WE live on one planet and all its oceans are connected with meridional overturning circulation (MOC) facilitating the mixing of waters across the globe.
In the apocalyptic movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ the melting of the polar icecaps disrupts a component of this system, the North Atlantic current, and so North America freezes over with US citizens pouring into Mexico to escape the freezing conditions.
New findings, published late last week in the journal Nature don’t dispute MOC, but suggest that the southern flow of deep water from Greenland may not follow as neat a path as assumed – including by the scientist in the Hollywood blockbuster. In particular rather than the deep water moving as a conveyor belt – yes that is the term that had been used to describe the flow of water southwards – it may be more diffuse.
One of the authors of the new paper in Nature, Amy Bower, has described it as “A swath in the wide-open, turbulent interior of the North Atlantic” rather than a conveyor belt.
In the media release accompanying the publication of the findings, another author Susan Lozier, suggests this means it is going to be more difficult to measure climate signals in the deep ocean.
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Notes and Links
Interior pathways of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
Amy S. Bower, M. Susan Lozier, Stefan F. Gary & Claus W. Böning
Nature 459, 243-247 (14 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature07979; Received 24 April 2008; Accepted 5 March 2009
Abstract: To understand how our global climate will change in response to natural and anthropogenic forcing, it is essential to determine how quickly and by what pathways climate change signals are transported throughout the global ocean, a vast reservoir for heat and carbon dioxide. Labrador Sea Water (LSW), formed by open ocean convection in the subpolar North Atlantic, is a particularly sensitive indicator of climate change on interannual to decadal timescales1, 2, 3. Hydrographic observations made anywhere along the western boundary of the North Atlantic reveal a core of LSW at intermediate depths advected southward within the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC)4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. These observations have led to the widely held view that the DWBC is the dominant pathway for the export of LSW from its formation site in the northern North Atlantic towards the Equator10, 11. Here we show that most of the recently ventilated LSW entering the subtropics follows interior, not DWBC, pathways. The interior pathways are revealed by trajectories of subsurface RAFOS floats released during the period 2003–2005 that recorded once-daily temperature, pressure and acoustically determined position for two years, and by model-simulated ‘e-floats’ released in the subpolar DWBC. The evidence points to a few specific locations around the Grand Banks where LSW is most often injected into the interior. These results have implications for deep ocean ventilation and suggest that the interior subtropical gyre should not be ignored when considering the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7244/full/nature07979.html
Study finds surprising new pathway for North Atlantic circulation
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/whoi-sfs051309.php
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“New findings, published late last week in the journal Nature don’t dispute MOC, but suggest that the southern flow of deep water from Greenland may not follow as neat a path as assumed – including by the scientist in the Hollywood blockbuster. In particular rather than the deep water moving as a conveyor belt – yes that is the term that had been used to describe the flow of water southwards – it may be more diffuse. ”
The CSIRO specifically put up a web page saying that TDAT was fantasy and nothing to do with science. I don’t know why it is being brought up here.
SJT wrote:
“The CSIRO specifically put up a web page saying that TDAT was fantasy and nothing to do with science. I don’t know why it is being brought up here.”
True, the TDAT allusion was not absolutely necessary, but it was not gratuitous either. Skilled science writers are always looking for connections between the very familiar and the less familiar, in order to make the latter subject matter come alive for discerning readers who are not specialists in that area.
What about undiscerning readers? Their primary filter: Is this consistent with Established Doctrine? They will always see what they want to see, and will always look for a pretext to say NIGYSOB in response to writings that don’t have sufficient ideological purity. Not even the top-notch science writers, like the late Isaac Asimov (who also wrote sci fi), can get through to the truly closed-minded.
Good grief, now Nature is publishing fantasy – simply because it contradicts the Church of CSIRO.
Well, well, well that’s a bit of a turnaround, isn’t it SJT.
And what about Al Gore – doesn’t he make mention of the possible collapse of Greenland and implications for the Conveyor Belt? Does he suggest Europe could freeze over – or not?
“Good grief, now Nature is publishing fantasy”
At this rate the believers will soon be running out of excepted journals.
Jennifer wrote:
“And what about Al Gore – doesn’t he make mention of the possible collapse of Greenland and implications for the Conveyor Belt? Does he suggest Europe could freeze over – or not?”
