Science, 10th August 2007
News Focus
CLIMATE CHANGE:
Humans and Nature Duel Over the Next Decade’s Climate
Richard A. Kerr
Rising greenhouse gases are changing global climate, but during the next few decades natural climate variations will have a say as well, so researchers, including a team reporting on page 796 of this week’s issue of Science, are scrambling to factor them in.
Science Magazine
REPORTS
Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model
Doug M. Smith, Stephen Cusack, Andrew W. Colman, Chris K. Folland, Glen R. Harris, and James M. Murphy (10 August 2007)
Science 317 (5839), 796. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1139540]
Abstract
Previous climate model projections of climate change accounted for external forcing from natural and anthropogenic sources but did not attempt to predict internally generated natural variability. We present a new modeling system that predicts both internal variability and externally forced changes and hence forecasts surface temperature with substantially improved skill throughout a decade, both globally and in many regions. Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.
Met office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Ex1 3PB, UK.
From the BBC website:
Ten-year climate model unveiled
The warmest year ‘currently on record’ is 1998, helped by a very strong El Nino.
Hat tip to Bob Carter/Walter Starck for the note alerting us to this insightful analysis by the ‘American Thinker’ entitled Twisting Science to Fit the Global Warming Template.
The global warming crowd does not take kindly to being contradicted, either by critics or data. Of course, critics can be defamed and data can be skewed. But unless the critics can be silenced, they can fight back and expose phony data. When it begins to look like predictions of doom are not turning out sufficiently catastrophic, a full Orwell is called for. The media mobilize their templates to completely re-cast the information.
This process was fully in evidence yesterday when the global news service Reuters spun a report in Science magazine (which has been quietly starting to warn its readership that maybe it would be prudent to come in a bit from the end of the global warming limb) as if it confirmed the seriousness of global warning, when in fact the report contained devastating information of flaws in the doomsters methodology and warned that the disaster has been postponed………..
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I’m gobsmacked that Paul could post this. The American Red Neck site has done the most stupid innane review of the paper one could do (well actually it shows they didn’t even read the paper). Shows how utterly devoid of intelligence the dipstick denialists have become.
So what we’re being fed is that duh “desperate” mudellers arranged a whirl wind to do a cross traversal through a junkyard do a reverse dive pike with twist and voila a 747 aka a state of the art AOGCM with decadal spolier and stripes, and greenhouse injection was built. Wow and WTF.
So let’s have an intelligence test and see if even the most hardened cynics here can count the porkies in AT article..
Shows that this blog is keeping its reputation for being denialist propagandista central. You would have thought that this would be more Marc Morano style really.
Anyway look on the bright side – the AT reviewers have a theme song and a new blog anthem for here. Maybe Paul, Bob and Walter want to sing along ? Marc of course already does.
More denialist propaganda from Freeman Dyson
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf
It is interesting that any indication of an increase in global temperature has been cited by warming advocates as conclusive evidence of AGW and any possibility of natural causes has been rejected. However, with indication of a cooling trend in climate emerging,natural variability masking ongoing AGW is suddenly acceptable.
It is also curious that the model projections were claimed to be 90% certain when they showed ongoing warming. Now that they have been tweeked to produce some cooling are the projection more or less confident?
With the models now adjusted to show natural variability in climate it would also be interesting to see what portion of the past century’s warming they indicate is attributable to such variability. With climate emerging from the preceding cooler period of the LIA certainly some and probably most of the observed warming must reasonably be attributable to a natural trend.
Walter Stark – “It is interesting that any indication of an increase in global temperature has been cited by warming advocates as conclusive evidence of AGW and any possibility of natural causes has been rejected.”
No that is not even close to the truth. Natural variation has always been factored into AGW however right at the moment forcings from AGW are starting to overwhelm the natural forcings. This is probably the last period where natural variations are going to play a role as AGW forcings are still set to rise dramatically in the next ten years if nothing is done to lower greenhouse emissions and land use changes.
Shows you haven’t thought about for long – the fact you haven’t cited the natural variability in forcings that are already in the models versus innate decadal oscillations added here shows precisely how much you haven’t considered the issue. The internal oscillations are not forcings in the external sense.
