Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
“Seriously,” he continued, “we should watch the alarming melting of glaciers and polar sea ice rather than the ‘Pause’ in Global Warming according to thermometer readings.”
When I give talks about climate science to intelligent audiences, my general theme is that Global Warming is REAL, and partly due to human activities, but it is NOT a big DEAL.,
- Yes, the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” effect is real. It is responsible for the Earth being about 33⁰C (60⁰F) warmer than it would be absent “Greenhouse” gasses in the Atmosphere.
- Yes Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a key “Greenhouse” gas, second only to Water Vapor (H2O).
- Yes CO2 has increased by about a third during the past century (from 300 to 400 parts per million), mostly due to unprecedented burning of large quantities of coal, oil, and natural gas.
- Yes, temperatures have gone up by about 0.8⁰C (1.5⁰F) over the past century.
- HOWEVER, warming is mostly natural and due to Earth’s recovery from the depths of the last ice age, some 18,000 years ago.
- No matter what we do, the Earth will warm for hundreds or thousands of years, then plunge into the next ice age. Of course this will not happen monotonically. There will be multi-decade periods of warming and of cooling, just as the Medieval Warm Period (1000-1200s) was considerably warmer than today, and the Little Ice Age (1600-1700s) was colder.
- IPCC climate theory and computer models have failed to match actual satellite temperature data. Alarming predictions have not come to pass. They totally missed the statistical warming “Pause” of the early 2000s. [The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]
- [See the lower right section of the figure] For several periods, even the lowest edge of the Yellow error band is warmer than the highest edge of the Blue band! [These error bands are 5%-95% statistical confidence limits, which means there is less than 1 chance in 20 any point outside a band is due to random error. Thus, there is less than 1 chance in 20 x 20 = 400 that any point in the White space between the Yellow and Blue bands is due to random error. Either the NASA satellite sensor systems are badly out of order or the IPCC climate models are terribly wrong!]
- The gross failure of the IPCC models to correctly predict warming, despite a significant increase in CO2, proves that the models, and the underlying IPCC climate theories, are wrong.
- The most generous explanation is that the IPCC climate scientists simply over-estimated the sensitivity of climate to CO2 increase by a factor of two to three.
- The most likely explanation is that their climate theory is either incomplete or totally wrong, so their models failed. Either that, or, for political purposes, they purposely jiggered the model parameters to create alarming projections and keep research funding coming from we taxpayers to their organizations.
Rationalizations for what happened to the excess heat due to human-made CO2:
- The Oceans absorbed it!
- The melting Ice Caps absorbed it!
How can the world’s leading climate theorists and modelers still be considered competent if they did not know about the heat capacity of the oceans? (Or, apparently, even the Ice Water Experiment! :^)
The Abstract for the recently published study by Michael “Nature Trick – Hockey Stick” Mann, et. al admits the reality of the “Pause” “temporary slowdown”. Guess what he blames it on?:
The temporary slowdown in large-scale surface warming during the early 2000s has been attributed to both external and internal sources of climate variability. Using semiempirical estimates of the internal low-frequency variability component in Northern Hemisphere, Atlantic, and Pacific surface temperatures in concert with statistical hindcast experiments, we investigate whether the slowdown and its recent recovery were predictable. We conclude that the internal variability of the North Pacific, which played a critical role in the slowdown, does not appear to have been predictable using statistical forecast methods… [emphasis mine]
In other words, the unpredictable “internal variability of the North Pacific” ate my alarming projection! (A variation on the old “dog ate my homework” excuse :^)
Why was it not predictable by the IPCC’s leading climate scientists?
- Because statistical forecast methods are weak?
- Because the catastrophic warming climate theory is wrong?
- Because they knew better but did not dare to reign in their alarming predictions for fear of losing research grants?
I find it amazing that so many of my friends (who are otherwise intelligent and reasonable) cling to their firm belief in a coming human-caused climate catastrophe. Their confidence is based on the alarming predictions rooted in IPCC climate theory and computer models.
Yet, like the confident questioner I mentioned in the first paragraph, they seem to acknowledge that the IPCC theorists did not know about the relatively simple concepts of ocean heat capacity, or even the temperature profile of ice water due to the Heat of Fusion!
If these models could not correctly predict a near-term event, such as the “Pause”, why put any credence in their catastrophic predictions for 50 or 100 years hence?