Gore would have more credibility with me if he invoked the Flying Spaghetti Monster, rather than parroting vacuous slogans about MOC and other scientific concepts that he doesn’t have the wetware to grok. (The Gore comparison is not intended to slight the late Alex, his surviving African Grey brethren, and the other highly intelligent members of the extended parrot family.)
Oops “excepted” read approved, accepted etc.
Nice juxtaposition – Al Gore and the Day after Tomorrow.
One of the fiction events in Al’s “41 Convenient Lies” movie was to use the title footage of computer generated ice cliffs calving to demonstrate (=Fraudulate?) his political movie. And he will still probably be the first carbon credit billionaire!!
http://newsbusters.org/node/20680?q=blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/22/abc-s-20-20-gore-used-fictional-film-clip-inconvenient-truth
Isn’t that An Inconvenient Truth, AL.
“And what about Al Gore – doesn’t he make mention of the possible collapse of Greenland and implications for the Conveyor Belt? Does he suggest Europe could freeze over – or not?”
I still don’t know what a movie like TDAT has to do with science.
“I still don’t know what a movie like TDAT has to do with science.”
What if the Mexicans were pouring into the US to escape the heat?
SJT,
TDAT is all about global warming science – er I meant pseudoscience – so for once you are right – it has nothing to do with science, as does the IPCC process, since TDAT is based on the various IPCC scenarios.
TDAT is as much about science as Jurassic Park is. The CSIRO explictly said it had nothing to do with the climate research put out by them.
“CONVEYOR BELT MODEL BROKEN
News has come that the famed ocean conveyor belt, subject of countless TV documentaries and science lessons, is not as simple as scientists believed. The 50 year old model of global ocean circulation that predicts a deep Atlantic counter current below the Gulf Stream has been called into question by an armada of drifting subsurface sensors. As shocking as this news is to oceanographers it is even worse for climate modelers – it means that all the current climate prediction models are significantly wrong.
The Resilient Earth, 16 May 2009…
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/conveyor-belt-model-broken
““CONVEYOR BELT MODEL BROKEN”
Wunsch has been stating publicly for years he disagrees with the scientists who are worried about the possible MOC problems, and he is a firm believe in AGW. You are misrepresenting an active debate.
The AR4 FAQ discusses the MOC, and does not present it as settled at all. http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.pdf section 10.2. It does note that the MOC has indeed shut down in the past, so we know it is not unknown for climate change to do just that.
“The AR4 FAQ discusses the MOC, and does not present it as settled at all.”
But obviously “settled” enough to accurately model off.
Or not, as the case may be.
How many other doubtful situations like this exist for our infallible GCMs?
But, as with the pope, not a problem for true believers.
“How many other doubtful situations like this exist for our infallible GCMs?”
If you had bothered to read the AR, it’s right in there.
so it’s all settled, it’s not settled?
Don’t ya love consensual science.
SJT,
CSIRO explicitly stated?
Prove it by quoting it – the explicit statement, not a general reference to some document which you probably have not read.
http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2004/PrHollywood.htm
Hollywood’s latest disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, is about to be released. It is a fictional account of the havoc wreaked by out-of-control climate as North America is beset by the chilling beginnings of a new Ice Age in the course of 10 days. The movie features numerous catastrophic weather events including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and tidal waves striking New York.
“It’s a good yarn,” said Dr Tony Haymet, Chief of CSIRO Marine Research. “Like many of the catastrophe films, it’s loosely based on scientific fact. Enjoy the film for what it is, entertainment, but don’t go home afterwards and begin preparing for imminent disaster. Climate just doesn’t change that quickly.”
CSIRO Marine Research and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC are actively involved in international ocean observation programs that are monitoring ocean currents. Changes in ocean currents can cause climate change so the observations are critical for testing computer models used to project what the future climate will be like.
Europe’s climate, for example, is much warmer than other regions at the same latitude because an ocean current pattern called the overturning circulation, or ocean conveyor, carries heat from low to high latitudes.
Input of fresh water to the sea can disrupt the ocean conveyor, decrease the ocean heat transport, and therefore cause cooling. At the end of the last Ice Age, a large flood of fresh water released by melting ice sheets caused temperatures in the North Atlantic region to plummet by 5°C in a few decades.
Most computer models show a weakening, but not a complete shut down, of the warm currents by the year 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cooling due to a slow-down of the ocean conveyor offsets some, but not all, of the surface warming in Europe due to greenhouse gases.
