New Research

[VillagePlank]

BTW , which one?

(I mean Nottingham or Manchester? you wouldn't want to mix them up in Moss side on a saturday night!!!)

Sorry GW - wrong thread, wrong comment, wrong person Please ignore ...

Hi V.P

I think I understand the point you are making ....... there is a lot of uncertainty ?

Okay, yes agree.

Y.S

Well, I was just making the comment that if the effect of CO2 on climate change is reduced then the climate sensitivity must go up. Now, this might not necessarily be the case, since there is a case that for CO2 to have any effect, its sensitivity can be kept (artificially) low, if one includes amplification factors such as clouds.

Yet, solar forcing has been rejected on the basis that it's sensitivity needs to be too high, or, rather, that in a judgement such sensitivity is unrealistic. But we still keep the highly questionable (since it constitutes an unknown) amplification of clouds.

Without either high amplification factors, or high sensitivies to a forcing, the climate models simply do not work - and I mean something very exact by that: I mean that their ability to describe the variance of the historical temperature data becomes extremely low (less than R²=0.6)

Edited September 4, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Methuselah]

'Morning peeps...

Do we all agree, that the huge level of uncertainty (clearly acknowledged) in the IPCC's climate 'forecast' is almost entirely down to the fact that cloud-feedbacks have the potential to remain entirely unknown, if not unknowable, for the foreseeable future??

Anyhoo, it's a good thing that the likes of Spencer are trying to make sense of the quagmire...

I guess the question: What do we do about it? remains a tad 'difficult' to say the least??

[Gray-Wolf]

'Morning peeps...

Do we all agree, that the huge level of uncertainty (clearly acknowledged) in the IPCC's climate 'forecast' is almost entirely down to the fact that cloud-feedbacks have the potential to remain entirely unknown, if not unknowable, for the foreseeable future??

Anyhoo, it's a good thing that the likes of Spencer are trying to make sense of the quagmire...

I guess the question: What do we do about it? remains a tad 'difficult' to say the least??

I still think that we can do no better than to sit back and see but in the knowledge that in past temp/CO2 spikes clouds did not impact the relationship (though they may well try).

If we saw past CO2 spikes with no associated warming we may well wonder as to what impacted the CO2's ability to 'warm' and clouds would be in the frame but where do we see this in the paleo record (with a similar atmospheric make up to today)?

[Methuselah]

I still think that we can do no better than to sit back and see but in the knowledge that in past temp/CO2 spikes clouds did not impact the relationship (though they may well try).

If we saw past CO2 spikes with no associated warming we may well wonder as to what impacted the CO2's ability to 'warm' and clouds would be in the frame but where do we see this in the paleo record (with a similar atmospheric make up to today)?

Not trying to be funny, GW, but how can it be stated as a fact, that clouds impacted any, which way??? Surely, there are no palaeocloud data available??

[Gray-Wolf]

Sorry Pete, not making myself clear here.

What I'm saying is that in past 'warmings' clouds were there but the warming still occurred (so no 'negative feedback strong enough to stop the CO2 'blanket'?) The other thing being that maybe they acted as a strong 'positive feedback' hiking temps up and the carbon cycle adjusted to suit the high temp environment? Whichever the warming and CO2 spike still occurred with clouds doing what they do in such an environment.

As was ,so is?

[jethro]

Perhaps clouds are part of the reason why historically temperatures have risen and CO2 has followed?

I could be wrong, but I was always under the impression that past warmings have occurred and the CO2 spike came afterwards, not the other way around???

[Gray-Wolf]

I think we can see this time around how slow impacts are between temp and CO2 whichever leads? In the past I think it rare to find CO2 'leading' temp seeing as the major driver is the earths positions around the sun (closeness,angle etc.) and only rarely CO2 leading via erosion of carbonate rocks etc.

What I can't escape is that a relationship exists between them?