How Does the Ice Water Experiment Relate to Earth’s Proportion of Ice to Liquid Water?
To satisfy my own curiosity, I decided to do some research and figure out how much the melting of glaciers, sea ice, and ice sheets might have reduced Global Warming since 1979. This period includes the statistical “Pause” (or “temporary slowdown in large-scale surface warming during the early 2000s” as Mann refers to it).
The Ice Water Temperature Pause Experiment works for two reasons:
- It takes nearly 80 times as much energy to melt a given mass of ice as it does to raise an equivalent mass of water 1⁰C (1.8⁰F). (This is called the heat of fusion associated with the state transition of water from solid to liquid form.)
- The Ice Cubes make up a substantial percentage of the total mass of the ice water mixture. (When the ice cubes melt down to a small proportion of the water, the temperature does rise.)
So, what is the percentage of ice to liquid water on Earth, and has enough of it melted to account for the failure of the IPCC models since 1979, or during the “Pause”?
According to Debenedetti, Pablo G. & H. Eugene Stanley. “Supercooled and Glassy Water.”Physics Today. Vol. 56, No. 6 (June 2003): 40 (quoted by http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/HannaBerenblit.shtml) here is what we need to know about the Earth’s Ice and Water:
- 1,300 x 106 km3 of water in the oceans [106 km3 = millions of cubic kilometers]
- 33 x 106 km3 of ice in the polar ice caps
- 3 x 106 km3 in the Greenland ice shelf and
- 30 x 106 km3 in the Antarctic ice shelf
- 0.2 x 106 km3 of ice in glaciers
- 0.1 x 106 km3 of water in lakes
- 0.0012 x 106 km3 of water in rivers
- 0.22 x 106 km3 of water in annual precipitation
However, actual ice melt rates are much, much, much less, according to
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/ice_sheets.html
… best estimates of mass balance changes per year for 1992 through 2011: Greenland: lost 142 ± 49 gigatons; East Antarctica: gained 14 ± 43 gigatons; West Antarctica: lost 65 ± 26 gigatons; Antarctic Peninsula: lost 20 ± 14 gigatons. [net annual melt loss 213 gigatons]
Conveniently, 1 gigaton is the weight of one cubic kilometer (km3) of fresh water. So, 213 gigatons is equal to 213 km3 of ice (momentarily ignoring the fact that 1 km3 of ice weighs a bit less than 1 km3 of sea water). Lacking more specifics, let us assume an average annual melt rate of 213 km3 is at least roughly representative of average annual melt rates from 1979 to 2015. Thus, the total melt for 1979-2015 would be 213 x 36 = 7688 km3, which we will round up to 8000 km3 to more than make up for the difference in weight of ice and sea water.
So how much does all that melting amount to in terms of delayed temperature increase? 80 x 8000 / 1,300,000,000 = 0.000492⁰C, which we may round up to 0.0005⁰C (0.0009⁰F) of the warming since 1979, and even less of the missing warming during the “Pause”.
So, total Earth ice melt accounts for less than 0.09% of the warming missing from the IPCC’s alarming projection. Not so impressive, is it?
- Heat of Fusion is the energy to change the state of a gram of a given substance from solid to liquid.
- Specific Heat is the energy to raise the temperature of a gram of a given substance 1⁰C.
- Water (in calories per gram) Heat of Fusion = 79.7 Specific Heat = 1.0
- So, it takes ~80 times more energy to melt 1 gram of ice than to heat 1 gram of water 1⁰C.
- Therefore it takes lots of heat energy to melt glaciers and polar ice caps.
- Does Ice melt explain the IPCC climate model failure to predict the “Pause”?
- How much Global Ice is there, and how much Global Ice has melted?
- How much Global Ice has melted compared to the volume of the oceans?
- Global Ice is only 1/50th of Global Water mass. Less than 1/20,000th of it has melted since 1979.
- So, the temperature effect of Global Ice melt during this time period is insignificant, only 0.0005⁰C (0.0009⁰F).
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http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rationale
Thanks Dan. I used the word “rationale” correctly, from your source (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rationale):
noun
1. the fundamental reason or reasons serving to account for something.
2. a statement of reasons.
3. a reasoned exposition of principles.