The computer models also suggest that beyond 2100, the ocean conveyor could completely shut down, possibly irreversibly, in either hemisphere, if the greenhouse-warming is large enough and applied for long enough.
Australia is expected to warm as a result of the enhanced greenhouse effect, even if the ocean conveyor slows down. CSIRO projects that, over most of Australia, annual average temperatures will be 0.4°C to 2°C greater than 1990 by 2030.
This will lead to a 10-50 per cent increase in days over 35°C and a 20-80 per cent decrease in frosty days. There will be more extreme rainfall, stronger tropical cyclones, more fires, less snow and, in some parts of Australia, more droughts.
“The likelihood of a collapse of the ocean conveyor in the near-term is very low, but there is still much we don’t understand about the vulnerability of the climate system,” said CSIRO’s Dr Steve Rintoul. “A key issue is to determine if, by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we are pushing the climate system closer to a threshold where the odds of an abrupt change in climate are increased.
“A rapid shift in climate is possible – we know climate has changed abruptly in the geological past. But the time scale of climate change in the film has been dramatically compressed in order to create a good plot, and the impacts have been exaggerated. It is not possible for an Ice Age to occur in a few days,” Dr Rintoul said.
“Global warming is expected to increase rainfall at high latitudes. More rainfall will decrease the salinity of the ocean and may disrupt the ocean conveyor. Surprisingly, this means that global warming may lead to regional cooling.
“However, it is not clear whether the warming and increase in rainfall will be sufficient to push the climate system across the threshold to a colder climate.”
A slow down of the ocean conveyor is unlikely to cause an Ice Age in the near future. The present orbit of the Earth and high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that a new Ice Age, with large ice sheets on the continents of the northern hemisphere, is unlikely to occur for many thousands of years.
As far as I know, turbulence is still poorly understood, and so unpredictable – one of those chaotic phenomena. Am I right, or might one of our physicists, or physics teachers, care to bring me up to date?
If it is unpredictable, doesn’t that have implications for those studying cold, or warm, plumes of water, which seem to have a considerable bearing on climate?
Is not the atmosphere turbulent too? So are long term climate modellers trying to predict a partly chaotic system? Isn’t that a waste of time and money?
“Is not the atmosphere turbulent too? So are long term climate modellers trying to predict a partly chaotic system? Isn’t that a waste of time and money?”
If you warm up a chaotically turbulent container of water, it warms up. You can’t predict the swirls in it, but you can tell it will warm and by how much.
Turbulence? I don’t know. We have had severe cold snaps that were too short to be called Ice Ages. In the case of the Younger Dryas, which began 12900 years ago, we were already starting to recover from the last real Ice Age. There was a lot of melting going on in the continental glacier in the Western part of N. America Some people now refer to the vast melt zone as Lake Agasiz (spelling?). That huge lake was hemmed in by ice. Eventually, the melting caused the ice ‘shore’ to breach, and a humongous amount of fresh water was dumped into the ocean in a very short period of time. This disrupted the MOC for 1300 years. Or so the story goes. And there’s some good evidence for it.
My understanding is that the Younger Dryas affected the N. Hemisphere more than the Southern, which is consistent with the proposed scenario, and that there was a time lag between events in the two hemispheres. On of these days, I should read Ian Plimer’s book, and get the big picture.
Davey the chaos is bounded – the Earth and the simulations don’t suddenly jump to totally unpredictable states (unless of course its WA 🙂 ). And the models are run with slightly different starting conditions – and so chaos is sampled to some extent by the spray of ensemble runs.
But have you ever looked at the output of a GCM – pretty impressive in many respects – fronts, highs and lows all generating and regenerating. Circulation systems of various complexities. Obviously far from perfect but also not trivial either.
So be critical but don’t trivialise the state of play either.
Thanks for a reasoned answer Luke, but when I look at all the swirls and fronts on the nightly weather map, I am left wondering if there are some things we may never understand, and so never entirely predict. Turbulence may be one of them. It’s all those dratted butterflies flapping about.
SJT,
Well done, 10/10 for cutting and pasting.
“A slow down of the ocean conveyor is unlikely to cause an Ice Age in the near future. The present orbit of the Earth and high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that a new Ice Age, with large ice sheets on the continents of the northern hemisphere, is unlikely to occur for many thousands of years.”
