![Hand%2BWaving[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hand2bwaving1.jpg?quality=83)
Well not exactly #37, but it sure seems like it with all the handwaving we’ve seen lately.
So far, we’ve heard from Climate Science that ‘the pause’ was caused by:
Too much aerosols from volcanoes, ENSO patterns, missing heat that went to the deep ocean, ocean cooling, low solar activity, inappropriately dealt with weather stations in the Arctic, and stadium waves, to name a few. So much for consensus.
Now, it’s trade winds going too fast that are causing abnormal cooling in the Pacific. A new paper from the University of New South Wales says that once the winds return to normal speed, well, look out, the heat is on.
One thing for certain, even though the media is going predictably berserkers over this paper, the paper clearly illustrates that natural variation has been in control, not CO2. So much for control knobs.
Pacific trade winds stall global surface warming — for now
The strongest trade winds have driven more of the heat from global warming into the oceans; but when those winds slow, that heat will rapidly return to the atmosphere causing an abrupt rise in global average temperatures.
Heat stored in the western Pacific Ocean caused by an unprecedented strengthening of the equatorial trade winds appears to be largely responsible for the hiatus in surface warming observed over the past 13 years.
New research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change indicates that the dramatic acceleration in winds has invigorated the circulation of the Pacific Ocean, causing more heat to be taken out of the atmosphere and transferred into the subsurface ocean, while bringing cooler waters to the surface.
“Scientists have long suspected that extra ocean heat uptake has slowed the rise of global average temperatures, but the mechanism behind the hiatus remained unclear” said Professor Matthew England, lead author of the study and a Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
“But the heat uptake is by no means permanent: when the trade wind strength returns to normal – as it inevitably will – our research suggests heat will quickly accumulate in the atmosphere. So global temperatures look set to rise rapidly out of the hiatus, returning to the levels projected within as little as a decade.”
The strengthening of the Pacific trade winds began during the 1990s and continues today. Previously, no climate models have incorporated a trade wind strengthening of the magnitude observed, and these models failed to capture the hiatus in warming. Once the trade winds were added by the researchers, the global average temperatures very closely resembled the observations during the hiatus.
“The winds lead to extra ocean heat uptake, which stalled warming of the atmosphere. Accounting for this wind intensification in model projections produces a hiatus in global warming that is in striking agreement with observations,” Prof England said.
Credit: For articles on this paper only. Credit: Nature Climate Change. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Prof Matthew H England et al.
“Unfortunately, however, when the hiatus ends, global warming looks set to be rapid.”
The impact of the trade winds on global average temperatures is caused by the winds forcing heat to accumulate below surface of the Western Pacific Ocean.
“This pumping of heat into the ocean is not very deep, however, and once the winds abate, heat is returned rapidly to the atmosphere” England explains.
“Climate scientists have long understood that global average temperatures don’t rise in a continual upward trajectory, instead warming in a series of abrupt steps in between periods with more-or-less steady temperatures. Our work helps explain how this occurs,” said Prof England.
“We should be very clear: the current hiatus offers no comfort – we are just seeing another pause in warming before the next inevitable rise in global temperatures.”
###
The paper:
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich& Agus Santoso
Nature Climate Change (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106
Abstract
Despite ongoing increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, the Earth’s global average surface air temperature has remained more or less steady since 2001. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to account for this slowdown in surface warming. A key component of the global hiatus that has been identified is cool eastern Pacific sea surface temperature, but it is unclear how the ocean has remained relatively cool there in spite of ongoing increases in radiative forcing. Here we show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades—unprecedented in observations/reanalysis data and not captured by climate models—is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake. The extra uptake has come about through increased subduction in the Pacific shallow overturning cells, enhancing heat convergence in the equatorial thermocline. At the same time, the accelerated trade winds have increased equatorial upwelling in the central and eastern Pacific, lowering sea surface temperature there, which drives further cooling in other regions. The net effect of these anomalous winds is a cooling in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1–0.2 °C, which can account for much of the hiatus in surface warming observed since 2001. This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the trade wind trends continue, however rapid warming is expected to resume once the anomalous wind trends abate.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106.html
good that they made a prediction. when the tradewinds return to normal, the heat will return.