I think the person who came up with the analogy of melting Ice Cubes and melting Ice Caps thought the idea was Ingenious, and a great reason to account for the IPCC failure to predict the “Pause” in Global Warming. However, since it does not hold up to scientific analysis, and the effect of the heat of fusion on Global Temperatures turns out to be insignificant, it is a Misleading rationale.
Ira
Even if the ice melt was a ’cause of the pause’ it still means the models are wrong.
Now we see the ice can’t be the explanation so the models still fail and there is no explanation other than the obvious: they are programmed to be much more sensitive to CO2 than the real atmosphere.
So the models were constructed with the activity of one of the world’s largest heat sinks unaccounted for and this could not be foreseen, but they just zipped over it on their way to a conclusion anyway. Are we supposed to believe that they exactly modeled all the others/ That all other significant factors were applied when they missed half the world’s largest ocean with an entropy factor several times that of the entire earth’s atmosphere? What made them think they should run (fly?) around in circles screaming that their hair was on fire and the world was ending and we should tear down the entire world’s economic system based on work that never should have passed peer review? How many models missed this? The headlines should read, ” Global Warming Doomsayers got Fundamentals Wrong”! That’s real news that can save millions of lives.
Rationale
Problem with this is that it assumes a complete mixing of the meltwater with the seawater. Meltwater will be fresh, and less dense than seawater. Thus it should principally be distributed near the surface of the ocean, magnifying the cooling effect. No?
There’s more problem than that.
Because there is a large distance between the poles and the equator, there will be a thermal gradient. Heating will cause the tropics to heat before the poles.
Granted, it will eventually be carried away by wind, currents, etc. But there will be a time delay. As a result, even if ice is ultimately absorbing the energy, there would still be a “hot spot” in the tropical troposphere, which has not been observed.
The other problem is that: If the melting Polar Ice is keeping the Temperatures from rising vis-a-vis “The Pause” and once melted thus goes the pause, how could temperatures increase before the pause when there was even more ice to be melting and an apparently greater albedo?
Why would Melting Ice (happening for the last 250+ years) suddenly cause a pause that it hadn’t caused before?
Bingo! Good point.
Another good headline “Global Warming Theory full of Holes”! What respectable science magazine will publish the truth?
Only in large injection quantities.
Well in Ira’s melting ice experiment, the water starts warming up immediately, it doesn’t wait for most of the ice to melt.
The ice starts to melt because presumably there is something else near the ice that is at a higher Temperature than zero deg. C (fresh water ice), which can conduct “heat energy” (noun) to the ice to supply the latent heat of fusion to some surface portion of the ice, and turn it into water (80 Calories per gram).
That water presumably remains in contact with whatever that hotter other thing is, and the contact has a common Temperature that is above zero.
As a result of the finite thermal conductivity of fresh water, there is a Temperature gradient between the Temperature of the hotter surface, and the ice surface, and it is that Temperature gradient, that keeps pumping heat to the ice/water interface to continue the melting.
So only the water at the interface with the ice surface is at essentially zero deg. C, and the rest is warming up.
Now you can also postulate additional energy in the form of EM radiant energy impinging on the ice, and getting converted into heat, and aiding in the ice melt.
But yes it is interesting that you can take equal masses of zero deg. C ice, and 80 deg. C hot water and mix them in an insulating container to slow heat transfer, and all the ice will melt, and you end up with all of the water at nearly zero deg. C
That’s why we put ice cubes in our Coca Cola.
G
“semiempirical” How can something be semiempirical? That is kind of like being a little pregnant.
“semiempirical” is half-baked theory with lots and lots of hand-waving.
Semiempirical is ‘kind of like’ having sickness in the morning and getting fatter without being pregnant.
Semiempiracal: partly empirical; especially : involving assumptions, approximations, or generalizations designed to simplify calculation or to yield a result in accord with observation.
– Miriam Webster dictionary
The “involving assumptions, approximations, or generalizations” part fully explains why the warmunistas use it.
In Michael Mann’s previous work, semi empirical means a hockey stick shaped lie!
Why was the pause not predicted – “Because they knew better but did not dare to reign in their alarming predictions for fear of losing research grants?”
A better explanation is that the Climate High priests were intentionally dishonest.
The pause/amo/pdo cycles showed up in the historical record 4 times since circa 1750.
Did the the climate high priests really believe a trace gas was more powerful than the ocean cycles?
Because nobody knew there was going to be a pause, so nobody thought about it until it happened, which is the best time to observe things, especially climate, because trying to predict something before it happens is simply guesswork.
