Climate News from the science press.

[BenBurch]

I'll be posting news articles in here as I see them. Please confine discussion to said articles or post some of your own. Not interested in blog postings, or anything more than one week old for purposes of this thread. Do not flame ware this thread. If a troll posts, ignore the troll. Thank you.

[BenBurch]

http://www.physorg.com/news177772960.html

Quote:

The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. The study appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature. <SNIP>

On one hand this is bad because a natural sink is disappearing, and this will accelerate warming. On the other hand this means acidification will not be as great as feared and this will have a less negative effect on ocean biological damage.

[BenBurch]

http://www.physorg.com/news177258173.html

Quote:

Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is loosing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Science.

[BenBurch]

http://www.physorg.com/news177686530.html

Quote:

The strongest evidence yet that the rise in atmospheric CO2 emissions continues to outstrip the ability of the world's natural 'sinks' to absorb carbon is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

An international team of researchers under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project reports that over the last 50 years the average fraction of global CO2 emissions that remained in the atmosphere each year was around 43 per cent - the rest was absorbed by the Earth's carbon sinks on land and in the oceans. During this time this fraction has likely increased from 40 per cent to 45 per cent, suggesting a decrease in the efficiency of the natural sinks. The team brings evidence that the sinks are responding to climate change and variability.

The scientists report a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008 (the latest year for which figures are available), and that in spite of the global economic downturn emissions increased by 2 per cent during 2008. The use of coal as a fuel has now surpassed oil and developing countries now emit more greenhouse gases than developed countries - with a quarter of their growth in emissions accounted for by increased trade with the West.

<SNIP>

I whatever emissions targets they have been talking about on the inter-governmental level, we will have outstripped them by the time they are agreed upon.

Note that a consequence of this is that fossil fuel use is up almost 30 percent too, and this means the dwindling stocks of oil and high quality coal are dwindling even faster. Not a good trend!

[BenBurch]

Quote:

PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.

<SNIP>

Previous analysis of ice cores has shown that the climate consists of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods roughly every 100,000 years. This new investigation shows temperature 'spikes' within some of the interglacial periods over the last 340,000 years. This suggests Antarctic temperature shows a high level of sensitivity to greenhouse gases at levels similar to those found today.

Lead author Louise Sime of British Antarctic Survey said,
"We didn't expect to see such warm temperatures, and we don't yet know in detail what caused them. But they indicate that Antarctica's climate may have undergone rapid shifts during past periods of high CO2."
During the last warm period, about 125,000 years ago, sea level was around 5 metres higher than today.

<SNIP>

Emphasis mine.

[casebro]

Sort of blows the 'A' out of AGW don't it?

Is there an updated graph of the glacial cycles? ('Eastern European Name' cycles?) What with the higher spikes, it would make it obvious that man didn't do them, and that man ain't the cause of this spike. And the current spike ain't all that high. Earth will survive this one too.

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by casebro

Sort of blows the 'A' out of AGW don't it?

Is there an updated graph of the glacial cycles? ('Eastern European Name' cycles?) What with the higher spikes, it would make it obvious that man didn't do them, and that man ain't the cause of this spike. And the current spike ain't all that high. Earth will survive this one too.

No, it shows the sensitivity to CO2. We will get a rise equivalent to the last interglacial and ADD TO THAT fossil CO2. We can expect more extreme results. Past variability due to natural cycles is what we need to explore to understand the ramifications of an un-natural modification to atmospheric gasses.

[macdoc]

Since dinosaurs were around and went extinct without anthro involvement I guess we aren't the cause of the 6th Extinction event.....
Ever heard of a guy named Milankovitch?

Here ya go
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

Quite the application of common sense there boyo....

•••••

snip

Quote:

Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2009) — Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

continues
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 121611.htm

and cooking down under too...

Quote:

Two years, three record heat waves in southeastern Australia
Posted on 14 November 2009 by Barry Brook

Summer 2009 — 2010 hasn’t even begun in Australia, and yet we are already sweltering under another record heat wave — the third in two years.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/1...twaves-seaust/

[Oliver]

It isn't an article from the "scientific press", but it's quite impressive nonetheless:

Quote:

Stagnating Temperatures
Spiegel: Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents... By Gerald Traufetter more...