We do not know what causes ice ages – and your heros are now stating that they know an ice age won’t occur, which means they know what causes ice ages in order to make that statement.
As I pointed out before, it’s pseudoscience.
Larry,
Have you tried a climate model made with dowels and bread dough? There could be a federal grant in this … On the other hand, you could have a look at the number of ring permutations of temperatures at, say, ten kilometre intervals around the equator.
“We do not know what causes ice ages – and your heros are now stating that they know an ice age won’t occur, which means they know what causes ice ages in order to make that statement.”
Louis. Read up on the subject just a little. The Milankovich cycles are one known cause, and we can predict when the next one that causes an ice age should be happening.
“The Milankovich cycles are one known cause, and we can predict when the next one that causes an ice age should be happening.”
Is it before 2011 and the ETS?
“Thanks for a reasoned answer Luke, but when I look at all the swirls and fronts on the nightly weather map, I am left wondering if there are some things we may never understand, and so never entirely predict. Turbulence may be one of them. It’s all those dratted butterflies flapping about.”
Yet the weather forecast out to a week is now very reliable. It’s certainly not ‘entirely’ predictable, but the accuracy is impressive.
And the climate models aren’t predicting the weather. That’s why they don’t follow dips and bumps, they are designed to model the pot the water is in, not the chaotic motion of the water itself.
SJT,
Weather and climate are not two seperate sets.
Climate is made up of weather.
If the weather does not change significantly- and it has not- then the AGW predictions are wrong. And they very much are.
Green Davey wrote:
“Larry,
Have you tried a climate model made with dowels and bread dough?”
Guilty as charged, Your Honor. I’m very food-oriented. What else can I say?
The Blueberry Pancake Theory of Climate Change (BPT)
What do blueberry pancakes have to do with Global Warming? I’m glad that you asked.
Several years ago, an astrophysicist friend explained his own ideas about climate change. That was the inspiration for my own BPT. I don’t see many of the prominent Global Warming mavens talking about the Blueberry Pancake Theory of Climate Change. So I’ll pass on my own half-baked model. I know, bad pun!
Anyway… Over long periods of time, the Earth’s orbital plane rotates into, and then slightly out of the planetary disk of our solar system. Why? Small LATERAL gravitational tweaks from Jupiter. In addition to planets and asteroids, the disk also contains dust. When the Earth is ‘buried’ in the planetary disk, there is more dust between it and the sun, and a slightly smaller proportion of the sun’s light hits the Earth. This has a small global cooling effect, even if solar output remains constant.
When the Earth’s orbital plane and the planetary disk form a small angle, something interesting happens. There are semiannual global warming ‘seasons’ when the Earth passes slightly out of the disk, alternating with semiannual global cooling ‘seasons’ when the Earth goes back into the disk again. Overall, there’s a slight global warming effect in this scenario. To understand the cooling effect of the dust in the disk, here’s an analogy.
The next time you make blueberry pancakes for breakfast, save one, and let it cool off. Then use a butter knife to cut out a 3-inch circular piece from the center, and feed that center piece to your Border Collie. You’re left with a doughnut-shaped pancake. Next remove the lampshade from your living room lamp. Turn on the lamp. Hold the pancake ring around the light bulb. The light bulb will heat up the pancake ring unevenly.
Obviously, the part of the pancake ring closest to the bulb will heat up the fastest. More to the point, the blueberries on the surface of the pancake ring will heat up faster than the deeply buried blueberries that are the same distance from the lightbulb. In this analogy, the lightbulb plays the role of the sun, the cooked pancake batter plays the role of the dust in the planetary disk, and the blueberries play the roles of the planets.
The concentration of dust in the planetary disk varies somewhat. For example, infrequent asteroid collisions are one source of dust, and these don’t happen on a regular basis. Anyway, variable dust concentrations within the disk may also contribute to some degree of climate variation.
The majority of people on both sides of the Global Warming debate acknowledge that for the big climate changes in the geologic past, astronomical events were the most important drivers (with volcanic activity in second place). Most of the Global Warming Alarmists and some of the Global Warming Pollyannas assume that variations in the sun’s output are the most important astronomical events in this respect. Even if it is the 800-pound gorilla, solar variability isn’t necessarily the whole story of astronomy as a driver of climate change. It’s very possible that the Blueberry Pancake Effect also has a significant effect on climate change. I think that we need to do more research on ALL of the astronomical theories of climate change, including the Milankovitch Theory and the Blueberry Pancake Theory.