G
BS – the pause was showing up every 60-70 years, why would they think it wasnt going to happen this time.
george e. smith: I agree with Yogi Berra that “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Yes, prediction, in your words, is “guesswork”, but, when done by competent scientists funded by us taxpayers, who are asking we and our government to take drastic and expensive ecological action or face climate catastrophe, it should be more than “simple” guesswork. A call for significant action demands significant and reasoned proof. In this case, as it turns out, their climate theory was, at best, incomplete, or, most likely, purposely manipulated to reach alarming conclusions for political and financial reasons.
Ira
I don’t see pauses showing up every 60-70 years.
Yes there are sawtooth cycles of about that duration, but they are anything but pauses.
So BS to your BS.
G
There was another ‘Pause’ that started in the 1940’s, and lasted some thirty years.
I didn’t predict that one, either. Nor did anyone else.
rein not reign
As much as I enjoy the snippy corrections on Grammar, is it really fair to snipe when you know that the poster cannot edit the original? (Waiting with bated breath for your correction of my post).
Hey Mark,
Didja really mean to use the correct misspelling of “baited” breath; excuse me that’s baited breth ! ??
G
PS yes the grammaticians are tiresome; or izzat tiresome ??
I am also tired of my tablet “auto-magically” correcting the spelling “mistakes” it has found after I have typed in the word and moved on to typing the next. The algorithm used in some of these operating systems are as lacking as those in the climate models. Furthermore, it is near impossible to detect a misspelled word after several sentences have been typed. Finding homonymns is even harder. Some of these adaptive spelling checkers seem to select the homonymn if you have used it more frequently.
WHY? Because the AGW Cult knew it was a scam from the beginning, all designed to enact Cap-and-trade on the carbon burners/polluters. Then once the economic leaches were firmily attached to the economic money-pits of the world the known cycle of cooling would show up (what we are calling the pause) and they would then proclaim and brag about how effective the carbon reduction program i.e. Cap-and Trade, is thus they will make fortunes forever.
Let me get this straight, they are actually claiming that arctic/Greenland ice is keeping the US Gulf coast from heating?
This is obviously why the Gulf coast doesn’t get hotter during the summer. All that melting Arctic ice keeps it cool.
Models 99.5% different from data
At Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre compares John Christy’s graph of predictions of 102 runs averaged for 32 global warming models for the tropical tropospheric temperature compared to balloon and satellite data.
Schmidt’s Histogram Diagram Doesn’t Refute Christy
Ok lets magnify times four you still got zilch.
No funding for you!
Mann is claiming that these unpredictable natural variations that they apparently had no idea even existed before now, are sufficiently strong to completely wipe out the warming that should of occurred.
On the other hand, these same unpredictable natural variations had absolutely no impact on the warming prior the start of the pause.
Who knew that natural variations can only cause cooling?
“Mann is claiming that these unpredictable natural variations that they apparently had no idea even existed before now, are sufficiently strong to completely wipe out the warming that should of occurred.” AS if, something showing up in the historical record 4 times since circa 1750 wasnt going to happen again
“On the other hand, these same unpredictable natural variations had absolutely no impact on the warming prior the start of the pause.” AS if, something showing up in the historical record 4 times since circa 1750 wasnt going to happen again
“Who knew that natural variations can only cause cooling?” As if a full cycle only has one side to the cycle.
I concur – nice demonstration of how dishonest Mann is.
Where is the evidence of a Pacific anomaly to reflect this melting? Higher temps should have preceded it and dissipated with the melting. Additionally, if Pacific temps are now cooler that would presage increased future ice cover and a model/prediction of that should prove out. If Pacific temps are not cooler as a result of melting ice then that indicates a constant source of heat input that should be trackable. That would provide usable information to improve models that consistently do not work. His next excuse will be that he left the oven on at his house!
“natural variations can only cause cooling?”
I think that is in Chapter 3, section 2, subsection ciii of the Climate Inc., bible.
RWturner: Subsection ciiv says “human actions can only cause warming” :^) Thanks!
Ira
Well yeah, it’s the tenth commandment of the climate dogma; humanity causes warming and natural variability causes cooling. Listen and believe. Or in other words don’t ask any questions.
I think at this point we can dispense with the term science in the phrase “climate science”. Climate Scientology has a nice ring.