Anyhoo's the past few millions of years has seen the global temp drive the carbon cycle by either warming the planet (and the carbon cycle following) or cooling the planet (and the carbon cycle following). This time we have provided one of the 'rare ' occasions where an enriched CO2 atmosphere is allowing temps to rise (amongst all the feedback trying to maintain the status quo). Clouds are in amongst that mix but it appears (to me) that their role is not pivotal in the 'end result' (i.e. temps will rise or fall depending on the atmospheric environment to hold more or less heat).

I know the 'speed' of warming is very important to us and 'if' clouds serve to accelerate warming we are stuffed (we only know the ball park figure for the 'final' temp that the 'projected' rise in CO2 levels has shown us in the past).

As you say the 'speed' of change and who lags who are unknowns for our current warming event.

What I'd say we do know is that cloud feedbacks do not supply a strong 'negative feedback' or we would not be seeing the relationships between temp/CO2 that we do?

Am I being a bit 'early onset ' Alzheimer's here?

EDIT: I suppose 'Canes make a lot of clouds

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6825EU20100903?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

and this apparently can lead to droughts in the Amazon (as in 05')........maybe the IPCC predictions/warnings about the loss of rainforrests are tied in with major 'canes' becoming stronger and sucking the moisture out of the Amazon Basin?

Edited September 4, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[jethro]

I think we can see this time around how slow impacts are between temp and CO2 whichever leads? In the past I think it rare to find CO2 'leading' temp seeing as the major driver is the earths positions around the sun (closeness,angle etc.) and only rarely CO2 leading via erosion of carbonate rocks etc.

What I can't escape is that a relationship exists between them?

Anyhoo's the past few millions of years has seen the global temp drive the carbon cycle by either warming the planet (and the carbon cycle following) or cooling the planet (and the carbon cycle following). This time we have provided one of the 'rare ' occasions where an enriched CO2 atmosphere is allowing temps to rise (amongst all the feedback trying to maintain the status quo). Clouds are in amongst that mix but it appears (to me) that their role is not pivotal in the 'end result' (i.e. temps will rise or fall depending on the atmospheric environment to hold more or less heat).

I know the 'speed' of warming is very important to us and 'if' clouds serve to accelerate warming we are stuffed (we only know the ball park figure for the 'final' temp that the 'projected' rise in CO2 levels has shown us in the past).

As you say the 'speed' of change and who lags who are unknowns for our current warming event.

What I'd say we do know is that cloud feedbacks do not supply a strong 'negative feedback' or we would not be seeing the relationships between temp/CO2 that we do?

Am I being a bit 'early onset ' Alzheimer's here?

Clouds are absolutely pivotal to the end result - that's the primary reason for the large variation in expected warming from the IPCC projections.

We do not know that cloud feedbacks do not supply a strong negative feedback, to assume such a thing is a vast assumption. If it were as simply as A + B = C we'd have had this climate science stuff cracked a long time ago; it really, really isn't that simple.

[jethro]

Not really new but certainly a new appraisal....

The Livingston & Penn theory of sunspots possibly disappearing from view by 2016 has been looked at by other solar physicists, attracting favourable reviews:

"It is a very interesting sequence of observations," says solar physicist Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The researchers "have carefully analyzed their data and the trend appears to be real," he says.

Solar physicist David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, agrees but with a caveat. "It's an important paper," he says. But the sunspot magnetic field calculations don't take into account a lot of small sunspots that appeared during the last solar maximum. Those sunspots have weaker magnetic fields, which, if not included, could make the average sunspot magnetic field strength seem higher than it really was.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/09/say-goodbye-to-sunspots.html

[Hiya]

Not really new but certainly a new appraisal....

The Livingston & Penn theory of sunspots possibly disappearing from view by 2016 has been looked at by other solar physicists, attracting favourable reviews:

"It is a very interesting sequence of observations," says solar physicist Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The researchers "have carefully analyzed their data and the trend appears to be real," he says.

