For those of you that have been looking for that point of reference about Antarctica’s increasing sea ice in contrast to the shrinking ice in the Arctic, look no further.
A new study recently published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society says robust modeling evidence that the ice should melt (their words) predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease in response to increased greenhouse gases and the ozone hole. Only one problem in defiance of the “robust modeling”, the current Antarctic sea ice has been booming.
This graph from Cryosphere today via the WUWT Sea Ice Reference page shows what I’m talking about:
Cryosphere Today – Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois – Click the pic to view at sourceHere is the paper title and abstract:
Climate System Response to Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Recovery
Michael Previdi1,*, Lorenzo M. Polvani1,2
DOI: 10.1002/qj.2330
Abstract
We review what is presently known about the climate system response to stratospheric ozone depletion and its projected recovery, focusing on the responses of the atmosphere, ocean and cryosphere. Compared to well-mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs), the radiative forcing of climate due to observed stratospheric ozone loss is very small: in spite of this, recent trends in stratospheric ozone have caused profound changes in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) climate system, primarily by altering the tropospheric midlatitude jet, which is commonly described as a change in the Southern Annular Mode. Ozone depletion in the late twentieth century was the primary driver of the observed poleward shift of the jet during summer, which has been linked to changes in tropospheric and surface temperatures, clouds and cloud radiative effects, and precipitation at both middle and low latitudes. It is emphasized, however, that not all aspects of the SH climate response to stratospheric ozone forcing can be understood in terms of changes in the midlatitude jet.
The response of the Southern Ocean and sea ice to ozone depletion is currently a matter of debate. For the former, the debate is centered on the role of ocean eddies in possibly opposing wind-driven changes in the mean circulation. For the latter, the issue is reconciling the observed expansion of Antarctic sea ice extent during the satellite era with robust modeling evidence that the ice should melt as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion (and increases in GHGs).
Despite lingering uncertainties, it has become clear that ozone depletion has been instrumental in driving SH climate change in recent decades. Similarly, ozone recovery will figure prominently in future climate change, with its impacts expected to largely cancel the impacts of increasing GHGs during the next half-century.
Climate System Response to Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Recovery
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/previdi+polvani-QJRMS-2014-inpress.pdf
Maybe they should switch to non-robust models.
@ur momisugly Ronald “A model is as good as the input but always need a reality check.”
At its very best a model is as good as the input — and that is assuming that the model is both complete and accurate.
A model is nothing more than a thought experiment. For most models the thought experiment is so complicated or requires so many bits of data that a human cannot do the experiment in his head — hence the computer program. Imagine how the CAGW cultists would respond to a sceptic with this claim: “I have developed a thought experiment that proves CO2 is not a major factor in climate. The experiment is so complicated that no one can understand all of it, but I have written a program to do the hard parts. My thought experiment is very robust and conclusive.”
Computer modeling = automated thought experiment
hunter says:
January 23, 2014 at 1:33 am
Sorry, hit “post” button too quickly.
Here is the tell that this is more AGW promoter excuse making:
“Similarly, ozone recovery will figure prominently in future climate change, with its impacts expected to largely cancel the impacts of increasing GHGs during the next half-century.”
Think on this: There is now a new magical climate control mechanism, stratospheric ozone. The ozone layer is amazingly tenuous, very diffuse, and concentrated at the very top of the region we call the stratosphere. Yet now we find controls the jet streams at the bottom of the stratosphere.
hunter you have this wrong, the ozone layer is concentrated at the bottom of the stratosphere not the top!
So ozone is nearly as magical as CO2 for the AGW believers. But more importantly we once again see that the AGW promoters do not understand how the climate works, or how powerful or weak GHGs behave in the atmosphere.
The misunderstanding appears to be yours.
hunter says:
January 23, 2014 at 5:24 am
Gail,
That is interesting food for thought. However, I would question the linkage of solar minimum and UV, for one thing. And the ozone hole relates to winter more than anything. Winter, when very little light is reaching the area anyway.
No it doesn’t, the ozone depletion is caused by the increase of sunlight in the spring not the winter.
Not so robust, then?
“Despite lingering uncertainties, it has become clear”
Hmmm, either they don’t understand the meaning of “lingering” or “clear”.
Keeping with the HHGTTG theme,
“the average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born — or (if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born. In fact, the average Vogon probably wouldn’t even think once. ”
It appears they didn’t even think once. And that’s not even considering their, erm, thoughts on the
ozone hole……
Actually, this is good news. Didn’t anybody notice the last line? Ozone recovery will largely cancel AGW over the next half-century! Perhaps this is the “missing heat”! Maybe Ozone has started to recover, causing the pause. Or perhaps it is other probably ignored stratospheric changes, such as its sudden 10% depletion in water vapor content, making it considerably more transparent in the water band.
But yes, in the end it is just one more nail in the coffin of the GCMs, still more evidence that they omit or do not get key physics components right and/or do not have the spatiotemporal resolution at accessible model granularity to get the climate right. Since stratospheric Ozone is actually plausibly connected to solar magnetic state and the prevalence of upper-atmosphere ionizing radiation, this might even be one of the missing links to a causal link between the Sun and the climate.