You didn’t know this? In “Climastrology,” (what is laughingly referred to as “Climate Science” by the alarmist camp), “natural variability” is just something rolled out as an excuse for the spectacular failure of every Eco-[extremist] prediction of climate catastrophe.
To give credit to any NATURAL variability for ANY of the “warming” undermines the CO2 Boogyman stories, thus they simply won’t allow it.
[edit by Ira]
Give thanks for “the pause” and clouds. A Limerick.
The cause for the Climate change pause:
The CO2 increase; because
there’s more clouds in the sky
make more snow, that is why
the climate is stable. Applause!
https://lenbilen.com/2016/02/24/4697/
“Yes CO2 has increased by about a third during the past century (from 300 to 400 parts per million), mostly due to unprecedented burning of large quantities of coal, oil, and natural gas.”
it seems reasonable but is there any empirical evidence to support the attribution of changes in atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions?
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2781465
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2770539
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2642639
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
How much has moisture, the much more prevalent IR-absorbing gas in the atmosphere, varied? How much have the much larger non-human sources of CO2 varied? Inquiring skeptical minds want to know, because they could make much more difference than human-produced CO2.
@Loren Wilson
Cue Ferdinand Englebeen ….
that’s a really interesting question. I have read several studies that indicate global humidity has actually fallen. I have a very difficult time believing that a planet that is 75% water on the surface can have any significant variability of humidity when averaged over the globe. If this is possible-and I would bet a large amount of money against it-, the only factor I could come up with is the increased CO2 levels reducing transpiration losses from plants. But I still say it’s impossible
JH,
Humidity declines when global T declines.
chammjamal: How else to explain the over 30% increase in Atmospheric CO2? Sure, some of the increase is probably due to out-gassing of CO2 from the slightly warmer oceans, but the majority of it is most likely due to increased use of fossil fuels.
Ira
I take it “most likely” means your best guess. “majority” means greater than 50%, lets say 51%. That makes 49% is unknown or best guesses. But the unknowns could actually account for 70% or 80%, since they are unknowns we do not know. We have no way knowing what we do not know, I suggest claiming to know the unknown is better left to religion.
Because fossil fuel is a factor does not mean we know how CO2 reached the level it is at now. The system has many factors, all working in chaotic and dynamic ways leading to an incredible complexity we do not understand near well enough.
A blind man touching a elephants tail may claim that the creature is “most likely” similar to a snake. It would be a good guess based on his limited knowledge, but of course is totally wrong.
chaam, Ira, Alx,
Climate alarmists always try to paint skeptics into a corner by asking the wrong question: where does the extra CO2 came from — when the critical question is: Who/what do we thank for the recent rise in such a beneficial, life-giving compound?
There are very few examples of a molecule that is so completely harmless, and at the same time so very beneficial to the biosphere: CO2 is every bit as essential to all life on earth as H2O. More is better at current, and probably at any projected concentrations. We wouldn’t even know that CO2 has risen without using very sensitive instruments that can measure a change of only one part in ten thousand; the total rise in CO2 over the past century.
Instead, they want to deflect into irrelevant questions in order to avoid the real question, which should be: Why does the alarmist crowd exhibit such fear and animosity toward a completely natural and harmless compound that is extremely beneficial to all plants and animals?
Quoting Akbar: It’s a trap!
“Greenhouse” gasses act by impeding the loss of infrared radiation to space and should warm the atmosphere regardless of what happens to deep ocean water or surface ice. They cannot significantly heat oceans directly as infrared radiation cannot penetrate water more than a few millimetres. The heralded GCMS’ specifically predict atmospheric warming especially in the tropical mid troposphere. The absence of this warming is evidence that the models are either wrong or lack significant understanding of important climate processes. Melting surface ice and hidden heat in deep oceans don’t explain away this empiric evidence.
Bang on! Also, no significant additional heat was ever noted in N Pacific surface waters. If the heat input is to be blamed on upwelling, there is no way that there was sufficient time for any recent warming to cycle through the oceans depths. Such heat must have preceded the recent warming by centuries and have nothing to do with man made changes to the atmosphere. The models are known to be wrong and this “admission/cover-up attempt” is proof that they lack significant understanding of important climate processes.
Net loss 213 Gt? I thought NASA had reversed it’s assessments pertaining to ice loss in the antarctic.