Interesting talk of weather predictability and how over 30 years this leads to climate.
An elderly lady died this week at the age of 112 ( Aust’s oldest citizen) and was born in 1896.
JUST THINK in her lifetime she has seen the climate cool to around 1910 then warm to 1945 ( 35years) then cool to 1975 (30 years), then warm to 1999 ( 24 years ).
Of course in the first 56 years of her life ( to 1952 ) the Murray DB had a lot less rainfall and flooding than in the second 56 years of her life.
Just goes to show that the climate changes naturally without the help of humans, so let’s save our billions and build more infrastructure to conserve more water when the rains eventually come again.
“An elderly lady died this week at the age of 112 ( Aust’s oldest citizen) and was born in 1896.”
Neville, but after all those fluctuations what finally got her?
AGW, I bet!
“Weather and climate are not two seperate sets.
Climate is made up of weather.
If the weather does not change significantly- and it has not- then the AGW predictions are wrong. And they very much are.”
The day to day variations of rain, high and low temperature, PDO are chaotic. The models cannot predict them. They work on the basis that if you have this much CO2, this much sunlight, this much land here, this much water there, etc, what do I come up with? The weather will not match, but if the models are right, the climate, which is the averaged weather, will be right.
“Just goes to show that the climate changes naturally without the help of humans, so let’s save our billions and build more infrastructure to conserve more water when the rains eventually come again.”
I did an apprenticeship with an aboriginal rainmaker over 50 years ago and I’ve never had a drought since.
At present it’s raining cats and dogs [8 inches in the last 48 hours] and no let up.
It’s a career path that few choose these days but I think there would be money in it.
“The weather will not match, but if the models are right, the climate, which is the averaged weather, will be right.”
SJT, I’ll let you into a little secret. When you don’t know what causes one, you don’t know what causes the other.
And when you are only sweating the small stuff you are a humbug.
“SJT, I’ll let you into a little secret. When you don’t know what causes one, you don’t know what causes the other.”
We seem to have an excellent understaning of how weather works, given that one week forecasts now give very good results. The problem is not in the modeling, or the understanding of how weather works, but your inability to understand what is being done in researching climate and weather.
Larry,
Thanks for the Blueberry Pancake Theory of Climate Change. You have a gift for metaphor – more of it is needed in the climate debate, and education in general. As a teacher, SJT may jump at the chance to use BPTCC.
When I was at school, the only things I understood were metaphors – something to do with mental mapping, and a touch of dyslexia, I believe. Keep ’em coming.
SJT,
I think a week ahead is stretching it a bit for weather forecasts. I would give it three days ahead at best. In our case (Western Australia) that is the time it takes for a pressure system spotted out in the Indian/Southern Oceans to reach us. Not a lot of ‘modelling’ needed I suspect.
“We seem to have an excellent understaning of how weather works, given that one week forecasts now give very good results.”
SJT, when you are in the situation where you “get all the news you need on the weather report”, IOW, your life depends on the accuracy of these reports, come back and tell me how accurate they are.
“SJT, when you are in the situation where you “get all the news you need on the weather report”, IOW, your life depends on the accuracy of these reports, come back and tell me how accurate they are.”
Far more accurate than ignorance.
SJT:
“The day to day variations of rain, high and low temperature, PDO are chaotic. The models cannot predict them. They work on the basis that if you have this much CO2, this much sunlight, this much land here, this much water there, etc, what do I come up with? The weather will not match, but if the models are right, the climate, which is the averaged weather, will be right.”
Now this is the best non sequitur yet! If the models cannot predict chaotic events, but if the model is right…..
Bring in Looney Tunes.
“Now this is the best non sequitur yet! If the models cannot predict chaotic events, but if the model is right…..”
When you make a cake, can you predict which molecule will bond with which molecule?
Green Davey wrote:
“When I was at school, the only things I understood were metaphors – something to do with mental mapping, and a touch of dyslexia, I believe.”
Speaking of dyslexia, there’s now a bumper sticker: Dyslexics untie!
“Far more accurate than ignorance.”
SJT, It’s plain to see that you are never in the situation where you need accurate weather reports.
If you were you would realise that it’s still about the same as tossing a coin.