It would be nice to have a WUWT reference page devoted to trade winds.
When theories dont work ( which is always ), there are three options.
1. ignore the “wrongness” because its small and doesnt really matter
2. declare the theory wrong and replace it with a better one.
3. Suggest testable improvements.
They have done #3. That’s a good thing. Whether it is the correct choice.. time will tell.
Once the trade winds were added by the researchers, the global average temperatures very closely resembled the observations during the hiatus.
As always, the test will be future, out of sample, data.
“So global temperatures look set to rise rapidly out of the hiatus, returning to the levels projected within as little as a decade.”
This, of course, gives them at least another 10 years to be wrong.
Mike M.:
Yes, I sense a turbidity in the farce.
It’s a computer model!!!! It’s got to be correct! I’m 97% certain they got [it] spot on. 😉
Stronger winds do drive more evaporation, which is a cooling mechanism for the WATER, but NOT a cooling mechanism for the SYSTEM.
Regarding the question of how more heat gets in the ocean (not having read the paper and frankly I can’t imagine finding the time to do so) is that the cooler water can now absorb more heat from the atmosphere. So the ocean warms back up and the heat comes back out of the atmosphere. If the heat comes back out of the atmosphere then the water vapor comes back out of the atmosphere and re-releases it’s latent heat of evaporation back into the atmosphere. The “souped-up” process they claim would INCREASE second/third law devolution of system energy contained in modes other than heat into heat, by definition. This mechanism CAN’T cool the earth system; it can only increase entropy.
dbakerber says:
February 10, 2014 at 6:49 am
Reading further into the report, I see the author states that the models “are still better at predicting what might happen by the end of the century than at the end of the decade.”
On its face, it is an extremely interesting claim, yes. But it gets really comical if you move it forward. I mean, calculate out the PDOs.
2000-2007 Positive (temp stalled)
2008-2038 Negative
2039-2069 Positive
2070-2099 Negative (it flips in 3000)
That is 61 years of Negative PDO, 39 years of Positive PDO – where the first 8 years of positive left us with 0 warming.
And the IPCC has us at an overall increase of between 2.3 degrees by 3000, right? So between 2039-2069, we are going to see all of the 2.3 degrees and even more, to offset whatever the 61 years of negative take off and all. That’s right, apparently England feels it is likely we see about +1 Degree/Decade from 2039-2069
Cant wait to see his new model prediction of that!
In fact, I believe it will look a hell of a lot like this (using 1876-1976 as a comparable PDO time period. Just make believe it says 2000-2100)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1876/to:1915/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1916/to:1945/detrend:-3/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1946/to:1976/offset:3
What do you think the reaction will be when the first Modeler puts that out as their prediction?
[2100 vs 3000? Mod]
Stupidity annoys me. especially if a so-called “scientist” does not know what to do with observations of nature. Here is an observation: there has been no warming in the twenty-first century. Here is another one: carbon dioxide has steadily increased during this century. Can you tell me how these observations are connected? No? Then you must be a climate scientist. These people were told by Hansen that putting more carbon dioxide in the air warms it Greenhouse effect is what he called it. IPCC picked it right up and has been promoting the greenhouse effect for 25 years now. It is impossible for them to believe observations that absolutely deny the existence of the greenhouse effect. By now there has been no greenhouse warming for the last 17 years. That is two thirds of the time that IPCC has even existed. Probably billions of research money has gone into futile attempts to prove the reality of a non-existent greenhouse warming. Their “proof” of greenhouse warming leans on Hansen. In 1988 he asserted in front of the Senate that the greenhouse warming had arrived. Hansen had no idea what he was talking about. He just observed an El Nino and thought it was greenhouse.
The warmista can hindcast almost everything perfectly, once they know what they want to hindcast and find the buttons in the models.
They can also forecast exactly as they want it to look like.
So where is the problem?
From my research their most common explanations for the pause are:
1. It was caught in a mudslide
2. Eaten by a lion
3. Got run over by a crappy purple scion.
I’m leaning toward number 3.