“Zwally’s team calculated that the mass gain from the thickening of East Antarctica remained steady from 1992 to 2008 at 200 billion tons per year, while the ice losses from the coastal regions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula increased by 65 billion tons per year.”
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
SC: Thanks for the NASA link, I read it through and it contradicts the NSDIC link I used. We really do not know if net Global Ice is increasing a little or decreasing a little. We can only be sure it is a very little mass compared to the mass of the Ice Caps, and extremely tiny compared to the mass of the Oceans. In either case, as I showed in my analysis, a small increase (or decrease) of 65 Gt or 213 Gt, has only an insignificant effect on Global Temperature change.
Ira
How do we differentiate wheather the “loss” is from melting or lack of replacement?
usurbrain: Good point. Thanks. I assume the net annual loss (or gain) is the difference between the melting and the replacement by snowfall. The problem is that it is obvious when an Ice Sheet melts and breaks up around the edges and water and chunks fall into the ocean. Less obvious is the slow and steady replenishment by snowfall.
Ira
“East Antarctica: gained 14 ± 43 gigatons”
Wow, sure got that one narrowed down.
so if I fill a bathtub with water at 33 degrees and dump in some ice then try to “heat” the tub up with an external heat source the AVERAGE temperature of the water in the tub will remain at 32 degrees until ALL the ice has melted ? really ? or would you expect wide temperature differential in the water depending on how close to the ice or the heated tub walls you measured … yes a tub with JUST water at 33 degrees would heat up faster than the tub that also had ice in it … but I’d bet you’d be hard pressed to measure the lag …
No, the tub with ice would warm substantially slower, not rising in temperature until the ice melted. Heat tends to conduct through water quite easily. This is basically physics 001
I’ve always preferred physics 007.
So, you are willing to set in a tub of water, lukewarm, with 50lbs of ice cubes floating on top, and then turn on only the 120 degree F hot water, without mixing the water in any way?
Not quite, the average should be slightly warmer than the melting point, because the water isn’t a perfect conductor of heat, (but it is a very good conductor), and the ice will not take the water below 32F, but some portions of the water will be higher than 32F. I’m not sure if we’re talking about hundreths of a degree or a degree, but the average will be some temperature above freezing.
Well water is an excellent conductor of heat and I even use it in my radiator to cool my car’s engine.
It is also a fluid so it can also convey heat by convection.
It is the ICE which won’t rise above zero deg. C UNTIL it is melted and becomes water.
You’ve got the horse after the cart.
G
Actually water is a very poor conductor of heat. Normally you have to physically mix the water in a bath before you get in, and as an experienced sea swimmer, I can assure you that swimming from a warm current to a cold pool, the boundary is quite sharp.
Kaiser Derden: You wrote, in part “…the AVERAGE temperature of the water in the tub will remain at 32 degrees until ALL the ice has melted ? really ? …”
Please reread my posting. I wrote “…(When the ice cubes melt down to a small proportion of the water, the temperature does rise.)…” A “small proportion” melted, not “ALL”.
The temperature change measured by the thermometer depends upon many factors, including the proportion of ice to liquid, the conductivity and mixing of the water, and the location of the thermometer. Bottom line: The measured temperature will “pause” near freezing for some time until most of the ice cures melt. “Most” not “ALL”.
Ira
It has been my experience when setting in a bath of water that has gotten cold that when I add very hot water that the hot water draws in the area under the faucet getting hot enough to even burn my feet while the rest of my body remains cold. This can only be remedied by mixing the water. This phenomenon is confirmed while calibrating RTDs in a rotating Watergate calibrator. Without rotating and mixing the temperature closest to the heat source can be 10 – 20 degrees F higher.
The size of the tub and the mixing rate is what determines the temperature differentials. Water in contact with ice will be at approximately 32F until all the ice is gone. The ice will also be at 32F until it is all melted. water at a distance from the ice can be at a different temperature ( even lower for salt water) but open water mixes pretty well and heat transfer is quite fast. Surface evaporation, solar heating and heating/cooling from surface air will also have their say.
@’confident questioner’
“Seriously,” he continued, “we should watch the alarming melting of glaciers and polar sea ice rather than the ‘Pause’ in Global Warming according to thermometer readings.”