Also you’ve confused weather, seasonal climate projections and scenarios. The models weren’t tweaked. They’ve had multi-decadal variability added for the first time. It’s shown some interesting effects and regional improvements, especially for Australia. It means the science is progressing significantly.
What does “emerging” from the LIA actual mean – nothing. It’s a meaningless throw away that has no science content. Emerging is an anthropomorphism almost.
The paper illustrates exactly why temperature increases should not be expected to be monotonic as I have being saying for some time. To make fun of this important paper which you have clearly not read properly (if at all) or thought about for 5 seconds shows a complete lack of scientific appreciation of climate fundamentals regardless of your belief in additional greenhouse or not.
What have the IPCC assessment reports stated as uncertainties all along – that are necessary to be added before they get into prediction. No comments from you guys on hindcast improvements either.
Luke and Ender, spot on. The science is advancing, and the scientists have always said they have a lot more work to do on the models. Doing the work they have always said they have to do is not ‘scrambling’. What a damn insult to people who are doing exactly what they said they were always intending to do.
Well not surprising SJT as this blog descends into spin central despite libertarian assurances.
Can’t you see the modellers “scrambling” through the coding junkyard to “quickly” put together this major piece of science from left over modelling efforts “just in time”. You can just whip this stuff up like a packet mix cake I just did. Yea sure.
The problem with factoring in natural variability into the climate models is that we barely understand them, let alone know what all the relevant factors are. Totally absent in the factors are the electromagnetic forces between the earth and its solar environment – I would commend the new book “The Sun Kings” by Stuart Clark for a layman’s description of the enormous forces at play.
Hence it reamins a trusim that we cannot model climate because it’s just too complex.
Those who believe we can just don’t understand the issues.
If we’re talking natural variability fully you have to distinguish between introduced “external” natural forcings – solar, volcanoes etc and internal oscillations – El Nino, La Nina, PDO, IPO, NAO, Indian Ocean dipole, AMO, SAM, AO etc. All this presumably still coexists with a increased greenhouse forcing. It just doesn’t disappear because of the greenhouse effect. For these reasons alone one should not expect a monotonic increase in global temperature every single year.
Louis
maybe you are just deliberately confusing the issue.
They are not claiming to be able to model the exact outcome of what will happen.
The earth can be considered as a block box. Energy from the sun goes in, energy comes out. If we make one of the layers of insulation around the earth a bit thicker, more of that energy will be trapped. Which is exactly what is happening by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, because, as Paul Biggs has agreed, CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Given that that is the case, what are the effects of warming going to be?
The small effect of CO2 directly is going to be ‘amplified’ by feedback effects, which can now be observed in train, eg, the melting of the ice in the Arctic.
Models are not going to tell us exactly what will happen, but they will give us a much better idea of what will happen than saying it is impossible to know exactly, so it’s not worth bothering to do anything.
When we give a cancer patient a drug, we have no idea exactly what the outcome will be, but we do it anyway. In some cases, it cures them.
As for the title “Scrambling”. What a cheap, nasty insult.
Luke,
With reference to time, emerging is simply a common English term not a technical term. It means coming out of or following. Unless you believe the climate of the LIA is the more or less static norm for global conditions a natural warming would follow a natural cooling but AGW proponents have never seemed willing to concede any portion of late 20th century warming to anything other than AGW. Now however, they are suddenly willing to adopt a natural cooling trend.
Actually, it was Science magazine that used the word “scrambling”
SJT,
There is no such thing as a greenhouse gas – the reason heat is retained in the atmosphere is because of the insulating effect of suspended water – it is purely a gas – liquid interface issue.
Camp out in a desert and you will find it gets perishingly cold at night when there is no cloud cover or high humidity. This because the heat is transmitted directly upwards with no insulation effect.
Take Venus with its CO2 atmosphere, Mars with its 95% CO2 and earth with 0.04% and plot surface temperature against CO2 %. Absolutely no relationship at all bewteen CO2 and Temperature.
But I agree, AGW might be true iff we suspend the laws of physics which is easily done in climate modelling.