[Geckko]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...t/326/5953/716

Quote:

Evaluating multicomponent climate change mitigation strategies requires knowledge of the diverse direct and indirect effects of emissions. Methane, ozone, and aerosols are linked through atmospheric chemistry so that emissions of a single pollutant can affect several species. We calculated atmospheric composition changes, historical radiative forcing, and forcing per unit of emission due to aerosol and tropospheric ozone precursor emissions in a coupled composition-climate model. We found that gas-aerosol interactions substantially alter the relative importance of the various emissions. In particular, methane emissions have a larger impact than that used in current carbon-trading schemes or in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, assessments of multigas mitigation policies, as well as any separate efforts to mitigate warming from short-lived pollutants, should include gas-aerosol interactions.

This found methane to be twice as large a forcing agent than assumed to date, or contained in the modelling results reported in AR4.

That means if these new findings were plugged straight into current climate models, they would revise up their modelled temperature trends over the past.

To "square the circle" again (i.e. bring the models back to track the past historical data again) some previously unidentified offsetting cooling influence is needed. One possibility:

A new or larger negative feedback exists, or a positive one needs to be revised down - e.g. via H2O/clouds etc.

[casebro]

Here's a graph, maybe somebody can link it into this thread:

<http://www.seed.slb.com/uploadedImages/Science/Earth_Science/Global_Climate_Change_and_Energy/Related_Articles/global_temp2.jpg>

Now, per the OP, picture the peaks the six degrees higher. It sort of make the two degree modern peak insignificant.

Does it disprove global warming? No.

Does it disprove ANTHROPOGENIC global warming?

[macdoc]

Do you have trouble understanding the OP?

Current science articles.

ie

Quote:

El Nino intensifies Latin America drought

November 20th, 2009 in Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Some 6,000 families were affected by the drought in the Chaco region of Paraguay, particularly indigenous populations

Cracked soil and dead cows are pictured at a ranch in Chaco, Paraguay on November 18. From a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year.

From a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year.

continues
http://www.physorg.com/print177921078.html

[macdoc]

Gekko be a bit careful as methane is not cumulative.
The gain was from 25 x to 33 times C02 impact due to a mix with aerosols....so more like a 25% increase in methane's impact for a short duration.

What it does open up is the idea that mitigating methane may have more immediate real world impact on the temps in the short term and so should be looked at closely as part of a AGHG mitigation strategy.

Luckily methane drops out of play early compared to C02 which is cumulative effectively forever.

So methane increases a bad short term multiplier as they are partly due to feedback in the north but if we can offset that with some reduction of methane in agriculture ( eat kangaroo ) and industrial processes then the impact is lessened.

It in no way softens the need to get to carbon neutral right quick.

[macdoc]

Oliver - that's likely in Ben's zone of acceptance tho the title is a bit of a spin.

The headache with that is it focuses on atmospheric temps which are transient compared to the changes in the total ocean heat content and the cryosphere both of which are much more massive energy sinks due to latent heat and density.

To give you a scale ...over the last 3 years Greenland's net mass loss of ice has doubled....the thermal energy to do that is approximately equivalent of our carpet bombing the the place with 8,000 Hiroshima sized nukes.....a day.

2 million nukes a year in thermal equivalent, and that's just for Greenland...the same thermal equation applies elsewhere where long term glaciers melt.
It's enormous energy and fortunately the ocean and cryosphere buffer us from the worst of the gain.

Decadal and multi decadal oscillations of warm and cool pools in the oceans do affect air temps but are only natural variations overlaid on the steady energy gain GHG forces.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Geckko

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...t/326/5953/716




This found methane to be twice as large a forcing agent than assumed to date, or contained in the modelling results reported in AR4.

I believe a DOH! Is in order on your part…

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...bout-me-thane/

[macdoc]

Quote:

Greenland ice loss behind a sixth of sea-level rise

* 21 November 2009

GREENLAND lost 1500 cubic kilometres of ice between 2000 and 2008, making it responsible for one-sixth of global sea-level rise. Even worse, there are signs that the rate of ice loss is increasing.