Solar physicist David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, agrees but with a caveat. "It's an important paper," he says. But the sunspot magnetic field calculations don't take into account a lot of small sunspots that appeared during the last solar maximum. Those sunspots have weaker magnetic fields, which, if not included, could make the average sunspot magnetic field strength seem higher than it really was.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/09/say-goodbye-to-sunspots.html

That is exceptional praise for a paper which was rejected for publication!

[Gray-Wolf]

I think folk need to accept that we do not have conditions similar to the Maunder min and ,should we find the link between no sunspots and Atlantic blocking holding true we can expect a run of winters like last years (and worse) but an arctic that is ice free over summers (as we saw with the high temps /poor ice thickness last winter).

I'm sure had we a stable Arctic ice cap I'd be looking to a M.M. type period but today? I believe that the small drop in solar output will be more than masked by our tinkerings (as we saw last winter)?

[Guest mycroft]

I think folk need to accept that we do not have conditions similar to the Maunder min and ,should we find the link between no sunspots and Atlantic blocking holding true we can expect a run of winters like last years (and worse) but an arctic that is ice free over summers (as we saw with the high temps /poor ice thickness last winter).

I'm sure had we a stable Arctic ice cap I'd be looking to a M.M. type period but today? I believe that the small drop in solar output will be more than masked by our tinkerings (as we saw last winter)?

Care to elaborate on the bits i have highlighted!

[Gray-Wolf]

Care to elaborate on the bits i have highlighted!

Last winter we saw the British paper statistically linking H.P. blocking with solar min (I'd always been taught that low solar equalled more H.P. systems?) and we saw the new Arctic Synoptic pumping warm air into the Basin whilst pumping polar air into the northern hemisphere (as we saw) with the 'blocking' leading to cold conditions across large parts of the N. Hemisphere. We also see what spring then did to any remnant snow/ice with the 'low solar/new arctic synoptic' leading to record melt figures through June.

[Guest mycroft]

Last winter we saw the British paper statistically linking H.P. blocking with solar min (I'd always been taught that low solar equalled more H.P. systems?) and we saw the new Arctic Synoptic pumping warm air into the Basin whilst pumping polar air into the northern hemisphere (as we saw) with the 'blocking' leading to cold conditions across large parts of the N. Hemisphere. We also see what spring then did to any remnant snow/ice with the 'low solar/new arctic synoptic' leading to record melt figures through June.

Fine i'll go along with some of that (HP blocking with solar min),but if warm air was pumped in to the Arctic like you say,how did the ice pack bounce back like it did.You can not have cold air spilling out of the Arctic and warm air replacing it and have the ice pack grow.And to have the ice still above 2007,2008,sorry but something does'nt add up. maybe i am missing something here http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif

Plus i'd still like to know what you meant by saying:

I believe that the small drop in solar output will be more than masked by our tinkerings (as we saw last winter)?

Edited September 17, 2010 by mycroft

[jethro]

But you also have to consider the impact that a prolonged. deep Solar minima and a negative PDO will have. It's a popular misconception to apportion all the blame for Arctic melt on to CO2, popular or not, it's still a misconception.

Globally we have warmed less than 1c in recent decades, it is widely considered that global temperatures fell more than that during the Maunder Minimum - more so in the Northern Hemisphere, some parts considered to have been between 2-4c cooler. CO2 will have to have powers outside the known Laws of Physics to over-ride that amount of cooling.

[Guest mycroft]

But you also have to consider the impact that a prolonged. deep Solar minima and a negative PDO will have. It's a popular misconception to apportion all the blame for Arctic melt on to CO2, popular or not, it's still a misconception.

Globally we have warmed less than 1c in recent decades, it is widely considered that global temperatures fell more than that during the Maunder Minimum - more so in the Northern Hemisphere, some parts considered to have been between 2-4c cooler. CO2 will have to have powers outside the known Laws of Physics to over-ride that amount of cooling.

what about the triple whammy

-PDO,deep solar minima,and in few more years a-AMO any takers on what would/could be the out come be ?????

