of thermodynamics make it so.”
“Your fig leaf of scientific credibility on GHE does not cover your wild claim that conservation of energy causes a “delicate” planetary balance. There is no such thing on this planet.”
The “fig leaf” of scientific credibility lies in your and your ilk’s minds my friend, and not in established science. The GHE is not new or controversial, it has been known of both empirically and mathematically for ~150 years. You don’t get to invent the wheel by waving your hands about. My car will still have round ones on it when I get in it tomorrow.
Why is it not obvious to you that nature balances cause/effect? – It’s present everywhere you look. Predators/prey in an ecosystem balance out – introduce the cane toad FI in Ozz and the Crocks kill themselves. Etc. The whole universe is balanced. Try looking at it from “holistic” scientific perspective instead of looking into details and not understanding the fundamentals.
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TB: “The Milankovitch cycles prove that small variations in radiative balance in the NH change the balance to/from cold/warmth.”
“The onset and ending of the ice age comes from regional causes not global energy changes.”
You are part correct, in that the changes are for insolation at 65 Deg N where there if greatest land mass. Usually these changes are balanced by the opposite change in the SH. They are universally accepted as setting in train feed-backs that alter climate, through albedo. Snow field build/depletion that in turn drive GHG content further stengthening the cycle. Try and educate your self. Why on Earth wouldn’t the power of the Sun govern climate?
The cycles cause a maximum variation in insolation of ~100W/m^2. Yes, obviously that wont cause changes in spring summer ice melt/resistance to melt. See Fig 1 to see both that and the correlation with ice volume (lock-tied but at a lower application on this scale).
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2006GL027817-Milankovitch.pdf
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TB: “CO2 does create a new equilibrium – has to do – just as new orbital characteristics does. Because it alters the radiation balance of IN vs OUT. Which ultimately is what the climate responds too.”
Backwards. The climate is caused by fluctuations in weather and CO2 warming has a very slight effect on some weather, e.g. hotter temperatures in heat waves. But for the most part weather is unaffected by CO2 warming.
Look, weather does not come about of thin air. It is the planets response to the energy transient twixt solar absorption and IR emittance. Full stop. Weather does not control anything save when some feed-backs occur ( snowfields/ice build up ). This no more than when a pan of water boils the movement of the alter dictates when it will reach boiling – Backwards – It ONLY depends on the energy INPUT to the pan (climate system). You’re hand waving my friend and it goes against established physics. Publish a paper and await a Nobel.
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TB: “Radiational fluxes will change regionally but we have a system that acts in precise ways, evens out these changes – and quickly. It just does. Has too or we’d be living on a very strange and chaotic “alternative Universe” kind of Earth.”
“The main physical mechanism that diminishes regional changes and prevents “strangeness” is thermal inertia. Pressure winds and weather reduce changes in and among regions. The jet has its smaller scale fluid dynamics to swing it in cold and warm directions but only roughly But there is no conservation of energy involved, nor a de facto conservation nor a balance.”
You are referring to weather – the internal chaos in the system that responds to the energy received from the Sun. What is it about the “boiling pan of water analogy that you cannot understand.
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TB: “Unfortunately there are few –ve feed-backs – they are overwhelmingly +ve (Abs WV content. Decreasing Albedo etc).”
“Most widespread or global feedbacks are negative: blackbody radiation, convection and the water cycle. Positive feed-backs like albedo are not widespread especially in an interglacial. WV is widespread but is a wild card as you know since weather primarily controls the amount of WV (rather than warmth).”
Rubbish my friend, they are NOT feed-backs you quote – just natural meteorological mechanisms to redistribute heat ( between absorption and emittance – irrelevant to that as it’s the TOA exchange where that is achieved. Feed-backs are things that do not “sum to zero” convection does (only transports heat in the system –as do winds and ocean currents). Hydrological cycle uses the take up of LH of evap and again transport it where the LH of cond returns it (result zero). A feedback is ONLY one which alters the radiation balance (reflection of SW or absorption of IR).
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You never answered where the energy goes during radiational cooling. To followup please explain the cause of the compensating warming dictated by your mythical conservation of energy. Also explain how the “radiative balance” limits the radiational cooling.”
It goes to space of course. The conservation of energy is not mythical it is a fundamental law – 1st Law of Thermodynamics. What it means is that what comes in will go out …. Eventually. It has NOTHING to do with weather. That is obviously NOT in thermodynamic equilibrium because it makes weather. (it is the equaling out follows temp differentials to density differentials to pressure differentials aided by Coriolis – that is weather It is a symptom of Climate not the cause of it. Without that imbalance in the climate system there would be NO weather. But it’s JUST NOT what you are thinking of as climate radiative balance. That … for the nth time is the Solar absorbed vs IR out equation which cannot … get that, again CANNOT be altered by “weather”.
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TB: “Any talk of “weather” righting temperature completely misses the basic science. It just does.
“You have missed the point. Weather has effects in all directions: global warming, global cooling or nothing at all. Weather causes huge short term shifts in temperature globally as measured with the widest possible measurement (unlike surface thermometers). Weather does not balance in any way although pressure winds and jet dynamics may sometimes have that effect. Mostly weather is countered by thermal inertia and offset by strong local negative feedbacks (that are globally applicable).”
This is the nth time this has gone around the cycle Scott. I have shown you real-world data that hemispherically (and therefore globally) there’s is NO significant variation from the mean temp on a seasonal, and therefore an annual cycle. If you don’t accept that – we can go nowhere. Research it please – from the science and not filtered through someone else. It is really not a surprise who understand science.
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TB: “Solar variation over human history has varied ~0.2%. it no doubt has contributed to some warming but not all. This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temp-sunspot-co2.svg
Shows solar decreasing and CO2 rising.”
“The high solar activity of the 20th century caused some warming as you are aware, but solar going from high to less high causes warming, not cooling. Solar activity has nonlinear effects especially when viewed as a smoothed quantity. The very highest activity causes global cooling as sunspots reduce irradiance and overwhelms the magnetic effects. The magnetic effects mostly kick in during low solar activity which have barely started. Finally, thermal inertia in the form of ocean convection causes a decade or so lag in those effects, so that lame wikipedia graphic is misleading (along with being an insult to the intelligence of this site’s readers)”
What?????????????? Increased solar activity causes cooling! Wow you really are rewriting physics. This time you deny the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. When you point something hot at something cooler – it can ONLY heat, my friend.
Just because sunspots are darker than the main solar surface does not mean the whole output of the Sun is less. Please Google basic Solar physics. Sunspots are a symptom of increased irradiance as all Googling will reveal. Lower solar irradiance (less sunspots) can affect the polar Stat vortex in winter (not Antarctica due O3 hole) by warming it out and down-welling into the Trop vortex, yes, to cause a –AO and allow greater southward movement of polar air. But the Arctic then will become warmer (it has divergence and so the cold will be exported and new air arriving from aloft will need to be radiationally cooled) – so again it’s weather and the hemispheric and radiative energy balance (in/out ) does not change.
Look Eric I am terminating this discussion. It is frankly mind-numbing to converse with someone who “denies” – sorry it just is – not just established climate/radiative physics but seems unable to see the wood for the trees. No offence otherwise but we really have to “appeal to authority” for a reason. That reason is because it “almost universally” knows more than someone who “may” have come to some preconceived conclusion and bolstered it buy a bit of selective Googling and Blog reading.
Finally if what you assert that what you say is true then even NWP weather forecast suites and charts that you see shown by you local TV Weatherman would be bollocks as the physics I discuss go into them
Like I said, an alternative Universe my friend.