.

continues
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...evel-rise.html

[Geckko]

Originally Posted by lomiller

I believe a DOH! Is in order on your part…

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...bout-me-thane/

Yes indeed. My bad.


See how that works guys.

[macdoc]

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by macdoc

Luckily methane drops out of play early compared to C02 which is cumulative effectively forever.

Demonstrably false. CO2 levels rise and fall annually, as plants use it to make sugars in the warm months and stop doing so when temperatures cool. Larger cycles can be observed over geological time. A period of global glaciation 600 to 800 million years ago seems to have scrubbed CO2 from the air and replaced it with high levels of oxygen. It may be that this happened because the glaciers scraped minerals off of the earth's surface and into the oceans, causing vast algae blooms, and dumping lots of dust and dirt into the ocean to which the algae could become attached and sink to the bottom. Could fertilizing and seeding the oceans be an anthropogenic strategy for scouring the atmosphere again, if that should prove to be necessary?

[macdoc]

You have an article to contribute? No - then go away. - you have no idea what you are talking about
If you say I'm wrong then prove it and overturn this or edit it out.....

The annual carbon cycle is meaningless in this context it's neutral.
Methane is shortlived in the context of GHG impact within the time frame of AGW - quit trying to pretend knowledge you've demonstrated once more you don't have.

Quote:

Duration/Residence Time in the Atmosphere refers to the time a GHG stays in the atmosphere. Some GHGs are short-lived while others remain in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years. To properly asses the climate impacts of a combination of gases, the lifetime of each gas has to be taken into account. For example, the warming impacts of CO2 persist for hundreds of years, whereas the warming impacts of ozone or contrails last only days or months.

http://www.co2offsetresearch.org/aviation/RF.html

Quote:

Methane duration stay is 12 +/- 3 years and a GWP of 22 (meaning that it has 22 times ... and other greenhouse gases into the earth's atmosphere each year. ...

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/ency...enhouse_gases/
Now upgraded to a 33 x GWP

Quote:

Carbon is forever

Carbon dioxide emissions and their associated warming could linger for millennia, according to some climate scientists. Mason Inman looks at why the fallout from burning fossil fuels could last far longer than expected.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0....2008.122.html

Gekko has the grace to admit an error.....you just blunder....

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

http://www.physorg.com/news177772960.html

On one hand this is bad because a natural sink is disappearing, and this will accelerate warming. On the other hand this means acidification will not be as great as feared and this will have a less negative effect on ocean biological damage.

The article at your link says the oceans absorbed more CO2 than ever last year - 2.3 billion tons. The "decrease" is only a decrease as a proportion of total CO2 emissions. It doesn't suggest that the ocean is reaching a saturation point and will cease to function as a natural sink, just that it didn't match emissions pound for pound.

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by macdoc

If you say I'm wrong then he prove it and overturn this or edit it out.....

What?

[macdoc]

Quote:

If you say I'm wrong then prove it and overturn the information I supplied with references or edit your nonsense out of the thread....

[macdoc]

From Ben's article

Quote:

Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate.

do you need everything spelled out for you??....
Now do you have

a) a current science article to contribute

b) any contribution that is scientifically accurate to add to the existing articles ??

[macdoc]

Quote:

Nature Reports Climate Change
Published online: 19 November 2009 | doi:10.1038/climate.2009.120

The war against warming
Military and intelligence experts become increasingly focused on the "climate security" threat. Keith Kloor reports.

PA
Shortly before Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti came to Washington DC on 29 October to discuss the links between climate change and geopolitical instability, the stage was being set on both sides of the Atlantic.

In September, Morisetti was appointed as the United Kingdom's newly minted climate and energy security envoy. Later in the same month, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced it was opening a special centre on climate change, which would assess "the national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources". In October, the UK government then unveiled a glossy, colour-coded map detailing how global warming could lead to water and food shortages, extended drought, mass migration and violent conflicts, if action to curtail greenhouse gases wasn't taken at the upcoming Copenhagen summit.

continues
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0....2009.120.html

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

No, it shows the sensitivity to CO2.