I don’t see anything particularly bad about this paper or abstract. Indeed, it is basically consistent with observation. The GCMs predict something that isn’t observationally happening, so they have a problem. We knew that; it is good to see it in print. The resolution of the problem suggests that AGW previously attributed to GHGs was in part attributable to ozone depletion instead, and that as ozone recovers, it will largely cancel the residual warming due to increasing GHGs for a period of several decades. We didn’t know that, but it makes some degree of sense (and note well, I haven’t attributed any cause for the ozone depletion in the first place) and is great news! It should be reprinted as a headline on the front page of the New York Times! Of course if it were, the authors would be eviscerated by their colleagues for inadvertently breaking ranks and putting all of that funding at risk. All that is missing is a causal model for the ozone and its incorporation into repaired GCMs, which will presumably have substantially lower GHG forcing (because stratospheric ozone will have to take on a larger role in the past, CO_2 will have to take on a smaller one to describe the same data) and completely different feedbacks. Natural variation will likely play a larger role, because humans were not the sole cause of the ozone hole in the first place — there is (IIRC) isotopic evidence that ozone follows a natural cycle of variability that may or may not be linked to solar state. We may have exacerbated or overdriven a natural cycle with our stratospheric jets and CFCs (or not, I don’t care to get into that debate) but there is little doubt that a natural cycle exists and is probably driven by some sort of atmospheric chemistry beyond our control.
By the way, I do so wish that people wouldn’t bad-mouth modelling in general. There are many, many systems in the world that can be successfully modelled and modelling those systems is of enormous value to humanity. We model jets before we build them. We model nuclear bombs as part of the design process before we build them. We model the spread of disease in epidemics, we model phase transitions and critical phenomena in physics, we model chemical reactions. These days no electric circuit is ever built (for mass production, not by hobbyists) without being modelled first. There is absolutely nothing wrong with modelling and using models to predict the future of complex systems.
The problem is that in all of the cases cited above, the models in question are validated, and the process of model validation basically never ends. Even a model that has worked in the past is subject to scrutiny if it fails to work in the future, and its future predictions are very much subject to doubt to the extent that it does so fail. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with trying to build GCMs — indeed variations of GCMs work pretty well nowadays to model the weather up to two weeks in advance, which is (given the difficulty of the process) a tremendous achievement and one that is critically valuable. I know, for example, that the current cold weather we are having in NC this morning (temperatures in the mid-teens, bitter cold for this time of year) is very probably going to last for two weeks or more, thanks to models. They could be wrong, of course, but they are probably right, right enough for me to “expect” to need to de-ice my car windshield in the mornings and allow for the extra time.
The problem with GCMs used to predict the climate isn’t that “modelling is bad”, it is that “these particular models are bad”. Not bad in intent, maybe not even bad in execution — they best we can do is never “bad”, although it may be “inadequate”. Bad in the specific sense that the GCMs are not working to predict the climate.
This isn’t really that surprising. Predicting the climate one lousy year out is an enormously difficult problem, arguably the most difficult computational problem the human species has yet attempted. It may quite literally not be solvable given our current computational resources. It may be solvable, but may require the substantial rewrite of the code being used, and the solution may have such a broad range of possible future climates that we cannot resolve the probability of any particular future from the spaghetti snarl of butterfly-wing perturbed possibilities, so that the solutions may not be useful.
In any other field, that is just science as usual, nobody would say “models are bad” just because models were not yet useful or any particular model failed to work. In climate science, because these unproven models have been elevated to the status of some sort of modern Oracle and corrupted to the dual purpose of a political agenda and the preservation of climate science funding, it is a problem.
rgb
Models: A great way to figure out what to measure to check a physical theory. Any other use is not fit for purpose.
The only reason engineering models are trusted is because they have been tested against reality and found to agree to some safe level of error. (Note: “some safe level of error”: not the same as “exactly like reality” and the differences are well explored and documented and if an effect lies within model weakness areas, the model is deemed not fit for purpose and another model is found and tested.) The real world is always the final arbiter of “fit for purpose”,
The science is settled!
Honest!
Why does everything have to be robust these days? We get robust policies, robust responses, robust this, robust that. Robust has become a meaningless adjective. And what is “modelling evidence”? Is modelling in this context an adjective, a verb or part of a compound noun?
rgbatduke says: @ur momisugly January 23, 2014 at 6:29 am
…. By the way, I do so wish that people wouldn’t bad-mouth modelling in general….
In any other field, that is just science as usual, nobody would say “models are bad” just because models were not yet useful or any particular model failed to work. In climate science, because these unproven models have been elevated to the status of some sort of modern Oracle and corrupted to the dual purpose of a political agenda and the preservation of climate science funding, it is a problem.
rgb
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The problem is the climate models are not fit for use but they have been used to direct policy around the world. As a result there are 30,000 extra deaths a year in the EU due to foolish government policy based on Bad Climate Models.
In general the man on the street is only going to know the politicians made a really big error that directly affects him and scientists and their models are to blame.