BTW, what’s the latest confidence index from your mate Prof Methanus Carboni at the Global Warming Institute?
His last was 90-95%. That’s 18-19 to 1 odds on that it’s happening.
If you’re prepared to put your money where your mouth is, I’ll offer you twice those odds.
9 to 1. Wadda ya say?
Put up or shut up.
SJT, as a specific instance of forecasting accuracy, yesterday, 20/5/09 at 14.30 hrs, the Southport Seaway was experiencing hurricane force winds while the BoM had a strong wind warning out.
Nobody with half a brain expects any more accuracy than this WRT weather and to a somewhat lesser degree, climate, predictions but please spare us sceptics your true believer infallibility.
“SJT, It’s plain to see that you are never in the situation where you need accurate weather reports.
If you were you would realise that it’s still about the same as tossing a coin.”
Wrong, I have been in that situation, and the accuracy of them is remakable over a day, good over three days, and worth looking at over a week.
“Wrong, I have been in that situation, and the accuracy of them is remakable over a day, good over three days, and worth looking at over a week.”
Are you talking about going for a picnic or putting yourself at the mercy of the elements?
Are you talking about correct barometric pressure, wind strength and direction, sea conditions etc or just that the sun is shining?
Because if you are depending on forecasts in serious situations and you don’t have plan B ready, you are a mug.
Today, with the state of emergency in SEQ the rock solid forecast was “we are hoping” that the weather will do such and such…
SJT wrote:
“It does note that the MOC has indeed shut down in the past, so we know it is not unknown for climate change to do just that.”
SJT, who are you trying to fool? They do say that MOC has shut down in the past but it is your clever way of twisting their words when you add: “so we know it is not unknown for climate change to do just that”
That doesn’t follow from what they said as they have no evidence that the MOC shut down AS A RESULT of climate change. They do speculate that the current climate change could affect the MOC but they have no evidence that this was the cause in the past. It is your deduction by making the causal relationship with your “so”. Sure, a shut down of the MOC will affect the N European weather but that climate change is the cause of past shut downs is not established, as far as I can ascertain. Please feel free to correct me by showing me the scientific evidence ( a peer reviewed paper on the subject will do).
“Are you talking about going for a picnic or putting yourself at the mercy of the elements?
Are you talking about correct barometric pressure, wind strength and direction, sea conditions etc or just that the sun is shining?
Because if you are depending on forecasts in serious situations and you don’t have plan B ready, you are a mug.”
You are not debating the point. The point is, does the quality of the weather forecasts we get indicate a good understanding of the how the weather works. It does, we get excellent quality compared to 30 years ago. If you want to meander off into some other debate, feel free.
“SJT, who are you trying to fool? They do say that MOC has shut down in the past but it is your clever way of twisting their words when you add: “so we know it is not unknown for climate change to do just that””
I’m not trying to fool anyone, if I have misunderstood what they were saying, so be it. The point is, the CSIRO did not want the current climate science to be associated with TDAT, they gave their reasons for saying so, and what they think the current understanding of the MOC is.
SJT: “They work on the basis that if you have this much CO2, this much sunlight, this much land here, this much water there, etc, what do I come up with? The weather will not match, but if the models are right, the climate, which is the averaged weather, will be right.”
SJT, you should read what Henk Tennekes wrote. That will teach you some humility with regards to your proclamations that the models “will be right”.
The next paragraphs by Henk Tennekes I copied from http://climatesci.org/2009/01/ to make it easy on you:
“A climate model, however, has to deal with the entire climate system, which does include the world’s oceans. The oceans constitute a crucial slow component of the climate system. Crucial, because this is where most of the accessible heat in the system is stored. Meteorologists tend to forget that just a few meters of water contain as much heat as the entire atmosphere. Also, the oceans are the main source of the water vapor that makes atmospheric dynamics on our planet both interesting and exceedingly complicated. For these and other reasons, an explicit representation of the oceans should be the core of any self-respecting climate model.