Maybe. What would have caused the CO2 levels to rise enough to cause a 6-degree temperature increase at a time when no one was burning fossil fuels? Isn't it true that the data suggests that rising CO2 levels during interglacials follow rising temperatures rather than leading them? Maybe it shows the sensitivity to some factor no one has considered yet, which drives both temperature increase and (later) CO2 increase as well. I'm not saying the rise in CO2 wouldn't have its own contribution to rising temperatures, but the fact that temperatures naturally rise during interglacial periods when there are no man-made greenhouse gases being produced makes me cautious about saying any rise we're currently observing must be primarily due to man-made greenhouse gases.

Originally Posted by BenBurch

We will get a rise equivalent to the last interglacial and ADD TO THAT fossil CO2. We can expect more extreme results. Past variability due to natural cycles is what we need to explore to understand the ramifications of an un-natural modification to atmospheric gasses.

Again, maybe. Unless we know what caused the rise during the last interglacial, it's speculation to say that the same factors are at work today in the same measure. It could be less, it could be more.

Jumping immediately to pre-fab conclusions has a kind of God-of-the-gaps quality to it. If we don't understand it, it's okay to work toward increasing our understanding. I don't think we're justified in assuming "CO2 did it."

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by macdoc

You have an article to contribute? No - then go away. - you have no idea what you are talking about

I really don't care for your tone. If you can demonstrate that you're capable of having a civil conversation, maybe we can have one. If not, I won't be baited, your sputtering cartoon comments will simply be ignored.

Originally Posted by macdoc

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/ency...enhouse_gases/
Now upgraded to a 33 x GWP

Knowledgerush encyclopedia has been upgraded to a 33 x GWP? Wow, I'll bet that will really improve their response time.

Originally Posted by macdoc

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0....2008.122.html

Ah, I think I see the source of our misunderstanding. Your Nature article says "For practical purposes, 500 to 1000 years is 'forever'". I was using the term "forever" to mean something a bit longer than that.

The science behind my 600 MYA scenario can be found here.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by bokonon

Isn't it true that the data suggests that rising CO2 levels during interglacials follow rising temperatures rather than leading them?

Indeed it is. A fact known to every climatologist, and anyone who has bothered to educate themselves on the subject.

Quote:

Maybe it shows the sensitivity to some factor no one has considered yet, which drives both temperature increase and (later) CO2 increase as well.

Or maybe it's due to the factor that the climatologists have considered and say it is due to. Namely that carbon dioxide is soluble in water, but more soluble in cold water than warm water. So as the world warms or cools as a result of any external forcing (e.g. the Milankovitch cycles that drive the ice ages) the oceans start to warm/cool until eventually they start to release/absorb CO2, starting a positive feedback that amplifies the warming/cooling.

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

carbon dioxide is soluble in water, but more soluble in cold water than warm water. So as the world warms or cools as a result of any external forcing (e.g. the Milankovitch cycles that drive the ice ages) the oceans start to warm/cool until eventually they start to release/absorb CO2, starting a positive feedback that amplifies the warming/cooling.

Makes sense. Do they also have an explanation for the "spiking" mentioned in the article?

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by bokonon

Makes sense. Do they also have an explanation for the "spiking" mentioned in the article?

I don't know. I know the oceanic CO2 positive feedback is invoked to explain the amplitude of changes in temperature that take place over tens of thousands of years, but shorter scale variations probably pose different, thornier, questions. I imagine that volcanism might explain some of them, but that's just a guess.

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by bokonon

The article at your link says the oceans absorbed more CO2 than ever last year - 2.3 billion tons. The "decrease" is only a decrease as a proportion of total CO2 emissions. It doesn't suggest that the ocean is reaching a saturation point and will cease to function as a natural sink, just that it didn't match emissions pound for pound.

No, that the rate at which it does not match it has been declining.