Do not expect people to stop bad-mouth modelling because it is only going to get worse.
As a chemist, I hate the fact people say ‘Chemicals’ are bad/evil but there isn’t much that can be done. All we can hope is that the name of ‘Science’ isn’t too badly trashed. There are Luddites on both the right and the left who want to ump on the name of science with both feet.
James (Aus.) says: January 23, 2014 at 12:40 am
Isn’t that a wonderful word, “robust”. Sort of guarantees reliability, accuracy, careful adherence to the Scientific Method, all hypotheses supported by solid evidence surpassing the statistical tests …
Or they have not added the 2 o’s and 2 -‘s, which they want everyone else to say.
See (oo) + ( – – ) + robust = rob – us – too.
rgbatduke says:
January 23, 2014 at 6:29 am
Ozone is actually plausibly connected to solar magnetic state and the prevalence of upper-atmosphere ionizing radiation, this might even be one of the missing links to a causal link between the Sun and the climate.
A conjecture: Geomagnetic storm’s proton shower increase the ionisation to considerable degree. On such occasions polar vortex due to bifurcation of the Earth’s magnetic field
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/pdf/Z_map_mf_2010.pdf
eventually breaks down radically altering the jet-streams path.
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/36000/36972/npole_gmao_200901-02.mov
Another axiom to add to your list; anytime the word “robust” is used to describe something the chances that it isn’t approach 100%
@ur momisugly Phil. says:
January 23, 2014 at 6:21 am
RE: Your assertion the ozone layer is concentrated at the bottom of the Stratoshpere.
Please tell NASA to update their explanation .
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/SH.html
“The total mass of ozone in the atmosphere is about 3 billion metric tons. That may seem like a lot, but it is only 0.00006 percent of the atmosphere. The peak concentration of ozone occurs at an altitude of roughly 32 kilometers (20 miles) above the surface of the Earth. At that altitude, ozone concentration can be as high as 15 parts per million (0.0015 percent). “
Gail Combs says:
January 23, 2014 at 7:13 am
Very good point.
But not restricted to computerised climate models (GCMs).
The whole conceptual edifice of attributing changes to the fault of man without first discerning what is natural… that is not fit for use when the use is directing policy.
GCMs could help dicern what is natural and what is manmade – they could – but these models are being used in policy making before we have even got that far.
Sorry, hit submit again too quickly.
Phil,
You are of course correct regarding when the “hole” is at its greatest extent. Thank you for correcting the seasons.
The question that still comes to mind is why the 1950’s Internatinal Geophysical year talked about noticing the intensification of UV prior to CFC’s becomins so prevalent?
vukcevic says:
January 23, 2014 at 1:14 am
Antarctica is the globe’s area with the strongest coupling between the sun’s and the Earth’s magnetic fields
——————-
My first strong impression of a possible interaction of magnetic fields between the Sun and Earth came from watching the daily jet stream changes. That is why I made that comment last year, although at the time I did not state why I had the thought. I still have the impression that there is an influence there. The thought also ties in with my wondering ‘why did the magnetic north pole start shifting in the beginning of the 1900s and then continue to accelerate it,s movement in recent decades?’. Four years ago that made me ask the question ” Can the shifting magnetic north pole alter weather patterns?”. I still wonder about that, although I have learned through dialoguing here that there are others who hold this thought and are actively looking for clues.
I guess they failed to provide the model with the data that indicated Antarctic sea ice has been setting records for greatest area:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
How does unvalidated modelling evidence ever become robust?! That ice is increased dramatically, seems irrelevant to their claim.
I guess that just shows how ignorant of true climate science – I really am. GK
NO, No, No, No, No, No, No!
Nearly ten years ago, NASA was soo on this one! They concluded
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/sea_ice.html
See there, “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” = MORE Antarctic Sea Ice.
The growing Ice isn’t their problem.
…now they do have a problem though. And that problem is, Antarctica hasn’t seen the, you know, “Warming” part since at least 1957
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_700890090000_14_0/station.txt
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/polar-amplification-at-the-south-pole/
Of course, if we were merely talking about their “models” though – well then yeah, Models are 0 for 2 (huge swings and misses for both -Ice and +Warming)
“robust modeling evidence”
Model projections are hypotheses, to be tested against evidence. How did this field ever get so screwed up?
goldminor says:
January 23, 2014 at 8:58 am
……
Hi
See my comment above related to the Dr. Browns post. Actually N.H has two ‘magnetic poles’ with continuously variable intensities but very little movement, which creates impression for the surface wandering deep-needle’s automatically averaged magnetic pole. Only at the magnetosphere’s magnetopause two ‘poles’ merge into a singular one.
New paper says climate models ‘robustly’ predicted Antarctic sea ice to decrease, but Antarctic sea ice now near record highs [posted 1/20/14]
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-paper-says-climate-models-robustly.html
“robust modeling evidence”
There are two opposite definitions of “robust”:
1) robust – strong enough to withstand or overcome intellectual challenges or adversity
2) robust – rough and crude
So take your pick. I choose #2 it just makes more sense in this case.