Researchers find models must account for volcanic eruptions to accurately predict climate change.
From:MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
By the late 1990s, scientists had observed more than two decades of rapid global warming, and expected the warming trend to continue. Instead, despite continuing increases in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth’s surface temperatures have remained nearly flat for the last 15 years. The International Panel on Climate Change verified this recent warming “hiatus” in its latest report.
Researchers around the globe have been working to understand this puzzle — looking at heat going into the oceans, changes in wind patterns, and other factors to explain why temperatures have stayed nearly stable, while greenhouse gas concentrations have continued to rise. In a study published today in Nature Geoscience, a team of scientists from MIT and elsewhere around the U.S. report that volcanic eruptions have contributed to this recent cooling, and that most climate models have not accurately accounted for the effects of volcanic activity.
“This is the most comprehensive observational evaluation of the role of volcanic activity on climate in the early part of the 21st century,” says co-author Susan Solomon, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT. “We assess the contributions of volcanoes on temperatures in the troposphere — the lowest layer of the atmosphere — and find they’ve certainly played some role in keeping the Earth cooler.”
There are many components of the Earth’s climate system that can increase or decrease the temperature of the globe. For example, while greenhouse gases cause warming, some types of small particles, known as aerosols, cause cooling. When volcanoes erupt explosively enough, they enhance these aerosols — a phenomenon referred to as “volcanic forcing.”
“The recent slowdown in observed surface and tropospheric warming is a fascinating detective story,” says Ben Santer, the lead author of the study and a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “There is not a single culprit, as some scientists have claimed. Multiple factors are implicated. The real scientific challenge is to obtain hard quantitative estimates of the contributions of each of these factors to the so-called slowdown.”
The researchers verified the cooling phenomenon by performing two different statistical tests to determine whether recent volcanic eruptions have cooling effects that can be distinguished from the intrinsic variability of the climate. The team found evidence for significant correlations between volcanic aerosol observations and satellite-based estimates of both tropospheric temperature and sunlight reflected by the particles off the top of the atmosphere.
“What’s exciting in this work was that we could detect the influence of the volcanic aerosols in new ways. Using satellite observations confirmed the fact that the volcanic particles reflected a significant amount of the sun’s energy out to space, and of course losing energy means cooling — and the tropospheric temperatures show that too,” explains Solomon, who is also a researcher with MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. “There are still uncertainties in exactly how big the effects are, so there is more work to do.”
Alan Robock, a professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers University and a leading expert on the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate, says these findings are an important part of the larger climate picture. “This paper reminds us that there are multiple causes of climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, and that we need to consider all of them when interpreting past climate and predicting future climate.”
“Since none of the standard scenarios for evaluating future global warming include volcanic eruptions,” Robock adds, “this paper will help us quantify the impacts of future large and small eruptions when they happen, and thus better interpret the role of humans in causing climate change.”
This research was led by a team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and builds upon work Solomon conducted in 2011, finding that aerosols in an upper layer of the atmosphere — the stratosphere — are persistently variable and must be included in climate models to accurately depict climate changes.
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.
h/t to Roger Sowell
For reference, here is the associated paper; (h/t Greg)
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2098.html
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Give them a break. Soon they’ll run out of excuses and find out where the heat really went.
Then they’ll be in trouble.
Each year, global atmospheric concentrations of GHG are a little larger than they were the year before. So, each year, aggregate global volcanic aerosols are also a little larger than they were the year before, so as to keep pace with those AGW rises. With great precision, wise old Mother Gaia has balanced off these opposing forces in each of the past 16 years (although not before 1997). However, AR5 is very confident that all this is about to stop and volcanoes won’t affect any future temperature projections.
Trenberth will be very disappointed with this paper. If there is no missing heat, how can it be hiding in the ocean depths?
ferdberple on February 23, 2014 at 9:50 pm
So, according to this paper, if you can’t predict volcanoes you can’t predict climate….
————-
This was my first thought as well. I’m not sure if they know how much they’ve backed themselves into a corner.