[macdoc]

Quote:

Ocean Less Effective At Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emitted By Human Activity

ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — In the Southern Indian Ocean, climate change is leading to stronger winds, which mix waters, bringing CO2 up from the ocean depths to the surface. This is the conclusion of researchers who have studied the latest field measurements carried out by CNRS's INSU, IPEV and IPSL. As a result, the Southern Ocean can no longer absorb as much atmospheric CO2 as before. Its role as a 'carbon sink' has been weakened, and it may now be ten times less efficient than previously estimated. The same trend can be observed at high latitudes in the North Atlantic.

continues
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0216092937.htm

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

No, that the rate at which it does not match it has been declining.

According to the article, the percentage of of total carbon absorbed by the ocean is declining because the total is expanding. The amount of carbon which the ocean absorbs is still increasing, according to their calculations. There is no inflection point in the graph accompanying the paper; the ocean carbon sink line still seems to be showing an increase in the rate at which the ocean is absorbing carbon, not merely an increase in the amount absorbed (the line is exponential rather than linear). The problem they allege is that the rate at which carbon is being emitted is increasing even faster -- it's also exponential, but with a bigger exponent.

It's interesting that they're calculating the amount rather than measuring it. They're not even measuring the amount of CO2 in the ocean year over year, they're running a model based on assumptions about "seawater temperatures, salinity, man-made chlorofluorocarbons and other measures" and plotting it back to the 1800s. I guess it's safe to assume that man-made chlorofluorocarbons were zero then, but is there really data for Antarctic seawater temperatures, salinity, and "other measures" going that far back?

The authors also claim that the land is now absorbing more carbon than it is giving off -- 1.1 billion tons a year more, according to the article. From the graph, it looks like the inflection point there came between 1925 and 1950. They speculate that it's because increased atmospheric CO2 is good for growing plants, and helps them grow larger, locking more CO2 in biomass. They then seem to ignore this data point and go on to say that natural mechanisms can't be depended on to mitigate increased human emissions.

[BenBurch]

Meanwhile, in Antarctica;

http://pda.physorg.com/billiontonnes...178122015.html

Quote:

The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.

<SNIP>

They also found for the first time that East Antarctica -- on the Eastern Hemisphere side of the continent -- is likewise losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of about 57 billion tonnes annually.

<SNIP>

Up to now, scientists had thought that East Antarctica was in "balance," meaning that it accumulated as much mass and it gave off, perhaps a bit more.

<SNIP>

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by bokonon

...
They then seem to ignore this data point and go on to say that natural mechanisms can't be depended on to mitigate increased human emissions.

We have greenhouse data that show the effect peters out pretty fast; Plants cannot take up unlimited additional CO2.

[shadron]

It isn't the "science press", but perhaps it is relevant: the Congressional Research Report on the "Status of the Copenhagen Climate Change Negotiations" dated Nov 5.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40910.pdf

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

Indeed it is. A fact known to every climatologist, and anyone who has bothered to educate themselves on the subject.

For the simple reason that CO2 isn't belived to be the *initial* cause of the warming. The initial warming that cases the release of CO2 is small in comparison to the warming the CO2 causes. This has been explained to him in detail, but he simply ignores the things he doesn't wish to hear.

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by lomiller

For the simple reason that CO2 isn't belived to be the *initial* cause of the warming. The initial warming that cases the release of CO2 is small in comparison to the warming the CO2 causes. This has been explained to him in detail, but he simply ignores the things he doesn't wish to hear.

I think you have me confused with someone else, but my memory may have failed me. Feel free to point out where this has been explained to me in detail.

I think it might be useful to have a discussion of Milankovitch cycles in a separate thread; if my search doesn't reveal one, perhaps I'll start one.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by bokonon

Feel free to point out where this has been explained to me in detail

A detailed explanation of why the CO2 rise lags, rather than leads, temperature in past natural warmings has been given many times in these threads; I've given it several times myself. Of course there are a lot of AGW threads, so it's possible you missed it every time. A quick search for Milankovitch found dozens of threads, too many to easily find my own posts giving the explanation, though I did spot this:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...65#post5258565

[BenBurch]

Please lets take the lag/lead argument to its own thread. Thanks!