It is hard for me to understand how these various climate models can quantify the predicted rise in sea-levels due to melting ice without being able (using these same models) to quantify the effect of melting ice on global temps. The conundrum is: if the models already knew about ‘heat of fusion’ then why didn’t these models predict the “hiatus”, before it happened? So, if they can’t predict the hiatus correctly, then why trust their predictions on sea-levels rising?
Sounds like an excuse, not a reason.
Johanus: Right on! As for the predicted rise in sea-levels, it is pretty clear that melting of floating sea ice does NOT cause sea-level rise, but melting of land ice, which makes up nearly all of the existing Global Ice, DOES cause minor sea-level rise.
Ira
“Yes Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a key “Greenhouse” gas, second only to Water Vapor (H2O).”
nope.
all the rest doesn’t matter after that boner.
I thought the same thing, and that was after this from the article:
‘•Yes, the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” effect is real.’
Once again, the claim is that this is something that can be measured. So why aren’t we measuring it now? If it can be measured, we would be measuring it! And we could set up an equation to show how much warming the Mars’ atmosphere (95% CO2) causes. If it exists at all, then my claim is that it will be a fraction of a micro-degree for the duration of a fraction of a microsecond. On the same order of magnitude as the duration of how long a room full of mirrors stays lit after turning out the lights.
+ MANY!
Thomas Homer and gnomish: The Atmospheric “Greenhouse” Effect IS REAL, and it IS responsible for our Earth being some 33C (60F) warmer than it would be absent water vapor and carbon dioxide in the Atmosphere. Please have a look at this WUWT posting https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/
and in my five-part WUWT Visualizing series you will find linked there.
Ira
ira- the statement under discussion asserted that water vapor was second to co2
[added 20 May by Ira – Please Read it again, what I wrote was “Yes Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a key “Greenhouse” gas, second only to Water Vapor (H2O).” That means CO2 is SECOND and H2O is FIRST. Of course it is well established that Atmospheric H2O is way, way more effective as a “Greenhouse” gas than CO2.]
now, you do the math.
using the values of 500ppm for co2 and 4% for h2o in a volume of atmosphere, what do you find?
i’ll tell you what- you find that the water vapor, from phase change alone (which makes it the lightest major gas in the atmosphere, requiring no convection at all for it to rise to the stratosphere, carries 50,000 times the heat that co2 can.
so no, water vapor is not second only to co2. that’s idiotic and that’s what we pointed out
no harm done, but your non-sequitur didn’t address the topic at all.
Please explain. Thanks.
When you start out with a false premise:
“Yes, the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” effect is real. It is responsible for the Earth being about 33⁰C (60⁰F) warmer than it would be absent “Greenhouse” gasses in the Atmosphere.”
It goes downhill fast.
Maybe Ira can explain why the moon, without an atmosphere, yet with the same amount of insolation based on distance from the sun reaches 123C whereas the highest temperature ever recorded on earth is 57C. Clearly the presence of an atmosphere with CO2 results in lower temperature.
Further, the ocean cannot be 33C warmer because of CO2. Oceans reach temperatures of 30C+ in the tropics while staying frozen in the arctic. Every warmest when presented with the physics of water argues that CO2 slows cooling of the ocean. Physics does not allow “slowed cooling” to increase a temperature beyond its highest level reached from the outside source. It has to be the sun heating the oceans to 30C, no room left for 33C from CO2.
FTOP_T: GRRR! From Google:
“Daytime on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half days, followed by 13 and a half nights of darkness. When sunlight hits the moon’s surface, the temperature can reach 253 degrees F (123 C). The “dark side of the moon” can have temperatures dipping to minus 243 F (minus 153 C).”
As for the temperature of the Moon, I agree that CO2 and the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” Effect have nothing to do with it. Yes, the Day side of the Moon does reach 123C, but the Night side of the Moon reaches – 153C, so the average temperature of the Moon is about MINUS 30C.
Which is roughly what the average temperature of the Earth would be absent an Atmosphere.
[Added 20 May by Ira – Apparently the average temperature of the Moon surface is NOT about 30 C, but considerably colder, -77°C, due to the S-B effect, where radiation goes by the 4th power of temperature. See Willis Eschenbach’s oldie but goodie, 2012 posting: “The Moon Is A Cold Mistress”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/the-moon-is-a-cold-mistress/
.]
Given an Atmosphere of pure nitrogen and oxygen, but lacking water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases that absorb long-wave infrared radiation, the Earth’s Day side and Night side temperatures would be moderated somewhat by the mixing of the Atmosphere, but the average would be pretty close to the average temperature of the Moon.