Kerr’s paper looks like another instance of “science by press release”. It doesn’t matter if he is right or wrong, science conducted in this manner is definitely wrong.
“Take Venus with its CO2 atmosphere, Mars with its 95% CO2 and earth with 0.04% and plot surface temperature against CO2 %. Absolutely no relationship at all bewteen CO2 and Temperature.”
If only we had roll eyes smiley on this forum. Louis, you are too smart to say something that stupid, aren’t you?
“Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, keeping the atmosphere thinner than it would otherwise be by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected these ionised atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars.[29][30] The atmosphere of Mars is now relatively thin. Atmospheric pressure on the surface varies from around 30 Pa (0.03 kPa) on Olympus Mons to over 1155 Pa (1.155 kPa) in the depths of Hellas Planitia, with a mean surface level pressure of 600 Pa (0.6 kPa). This is less than 1% of the surface pressure on Earth (101.3 kPa). The equivalent pressure of Mars’ atmosphere can be found at a height of 35 km above the Earth’s surface. The scale height of the atmosphere is about 11 km; higher than Earth’s 6 km due to the lower gravity.”
Mars is further from the sun, and it has a much less dense atmosphere. To make direct comparisons is ridiculous.
Perhaps you need to talk to Paul Biggs about the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Walter – There’s no such thing as a “natural” anything – there’s always a reason !
You can believe what commentators say – but if you read my posts for a long time I’ve argued monotonic increases should not be expected year after year. You’re overlaying a trend signal on natural “internal variability”. Makes it complicated – and that’s because it is.
Oh Louis is back – yay – SJT he’s argued every known position over the years – no such thing as a GHG, you can lift the lid on real greenhouses, water vapour is the dominant GHG, well if it is a GHG it’s teensy weensy, bands are saturated yadda yadda etc etc. Waste of time debating – he’s wrong but not clueless. See wily fox.
The Mars teaser is actually Louis’s best ruse if I may say so. We’ll see if he wants to play or whether it’s a drive by shooting only (standard modus operandi).
John – what tripe is this about “science by press release” – the actual science paper is later in the journal – it’s called an editorial – jeez.
SJT,
“Scrambling”. What a cheap, nasty insult.
There’s plenty prepared to make those SJT and they aren’t confined to either side.
Complaints about the term ‘scrambling’ can be made to Richard A. Kerr, editor of Science magazine.
If we look at Venus, where CO2 makes up 96% of the atmosphere, and extrapolate backwards to earth’s atmosphere, we get a greenhouse effect of about 0.4C, but it’s an over-estimate even then, as a significant proportion of the greenhouse effect on Venus is due to past and present sulphur dioxide, plus past water vapour (now dissociated and partly lost as hydrogen, with the oxygen retained as carbon and sulphur oxides).
When Luke linked this trio, “Paul, Bob and Walter” I wondered which one had the most to loose by ignoring Smith & co’s pointer.
The news was about 1/3 C / decade regardless
How many decades to +2 C and possible melts of major polar ice sheets above our new ST?
‘Scrambling’ as one word is a typical way to misquote. If you read the context, it is clear that the scientists are doing this because they are in a hurry, the heading for this topic takes one word, and then uses it to indicate that they have been caught short.
Meanwhile, at the arctic ice….
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/arctic-sea-ice-watch/
“A few people have already remarked on some pretty surprising numbers in Arctic sea ice extent this year (the New York Times has also noticed). The minimum extent is usually in early to mid September, but this year, conditions by Aug 9 had already beaten all previous record minima. Given that there is at least a few more weeks of melting to go, it looks like the record set in 2005 will be unequivocally surpassed. It could be interesting to follow especially in light of model predictions discussed previously.
There are a number of places to go to get Arctic sea ice information. Cryosphere Today has good anomaly plots. The Naval Sea ice center has a few different algorithms (different ways of processing the data) that give some sense of the observational uncertainty, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center give monthly updates. All of them show pretty much the same thing.
Just to give a sense of how dramatic the changes have been over the last 28 years, the figures below show the minimum ice extent in September 1979, and the situation today (Aug 9, 2007).