Don’t worry though, the next paper will show the climate is in a cooling phase, spin the coming ice age death spiral (again 30 years later), and blame volcanoes that are now more active due to manmade CO2.
Espen says:
February 24, 2014 at 12:11 am
“Santer thinks the hiatus is a detective story. I’d say climate science in general is like a detective story”
=====================================
I agree.
From my detective skills, I’d say it was Dr. Hansen, in the halls of Congress, with Algore and the IPCC as an accomplices, with a hockey stick, of whodunnit….
Unfortunately, you have the Keystone Cops of the IPCC investigating the case of who murdered science and they are accessories after the fact…
Oooooor it was the sun causing changes in cloud cover and combined with oceanic oscillations, axial tilt/Lunar cycles and SOME volcanic activity.
damn those Volcanoes causing those ice ages.
“This paper reminds us that there are multiple causes of climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, and that we need to consider all of them when interpreting past climate and predicting future climate.”
yes CO2 and Methane, both green house gases emitted by volcanoes that WARM the planet that would somewhat counteract the particulates operating in the reverse manner.
Also an admission that there are a wide variety of factors and attempting to alter a minor component like CO2 is futile. However there is no evidence that humans cause climate change, at least non in any substantial discernible way.
seems they are willing to look at anything EXCEPT the co2=warming ‘equation’. Are they not Masters of the Universe who understand climate processes with 95% certainty? Upon whose settled science billions in not trillions of tax money bets are placed even tho almanacs and amateurs have better long range forecasts [so have more truth in their understanding].
U wait 1 warm year and the hockeystick team will claim we are ‘back on track’ and they will be backslapping again.
There is no co2 deathstar. There never was.
Hockeysticks are best left for the olympics.
Again, please inform the writer of the paper of this discussion.
I would just love to see Santer’s face as he reads all the comments. 🙂
there is no predicted heating because the co2=warming equation came out of the beerosphere?
AndyG55 @ur momisugly 1:53am
I would just love to see Santer’s face as he reads all the comments
Oh I don’t know;
is this why global co2 has increased since the 1960s?
http://boards.cannabis.com/colorado-co/194289-need-co2-advice.html
There is a very disturbing pattern here. The scientists whose work has benn comprehensively demonstrated to be false are still the main spokespeople on climate. They flounder around trying to find new excuses, and NO-ONE in the MSM ever contemplates the possibility that they have got things wrong, and that maybe it would be worthwhile to consult other scientists. No, these incompetents are perched firmly at the apex of climate science, and nothing and no-one can shift them. Maybe it would be worthwhile for WUWT to start a campaign to remove some of them?
Have they studied how much all of the hand waving contributes to global cooling? Yet another factor that is not in the models.
To determine Man’s influence on the global temperatures first you must model the natural influences.
The Sun has been warming the planet since 1800. There is also a 60 year cycle of warming and cooling as a e result of interaction between the Sun and the oceans. Looking at a chart of global temperatures for the past hundred years shows how these two things completely dominate.So 1910-1940 [warming] 1940-1970 [flat/slight cooling] 1970-2000 [warming] 2000-2030 [flat/ slight cooling]. An example of this chart can be seen here :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/30/is-the-climate-sell-signal-imminent/
So global temperatures are behaving exactly as if Man has no influence. The ‘pause’ is as expected and is due to the 60 year cycle.
What is truly amazing is that neither of these major influences are in the models. And what is completely amazing is that the well established 60 year cycle is regarded as not existing!!! One can see why people regard climate ‘science’ as anti-scientific.
Also note that historical reconstructions of climate show CO2 levels as lagging indicators of global temperatures by around 600-800 years. So it is very possible that the current increases in CO2 levels are due to the Mediaeval Warm Period. Who knows? So little research is done on the real climate that we will remain in these Dark Ages for a while.
There is no hiatus. There is only a discrepancy between the virtual world of climate models and the real world of mother nature.
As there is no hiatus, there’s no need for it to be “explained”.