Ira
“…the Day side of the Moon does reach 123C, but the Night side of the Moon reaches – 153C, so the average temperature of the Moon is about MINUS 30C. ”
Which, for me, neatly illustrates the nonsense of the concept of a global average temperature. Using that logic, the current (1400 UTC 19 May) average temperature of the earth is -12C calculated from the max recorded temperature of 51.5C (in Pakistan) and the min temperature of -75.4C (in Antarctica)
“the moon, (…) reaches 123C whereas the highest temperature ever recorded on earth is 57C.”
One is ground temp, one is air temp – those things are not comparable. Earth Max ground temp (Death Valley)
is near +80C (iirc).
Regarding the temperature of the moon, y’all might enjoy my post entitled The Moon Is A Cold Mistress.
w.
Willis,
Interesting thought experiment. Although I would argue that with equal radiative planetary emissions at TOA, it is emission height that is the determining factor vs. atmospheric composition. Radiative gases lower temp max and raise temp minimum, but do not “heat” anything.
If the AGW argument is CO2 is going to further moderate the earth’s temperature. Exxon should get a humanitarian of the century award.
sorry, Ira- my mistake.
poor reading comprehension on my part.
+100
If the pause is the result of melting ice (sea ice, glaciers, or whatever), does that mean the pause should last until all that ice has melted? If so, seems we’re in for a very long pause.
Presumably the ice was melting well prior to 1997 when the pause started.
Does this mean that for some reason, the amount of warming dropped off substantially in 1997?
Or does it mean that the amount of melting doubled or tripled during that year?
Obviously if the temperature stays the same due to warming now, the previously in the 1930-40’s the temperature went up due to cooling unlike real recently after the 1950’s when the temperature went up due to warming; just remember that the temperatures always go up, the Witch Doctors will tell us while and just keep writing them checks to appease the Gods.
The current pause will only last (be acknowledged) until their tongues reach that all important Tripping Point
This science was settled, unsettled, and resettled by Hansen between 2003 and 2013-
“As we shall see, the small forces that drove millennial climate changes are now overwhelmed by human forcings.”– Hansen et al., 2003
“The longevity of the recent protracted solar minimum, at least two years longer than prior minima of the satellite era, makes that solar minimum potentially a potent force for cooling,” Hansen and his co-authors said.”– Hansen et al., 2011.
“The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing.”– Hansen et al., 2013
Fascinating presentation; Thanks – Hans
Yes, temperatures have gone up by about 0.8⁰C (1.5⁰F) over the past century
====
How much of that is due to “adjustments” and “algorithms”?…….
Latitude: I agree that the Climate “Hockey Team” has “adjusted” the thermometer record (dating from the 1880s) to the point where I have very little faith in it. Indeed, US thermometer data, analysed by US climate scientists, has been “adjusted” for the years before the 1960-70s DOWN by as much as 0.1⁰C and, after after the 1970-80s, UP by as much as 0.2⁰C, for a net “warming” of as much as 0.3⁰C (see my WUWT posting https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/16/the-past-is-not-what-it-used-to-be-gw-tiger-tale/ and my animated .gif
). They claim Global Warming of about 0.8⁰C (1.5⁰F) over the past century, and they may be in error by as much as 0.2⁰C, probably in over-stating net warming.
Fortunately, since 1979, we have had very good satellite data for the temperature of the lower troposphere. That data shows net Global (80S-80N) Warming of at least 0.4⁰C, and possibly as much as 0.6⁰C in the past 36 years.
Of course, even the satellite record has limits in accuracy, with some measurements diverging from balloon measurements by nearly 0.1⁰C, and even well-respected UAH and RSS, using the same base satellite data, differing a bit. Furthermore, while changes in the lower troposphere should track changes on the Earth surface, there may be differences of nearly 0.1⁰C, assuming there is such a thing as average surface temperature :^)
Ira
A very illuminating and comprehensive debunking of a theory. Really well explained.
Heh.
This was actually something I tossed out when the excuses for the Pause were somewhere in the mid-teens – the part where the heat was hiding in the bottom of the ocean – why would we be seeing the ocean temperatures rise at the same time all this ice is supposedly melting into the oceans – at the same time they’ are using all that snow melt to explain concurrent record snowfall?