Sep 05 1979Aug 09 2007
The reduction is around 1.2 million square km of ice, a little bit larger than the size of California and Texas combined.”
The northern hemisphere is where most warming seems to take place – this is regional climate issue. Black carbon and Ozone are getting much of the blame.
How does it compare with previous warm periods – in the 1930s, Medieval Warm Period etc?
Regular updates here:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
“The monthly picture reflects the pace of daily ice loss. July 2007 showed the most extreme ice-loss anomaly ever seen since the satellite record began in 1979, with a monthly average extent of only 8.1 million square kilometers (3.13 million square miles). This is 900,000 square kilometers (347,492 square miles) below July 2005—roughly the size of the states of Texas and Oklahoma combined.
Unless conditions change in an unprecedented way, the Arctic will continue to lose ice for at least another month.
All of this leads us to ask: why has the melt season progressed so quickly? The answer lies in a combination of high temperatures, changes in the age and thickness of ice, and fluctuations in atmospheric circulations. Please check back—we’ll address these factors in detail as the melt season progresses.”
I’m sure alarmists find this all very exciting!
http://www.uwnews.org/relatedcontent/2005/September/rc_parentID12459_thisID12461.pdf
Louis – “Camp out in a desert and you will find it gets perishingly cold at night when there is no cloud cover or high humidity. This because the heat is transmitted directly upwards with no insulation effect.”
The level of ignorance contained in this paragraph is astonishing – you are really back to form.
Tell me Louis when you camp out in the outback does it often get to -30° or so which would be the case if the heat is transmitted straight out into space? Do you awake, or not awake as the case would be, a frozen lump of ice? No? Well then perhaps there is some remaining insulation above you that keeps the temperature at a livable -1° or 0° or so. Perhaps the air is not zero humidity and there is also a bit of CO2 and CH4 there, well mixed, keeping you warm.
Luke,
You say, There’s no such thing as a “natural” anything – there’s always a reason !
This is an irrelevant truism. Natural in the context being discussed obviously refers to natural rather than anthropogenic influences.
Yes so in the context – “emerging or recovering” from the LIA means what – increase in solar radiance or ?
There has certainly been a large increase in solar activity since the LIA – the highest for more than 1000 years, but that seems to be coming to an end, with a large fall expected – suggesting the possibility of global cooling in the near future.
Enjoyed the article by Dyson – virtually everything he writes is very worthy of attention and respect. I wouldn’t mind him seeing him and Hansen slog it out in a decent debate about just how serious GW is likely to be. I’d love to believe Dyson, but it’s hard to completely dismiss the other side of the case.
And Paul by definition if you get solar cooling you’ll get less CO2 warming. Cool eh?
Given that the enhanced greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic CO2 is so tiny, it won’t matter.
The average global temp as per GISS has dropped by nearly 0.4C since January.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
I would suggest that the combination of a mild El Nino and a very positive AO boosted global temps in January 2007 and the more neutral ENSO and negative NAO/AO of recent months has cooled global temps since.
If ENSO, PDO, NAO/AO and the related SST changes can cause a cooling of almost 0.4 C in the space of six months (i.e. half the century long increase), it is clear that “internal variability” is a significant factor dictating global temperatures.
But what causes this “internal variability”?
I am of the opinion that ocean temperature drives the weather and climate drives the ocean temperatures.
I was so hoping that in the next two years the climactic response / variability to the extended solar minimum (and the consequently lesser magnitude of the next solar cycle) would settle the debate one way or the other – i.e. this variability could be attributed to solar effects. However, a less active solar cycle 24 may in its own right have little or no effect given that the oceans have been heated for the last 150 years and the latent heat will keep on influencing the weather for some time yet.
This Smith et al paper, as a mainstream paper, is a bit at variance with the standard AGW mantra in that it says that “climate could be dominated over this [the next two year] period by natural changes” (note explicitly not solar effects as these are considered to be unchanged – “Solar irradiance is projected by repeating the previous 11-year solar cycle” #20).
So why is this paper at odds with the mantra?
