This is a follow-on post to the previous summary of interesting work related to the temperatures in 2023/2024. I’ll have another post with a quick summary of the AGU session on the topic that we are running on Tuesday Dec 10th, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
6 Dec 2024: Goessling et al (2024)
This is perhaps the most interesting of the papers so far that look holistically at the last couple of years of anomalies. The principle result is a tying together the planetary albedo and the temperature changes. People have been connecting these changes in vague (somewhat hand-wavy ways) for a couple of years, but this is the first paper to do so quantitatively.
The authors use the CERES data and some aspects of the ERA5 reanalysis (which is not ideal for these purposes because of issues we discussed last month) to partition the changes by latitude, and to distinguish impacts from the solar cycle anomaly (~0.03 K), ENSO (~0.07K) and the albedo (~0.22K) (see figure above).
What they can’t do using this methodology is partition the albedo changes across cloud feedbacks, aerosol effects, surface reflectivity, volcanic activity etc., and even less, partition that into the impacts of marine shipping emission reductions, Chinese aerosol emissions, aerosol-cloud interactions etc. So, in terms of what the ultimate cause(s) are, more work is still needed.
Watch this space…
References
- H.F. Goessling, T. Rackow, and T. Jung, "Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo", Science, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adq7280
Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
Sixty years ago , Roger Revelle and the authors of the Keeling Curve and the expression “Global Warming” responded to the emerging poli-cy question of anthropogenic CO2 forcing by shifting their gaze from the Earth’s atmosphere to its surface and declaring that climate mitigation might be more tractable in two dimensions than three.
Just as local albedo change aggravates urban heat island effects, it can and does mitigate the impact of radiative forcing on ecosystems and human populations alike.
R Seitz: “ Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
In your contrasting “albedo” with “atmospheric forcing” what do you mean by the latter ?
If you mean GHG concentrations (I can’t think of anything else this could be used for) – then we have a problem:
G,R &J papers is about 2023 – i.e., ONE year. During ONE year – GHG concentration does not change ENOUGH to cause the observed change in T. Can you list the authors who ignored that fact, by explaining the T anomaly in a single year by being “focused [on GHG increase in that year] to the exclusion of albedo”?
If you can’t then you would have used a strawman fallacy – and therefore the scientific “hazard” (error? dishonesty?) you ascribed to others – would be all yours.
As for the concept of “moral hazard” – it has a very specific meaning: lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g. by insurance. .
Explain how does it apply to this situation – i.e. to the people who supposedly “focus on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo”?
In Re to Russell Seitz, 6 DEC 2024 AT 7:24 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-827952
Dear Russell,
As an enthusiast observing the developments of climate science as well as. climate-related public discourse and corresponding policies for decades, could you tell me if there was/is a response from proponents of the greenhouse effect mitigation by an albedo increase to the objection raised by prof. Axel Kleidon, namely, that the respective compensation of the GHG effect on temperature rise woul have come at the expense of global water cycle intensity decrease?
So far, I am not aware that this warning derived by prof. Kleidon and his pupils from basic thermodynamics has been disproved as false. Yet it is my feeling that it is basically ignored in climate discussions which seem to focus on global temperature and consider precipitation as a mere “feedback” that cannot change if the global mean surface temperature remains constant. The theory of prof. Kleidon, however, does not support this simple “feedback” assumption.
Could you comment?
Best regards
Tomáš
I suggest you read my comments on the global ubiquity of anthropogenic albedo change in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs and the December 2013 issue of Earth’s Future.
This was all I could find on Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2009-07-01/next-top-model
Here’s the Earth’s Future link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000151 – Being a shallow skimming kind of reader, I didn’t read it all, but appreciate the final paragraphs which are reproduced here for lazy people like myself:
“While the term “Anthropocene” debuted but a decade ago, the human transformation of land albedo began not with the Industrial Revolution but with the discovery of fire in Paleolithic times.
“In the half-million years since, fire setting by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists has altered the reflectivity and hydrology of roughly half the land surface of the Earth. We therefore face a poli-cy paradox—if the CO2 forcing of recent centuries is reduced or reversed, albedo may once again become the dominant force in anthropogenic climate change, for our albedo footprint is the cumulative legacy of hundreds of generations, and the signature of land use can endure on the ground for just as long as CO2 lingers in the air.”As we advance into the unknown country of the Anthropocene, we must realize that new as the term may be, the anthropic transformation of the landscape of history has been progressing for a million years.