Add on a volcanic element,and the message will become burm more Co2

[Thundery wintry showers]

There was a recent discussion in which, if I remember rightly, Sunny Starry Skies, Iceberg and Devonian argued, with the support of a few recent papers, that the Maunder Minimum global cooling was approximately 0.3C, with much higher values over localised areas of the globe (including the UK and north-west Europe where the decline probably did exceed 1C). I recall that while I didn't agree completely with their conclusions, it appeared somewhat unlikely that the real global figure was 1C or higher. The most recent quote I can find is from an abstract for Song et al. (2010), "Increased greenhouse gases enhance regional climate response to a Maunder Minimum" which gives a figure of 0.347C.

Recently found a paper by Jager et al, "Quantifying and specifying the solar influence on terrestrial surface temperature", which suggests that solar activity can, and does, have a major effect on the Earth's climate, assisted by feedback processes. However, when it used its new findings on the period 1800-2008 it found that its algorithmas for sun-climate feedbacks could not account for approximately 0.3C of the warming since 1960, and it also attributed the global cooling between 1940 and 1970 primarily to aerosol pollution rather than solar activity. Thus, I am still yet to see a paper that attributes most or all recent warming to solar activity (I'm still interested to see if the leaky integrator can become an exception) but the door is still open for the possibility that the sun could have made a small contribution.

[jethro]

Regional weather patterns affected by the Sun:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727793.100-the-sun-joins-the-climate-club.html

[knocker]

Regional weather patterns affected by the Sun:

http://www.newscient...imate-club.html

I find the cosmic ray-cloud scenario a bit of a nightmare. Haven't read the full article mentioned in NS but it seems to be fundementally different to the research of say, Jacob Svensmark . He wrote a paper that I read some years ago concerning cloud cover and I note he is still in the same field. Apologies if this has been posted before.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090801095810.htm

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928193452.htm

Seems the 'extinction event' we are within affects our plants as much as our critters......

[knocker]

I don't know if a link to this study has already been posted (It's a bit of a job going back through long threads when you are a newbie), or even come to that if this the right place for it but here it is. I must admit I haven't come across this before-along with many others by the sound of it.

Two Russian scientists, Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva of the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics, have published a revolutionary theory that turns modern meteorology on its head, positing that forests—and their capacity for condensation—are actually the main driver of winds rather than temperature. While this model has widespread implications for numerous sciences, none of them are larger than the importance of conserving forests, which are shown to be crucial to 'pumping' precipitation from one place to another. The theory explains, among other mysteries, why deforestation around coastal regions tends to lead to drying in the interior.

Although the theory has garnered a wide contrast of reactions—from dismissal to accolades—it has so far been mostly ignored by the greater scientific community since first published in a small journal in 2007. A new paper in Bioscience by Douglas Sheil and Daniel Murdiyarso attempts to remedy this by introducing (or re-introducing) the theory to scientists of all fields, many of whom have probably never heard of the theory despite its radical and widespread implications.

http://news.mongabay...narytheory.html

Edited September 30, 2010 by weather ship

[Iceni]

Can anyone make head or tail of this report for me?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8046586/A-stronger-Sun-actually-cools-the-Earth.html

I can just about understand that more Sun surface burning full pelt without sunspots means it emits more light and heat, but what's this about:

"Its impact on melting polar ice caps, and drying up rivers could therefore have been exaggerated by conventional climate models during the period"

[knocker]

Fifty years of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research on glacier change shows recent dramatic shrinkage of glaciers in three climatic regions of the United States. These long periods of record provide clues to the climate shifts that may be driving glacier change.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3046/

[knocker]

How warm was the 2010 summer?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010summer/

[blitzen]

Fifty years of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research on glacier change shows recent dramatic shrinkage of glaciers in three climatic regions of the United States. These long periods of record provide clues to the climate shifts that may be driving glacier change.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3046/

With differing information you just don't know what or who to believe nowadays!

http://www.iceagenow.com/growing_glaciers.htm

Edited October 10, 2010 by Blitzen