I suspect that in the event that global temperature does not increase – or actually decreases (in response to an extended solar minimum and a less active following solar cycle) – this is a position paper that can now attribute this to “internal variability”. “Internal variability offsets the effects of anthropogenic forcing in the first few years, leading to no net warming before 2008”.
This paper completely mitigates any effect attributable to solar forcing in the near future and as such it is a bigger thorn in the side of the solar driven global warming theory than the Lockwood & Fröhlich paper ever could be.
My opinion only…
cheers
Arnost
Arnost – I can’t see why we can’t have ALL factors goings on at once – i.e internal variability, solar influences, and CO2 greenhouse. Even if you’re full red under bed AGW devotee – the greenhouse effect only works if you have some solar input to recycle. Any drop off in solar radiation will limit the greenhouse forcing too. It’s not magic dust! But the irradiance drops off we should be able to measure it by satellite. Waiting though .. ..
What causes the internal variability – inbuilt chaotic oscillator – undersea volcanoes – chance – you tell me.
But it seems that these internal oscillations can enhance or dampen the underlying forcings.
Thanks for a thoughtful consideration.
Ahhhh! I see our Arnost is right into chicken and egg scenarios but what Smith is saying IMO of course, is watch out for the ebbs and flows longer term.
Arnost mate; we need the calculus from these new models to see rates of change and the integrals decade by decade
I lost a post that I spent a couple of hours crafting yesterday. Got the same error message which previously caused a double post – so I assumed it would get through.
The “chicken and egg” question from Gavin and the “what causes internal internal variability” question from Luke are one and the same as far as I’m concerned. I repeat, “I am of the opinion that ocean temperature drives the weather and climate drives the ocean temperatures”. And I agreed with Luke that ultimately all factors have to be considered – and I went into detail assessing the relevance of GHGs, Ozone, Aerosols, surfactant pollution, phytoplankton reduction, and of course the solar irradiance and solar wind factors. Blah Blah Blah. This was the thrust of what I said in my lost post.
However, on reflection, this was a bit shallow and a bit of a cop-out. We really have no idea what drives the ENSO. So saying that climate responds to it is only telling a bit of the story. As far as I can tell the statistically driven ENSO forecast models have better skill than the physical models. And the bottom line is neither can accurately predict whether an El Niño or a La Nina will develop three months prior.
So instead of rehashing the same-old same-old, I want to pick up on Luke’s second half of the question “inbuilt chaotic oscillator – undersea volcanoes – chance – you tell me?”.
Chance? Not likely – there is a cause and effect that drives everything from the beginning of creation. Chaos? But there is order in chaos – did you know the drunkard’s walk is actually the best search pattern possible? That leaves undersea volcanoes. Hmmmm…
I got involved in the climate debate simply because I wanted to do a mind exercise and see if I could find an explanation for El Niño in the planets. I wanted to bring together the work of Theodor Landscheidt, Timo Niroma, Dan Walker, and Bruce Leybourne amongst others and place this in the very heretical idea that the alignment of the sun, moon and the major planets can place stresses on the tectonic plates, thereby precipitating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Given that the Nazca and Pacific plates is the fastest spreading seafloor on the planet, and it’s right there that El Niño forms… I thought it interesting.
I reckon that there is potential in this space – but I haven’t got there yet…
cheers
http://www.john-daly.com/sun-enso/revisit.htm
http://www.john-daly.com/theodor/DecadalEnso.htm
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html
Dan Walker’s – “Volcano, El Ninos, and the Bellybutton of the Universe” reviewed p 77 here: http://quake.exit.com/copies/Ncgt41.pdf
http://www.geostreamconsulting.com/papers/Global_Warm_Submit2.pdf
http://www.geostreamconsulting.com/papers/Leybourne_Oceans_Fin.pdf
Arnost: IMO Leyborne has not established links between tectonic dynamics and climate despite his intriguing concept of vortex screwing plate motion in the mantel. Neither does hot air above a witch’s cauldron contain much more than a bit of steam above the froth and bubble.
Your climate drivers need to reflect a much more rapid process than even my cauldron.
Slight problem Arnost in that the El Nino phenomenon is seasonal – events form in the late austral autumn and then run for about a year. Their formation also contains the waves of their destruction.