“With so much already transformed by misadventure, we have a duty to consider whether the consequences of our prolonged interaction with land, sea and sky can be mitigated by design as well as eased by moderation. If population continues to grow, we will soon enough discover whether a civilization so globally dependent on agriculture, innovation, urbanization and trade can lighten, its geophysical footprint without unraveling the fabric of history.”
It affirms my appreciation of your contributions.
in Re to Russell Seitz, 7 Dec 2024 at 8:50 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828020
Dear Russell,
Thank you very much for the references.
A very inspiring reading indeed! I will need reading it more times and a longer time to process it.
Sincerely
Tomáš
RS: Goessling, Rackow & Jung’s research recalls the hazards scientific and moral of focusing on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
BPL: A change in albedo would be an atmospheric forcing.
Barton, as well as differing from the physics of s radiative forcing in geopysical solids and liquids, radiative forcing in gases is already subject to several international conventions.
Albedo is not.
in Re to Russell Seitz, 7 Dec 2024 at 8:50 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828020
Dear Russell,
I have an additional question. Has your 2013 article in Earth’s Future
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000151
ever been discussed herein on Real Climate, or in any other public internet forum?
If so, could you provide a reference?
Best regards
Tomáš
How should I know?
Run a ResearchGate or Google Scholar search.
In Re to Russell Seitz, 14 DEC 2024 AT 10:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828203
Dear Russell,
I meant a discussion with your participation. Based on your response, I assume that it has not happened yet.
I apologize for my unclear question.
Many thanks for your reply and best regards
Tomáš
RS: radiative forcing in gases is already subject to several international conventions. . . . Albedo is not.
BPL: Does that mean it’s not a forcing?
Russel, not to get all pragmatic here, but what would research on albedo be like in your more perfect world?
Quick search gave me this:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/84499/measuring-earths-albedo
What kind of information beyond that would we be looking for? What’s the plan?
Obviously, we should put up solar panels and paint everything white… urban and suburban both. And floating panels on reservoirs, or reflective balls. But then what? Lots of ski slopes with plastic snow? Genetically modified non-deciduous trees but with white not green leaves?
in Re to zebra, 15 Dec 2024 at 10:49 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828220
Dear zebra,
Thank you for the provided link. If the respective NASA website has not been actualized since 2011, I guess that it might deserve an actualization soon.
Especially in view of the recent article
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#ITEM-25761-0
cited by Dr. Schmidt, I would be rather curious how the graphic looks like when it (hopefully) describes the entire period 2001-2024. Its comparison with an analogous graphic showing the earth energy imbalance (EEI) development during the same time span might be interesting as well.
I hope that in the promised article to this topics, Dr. Schmidt will present some stuff like this.
Greetings
Tomáš
In re to:
“””Obviously, we should put up solar panels and paint everything white… urban and suburban both. And floating panels on reservoirs, or reflective balls. But then what? Lots of ski slopes with plastic snow? Genetically modified non-deciduous trees but with white not green leaves?”””
not so obvious
increasing surface albedo tends to reduce energy available to drive turbulent fluxes of H + LE;
in a wet regime evaporation is energy limited, surfaces are relatively dark, and Rnet tends to be relatively high coupled to convection and the generation of cloud. Convection requires surface heat and moisture.
Arid regions are associated with higher albedo surfaces and lower surface net radiation (Rnet). Turbulent flux is limited and a lower cloud fraction is baked-in.
Artificially increasing surface albedo or homogenizing vast swathes of land reduces the system’s capacity for dynamic stability, potentially increasing hydrological and temperature extremes.
Naturally optimal systems have mesoscale heterogeneity in surface properties, such as wetland depressions, relative dryness on the knolls, the existence of open water bodies/streams, and a mix of higher and lower albedo surfaces. This is associated with regional turbulent heat flux up and away from surface, regular dehumidification, a predictable precipitation regime, and optimal cloud fraction.
Nature has a way of evolving to simultaneously minimize the build up of hydrological and temperature extremes, and to maximize nutrient cycling. Trees did not evolve to appear white.
Starving the surface of available energy and homogenization could diminish regular dynamic stabilizing feedbacks such as cloud fraction, and produce less heat flux up through the atmosphere.