There is no hiatus
There is no hiatus at all
He who invented it is a fool
He who promotes it is knave
And he who believes it is a primitive.
(free after Periyar)
From a previous post – note the coldest CET in the Dalton was 1814, one year BEFORE Pinatubo.
For the record, the subject study is not credible.
______________
I have no Sunspot Number data before 1700, but the latter part of the Maunder Minimum had 2 back-to-back low Solar Cycles with SSNmax of 58 in 1705 and 63 in 1717 .
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-indices/sunspot-numbers/international/tables/
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/image/annual.gif
The coldest period of the Maunder was ~1670 to ~1700 (8.48dC year average Central England Temperatures) but the coldest year was 1740 (6.84C year avg CET).
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
The Dalton Minimum had 2 back-to-back low SC’s with SSNmax of 48 in 1804 and 46 in 1816. Tambora erupted in 1815.
Two of the coldest years in the Dalton were 1814 (7.75C year avg CET) and 1816 (7.87C year avg CET).
Now Solar Cycle 24 is a dud with SSNmax estimated at ~65, and very early estimates suggest SC25 will be very low as well.
The warmest recent years for CET were 2002 to 2007 inclusive that averaged 10.55C.
So here is my real concern:
IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, then global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner.
Best regards, Allan
when the state took over religion because it was the biggest source of money it became political and u had the inquisition and the settled religion. When the state took over science because its it is the biggest source money it became political and you have the ‘consensus’ and the settled science.
the current religion or way to extract money is unvalidated model worship. The climate models [why more than 1 if they have the truth?] cannot reproduce historical climate but we are locked into accepting their predictions for which you must pay through your bills [driving the poor into heat or eat decisions] to buy carbon credits from those who sit on the boards of carbon exchanges. Now who they might be….?
who would put an unvalidated air traffic control.model into real time and force people to fly in planes [ie to place huge bets] on its monitoring and projections?
So, now we have Santer with ‘aerosols ate our global warming’, Trenberth with ‘the ocean ate our global warming’ and Hansen with….. well I’m not sure exactly what Hansen say’s ate our global warming these days, he changes his mind so it’s difficult to know exactly what he thinks.
These people will say anything to keep the grant money flowing.
Ben Santer: “We have found a discernable volcanic influence on climate”.
Ed Zuiderwijk says: on February 24, 2014 at 2:55 am
There is no hiatus
There is no hiatus at all
_________
Ed, writing a poem about the hiatus is difficult, as there are few if any words that rhyme with hiatus.
A Scottish friend wrote a song extolling the virtues of haggis – same problem. 🙂
Well if it’s volcanoes, I seem to remember hurling virgins into the maw appeases them..
More scientific than the excuses lately from the rabid environmentalists masquerading
as neutral scientists..
There is now a whole new field of science that has thousands of researchers involved in it.
“Explaining the lack of global warming” science.
Keep them busy explaining the reasons for “nothing is happening”.
On a serious note, there is always a background level of small volcanoes going off every few days. They have no net change on the climate because they have been occuring at this background level for billions of years, every few days. Billions of years. It is a constant and has no net impact.
Heh. Turns out we do have plenty of data and they plainly contradict Ms. Solomon’s claim. Looks like climate parasites don’t even bother with consistency any more.
NASA AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) at MLO (Mauna Loa Observatory)
What does this program measure?
Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) – No units
Are there any trends in the data?
The trends are seasonal at MLO, with a maximum in spring (March-May) resulting from aerosols transported from Asia. No inter-annual long term trends have been detected at MLO.
— AERONET Data Display Interface
Complete bull$#!t.
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 12, 8465-8501, 2012
doi: 10.5194/acpd-12-8465-2012
Global and regional trends of aerosol optical depth over land and ocean using SeaWiFS measurements from 1997 to 2010
N. C. Hsu, R. Gautam, A. M. Sayer, C. Bettenhausen, C. Li, M. J. Jeong, S. C. Tsay and B. N. Holben