However, the observational systems for the oceans are primitive in comparison with their atmospheric counterparts. Satellites that can keep track of what happens below the surface of the ocean have limited spatial and temporalresolution. Also, the scale of synoptic motions in the ocean is much smaller than that of cyclones in the atmosphere, requiring a spatial resolution in numerical models and in the observation network beyond the capabilities of present observational systems and supercomputers. We cannot observe, for example, the vertical and horizontal structure of temperature, salinity and motion of eddies in the Gulf Stream in real time with sufficient detail, and cannot model them at the detail that is needed because of computer limitations. How, for goodness’ sake, can we then reliably compute their contribution to multi-decadal changes in the meridional transport of heat? Are the crude parameterizations used in practice up to the task of skillfully predicting the physical processes in the ocean several tens of years ahead? I submit they are not.”
“You are not debating the point. The point is, does the quality of the weather forecasts we get indicate a good understanding of the how the weather works. It does, we get excellent quality compared to 30 years ago. If you want to meander off into some other debate, feel free.”
SJT, You are unbelievable. This is precisely the point.
The quality of the forcast is what I am talking about.
Just because it is getting better doesn’t make it correct.
And the quality is often lacking and while it may sound generally correct to the average picnic goer wondering what clothes to wear, it often lacks the accuracy for serious pursuits.
When you apply that lack of accuracy to long range climate forecasting you would have to be naive to accept their predictions.
Climate forcasting does not work the way you say it does. It ignores the initial conditions, because it cannot take a chaotic system and go from the initial state to the final state. They don’t pretend to, they don’t claim to. It’s like baking a cake, take the ingredients, mix it up, see what the result is. It’s much more complex than that in practice, as they track the changes in albedo and other factors. But you are comparing weather forecasting to modeling the climate. As for Pielke’s blog, if I was Gavin I’d tell him to take a hike, too. They relentlessly abuse the scientists, then abuse them for not wanting to be part of the process of abuse.
sjt
are you a pastry cook by any chance?
you seem to have this hang up about cakes.
““A climate model, however, has to deal with the entire climate system, which does include the world’s oceans. The oceans constitute a crucial slow component of the climate system. Crucial, because this is where most of the accessible heat in the system is stored. Meteorologists tend to forget that just a few meters of water contain as much heat as the entire atmosphere. Also, the oceans are the main source of the water vapor that makes atmospheric dynamics on our planet both interesting and exceedingly complicated. For these and other reasons, an explicit representation of the oceans should be the core of any self-respecting climate model.”
The current generation of climate models do incorporate the oceans and their effect on climate.
“the excuses of Hadley Center executive John Mitchell for refusing to provide his Review Comments on IPCC AR4 chapter 6 are among the most colorful: first, Mitchell said that he had destroyed all his correspondence with IPCC; then he said that they were his personal property. David Holland then submitted FOI requests for Mitchell’s expenses for trips to IPCC destinations and information on whether he had done so on vacation time, while also confronting Hadley Center with their representations to the public on how Hadley Center scientists were doing the British public proud through their participation as Hadley Center employees in IPCC. So Hadley Center foraged around for a new excuse – this time arguing that releasing Mitchell’s review comments would compromise British relations with an international organization (IPCC), IPCC in the meantime having informed Hadley Center that it did not consent to the review comments being made public – ignoring provisions in the IPCC by-laws that require them to make such comments public. In administrative law terms, there is unfortunately no recourse against IPCC – an interesting legal question that we’ve pondered from time to time (also see Global Administrative Law blog here.)
“We’ve also tried unsuccessfully to obtain Caspar Ammann’s secret review comments on chapter 6, which IPCC failed to include in their compilation of Review Comments and which Ammann and Fortress CRU have refused to make public.”
SJT,
Just a bit of comment on the quality of the IPCC “science” from Climate Audit.
McIntyre isnt’ interested in science, he’s only interested in character assasination. I’d tell him to go jump, too.
“McIntyre isnt’ interested in science, he’s only interested in character assasination. I’d tell him to go jump, too.”
These are details that are supposed to be supplied so others can replicate the science.
How can any IPCC report ever be a credible document with this attitude towards any enquiry?
“These are details that are supposed to be supplied so others can replicate the science.”
No, the scientific method to date has been on the basis that if you think they are right and they are wrong, you do your own work and prove yourself right. McIntyre has reduced the practice of science to a bitching match, and he seems to enjoy the snide remarks he regularly directs towards scientists, with juvenile name calling a regular occurance.
It’s bad enough when the IPCC produce this sort of “science”.
It’s worse when they prevent scrutiny.
It’s worse still when fools support their villainy.
It’s ten times worse when these same fools vilify someone who spends his life trying to correct the problem.
Postmodernist science anyone?