Amazing the dimwits have discovered ENSO – I think a month or so ago another genius discovered the PDO maybe one day they will look out of the window and notice the sun but that is probably a step too far [for] the modelers.
It is time for the climate community to move to another approach based on pattern recognition in the temperature and driver data and also on the recognition of the different frequencies of different regional weather patterns on a cooling ( more meridional jet stream ) and warming (more latitudinal jet stream ) world.
For forecast of the coming cooling based on the 60 year (PDO) and the 1000 year quasi-periodicities seen in the temperature data and the neutron count as a proxy for solar activity in general see several posts at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
for an assessment of a thirty year forecast made in 2010 see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/07/skillful-so-far-thirty-year-climate.html
tonyb: On what basis is this strengthening said to be unprecedented?
They have some model output (this is presented at Bob Tisdale’s web page), but they admit that the model output for earlier years is not very “constrained” by actual measurements. The claim does not have what might be termed a “strong foundation”.
I can’t get behind the paywall either. rats. The paper is probably worth reading.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/quick-comments-on-england-et-al-2014/
Notwithstanding the inaccurate rendition of the Hadley circulation… that does not touch surface in Mid Latitudes… See Leroux.
Steven Mosher: When theories dont work ( which is always ), there are three options.
1. ignore the “wrongness” because its small and doesnt really matter
2. declare the theory wrong and replace it with a better one.
3. Suggest testable improvements.
They have done #3. That’s a good thing. Whether it is the correct choice.. time will tell.
It looks to me like a paper worth reading. I hope that the authors or journal release it from behind the paywall. time will tell, as you wrote.
OMG…it’s unprecedented!
I think I finally understand Global Warming. It’s simple, really. You see, the globe is warming because the science is settled. Except when it isn’t, and then the science is ad hoc for a moment and THEN the science is settled again. Sadly, you can never converse with the CAGW cultists while the science is in the ad hoc stage; that stage only happens for a very brief time, far too brief for debate.
Even more sadly, when you speak with CAGW supporters, they are absolutely certain that THEY understand real science! Sigh…
I’m sorry, maybe I’ve missed it.
Is there any data actually showing the stronger trade winds, or is this just something they fed into the model?
Also; it’s kind of a chicken and the egg question; couldn’t the decrease in the temp trend result in stronger trade winds?
Just curious.
“This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the trade wind trends continue…”
Well that covers projections of the pause until 2020. Will Ben Santer object that it exceeds his 17 years?
well I have only one thing to say about that.
As global coverage of the ARGO buoy data increases, the measured rate of heat content accumulation in the deep ocean goes up. This indicates that the ARGO buoy DIRECT MEASURMENT data of the deep ocean is robust and indisputable.
@Jai Mitchell – No, it indicates you have no clue on how to determine statistical sampling, historical trends, or science. A perfect trifecta for you.
Bob Tisdale’s studies indicate that the Pacific Basin has not warmed. So, where is the heat that is piling up?
“Unfortunately, however, when the hiatus ends, global warming looks set to be rapid.”
I think it is a significant advance that the hiatus is acknowledged by people who previously denied it. It is an admission by climate scientists, however indirect and muted, that the dire predictions of Hansen et al, and predictions by themselves, in the late 20th century and early 21st century, were wrong. People who disputed those predictions can not be called “deniers” and such.
So where does this latest offering of the ’cause of the pause’ leave all those oh-so superior claims that natural forces were nothing compared to human influences? This was not supposed to happen! Yet here they are trying to use natural variation (that for years they said was not happening) to prop up the theory of man made warming that erm, due to the pause, also isn’t happening!
They’re making it up as they go along, aren’t they.
The real sad truth of all of this is that, by the time the scientists actually have something of a handle on what drives the climate and can make accurate predictions, these charlatans will have so thoroughly destroyed the credibility of this particular discipline that no one will listen to them for quite some time.
It’s like a watching a Greek tragedy unfold.
I kind of like the notion of Mann’s liver being eaten by an eagle every day for eternity.
Remember to preface an article search with the acronym “pdf”. You can often find a preprint this way.