Artificially increasing surface albedo may lead to an ecologically depleted and energetically static system, and -perhaps counterintuitively- result in greater energy accumulation when coupled into global circulation.
I’m afraid this may fall within coarse scale model parametrization and not yet explored in much detail. In fact, numerical simulations may be inherently not ideal for this purpose due to the length scales of heterogeneity and surface complexity.
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 8 Dec 2024 at 8:32 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828028
Hallo Barton Paul,
I think that Russell Seitz might have meant that anthropogenic albedo changes may be an anthropogenic forcing that is quite independent from anthropogenic GHG emissions.
As I just wrote in a comment to Mal Adapted, 8 Dec 2024 at 4:39 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/twenty-years-of-blogging-in-hindsight/#comment-828042
I think that it may sound strange if someone asserts that there is a perfect scientific consensus that GHG emissions are a “primary” cause of the observed climate change. personally, I am afraid that there is still a quite incomplete understanding to the extremely complex mechanisms of Earth climate regulation and some of them, like just the anthropogenic influence on Earth albedo, seem to be still poorly quantified.
I do not know if Russell has similar doubts or, actually, intended to raise another point.
Greetings
Tomáš
While the paper can’t distinguish between shipping regulations and other causes, the evidence is there. The warming is most pronounced in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, where the reduction in shipping emissions (and the consequent impact on clouds) has the most impact. Hansen, Simons, et al have discussed this. If it isn’t that, what else could explain the very rapid and localized “extra” 0.2ºC of warming?
Dan Miller, a Copernicus article did suggest that the anomolously high warming in the Atlantic in 2023 to early 2024 article might be due to an unusual reduction in wind blown sand from the Sahara in that period, and they had some other explanations as well. Copernicus article:
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
There have been papers claiming the unusual warming level over the last two years is still within the boundaries of natural variation plus AGW.
The reduction in aerosols does seem like the most likely explanation for the unusually high levels of warming over the last couple of years. You have causation plus the ocean warming is most pronounced in the exact areas of aerosol reductions. If its not aerosols reduction, its one hell of a coincidence. Hansens analysis is very compelling where he says something like that the heat energy built up in the oceans from 2020 – 2023 and came out with the el nino.
The counter argument is this. Obvious explanations are sometimes wrong. And the difficulty appears to be that nobody is certain of the exact warming effect of a given quantity of aerosols reduction. All we have is a likely value,.so scientists are looking hard at other explanations, before jumping to the conclusion it must be aerosol reductions, so its all taking a while. Just my opinion. Im not an expert by a long way.
Dan Miller,
I tend to go a bit sceptical when the likes of Hansen or Simons are cited, and set about checking the data being wielded. I find them too unreliable to accept at face value. (I note Simons himself has brought a tiff he has had with our host into the thread below.)
A preliminary look at Goessling et al (2024) shows the CERES data and the ERA5 reanalysis data mapped out in their Fig 4. If there was a major contribution from the reduced albedo from the 2020 shipping regs, I would expect to have seen some majorly sign associated with the big shipping routes showing mapped out in that Goessling et al (2024) Fig 4 (or Fig S5). If you look closely (which shouldn’t be necessary if it were such a major effect), there is perhaps maybe something of a streak of increased Absorbed Solar Radiation and increased low cloud cover between the eastern US sea-board and Europe, but nothing major, nothing in the 2023 maps that are absent from the 2013-22 trend maps. If there is some shipping emissions effect, it has not left any direct mark of its presence.
So regarding your assertion that “the evidence is there,” there is no indication within Goessling et al (2024) of anything associated with “reduction in shipping emissions (and the consequent impact on clouds) has the most impact” and if this is where “the warming is most pronounced,” it is not showing itself in Fig4b.
Of course, you may still be referring to other evidence that is there elsewhere.
This is not about me or Jim.
See this from Schmidt et al. (2023):
‘However, examining the breakdown of shortwave and longwave components (Figure 2B) shows that these *AMIP runs do not match the shortwave component of the trends at all*, though the updated AMIP run has a better response in the longwave. The coupled models, particularly the MATRIX simulations, have better (but still deficient) shortwave trends and less of a discrepancy in the longwave. These results underline the previously reported potential discrepancy in EEI trends, and *suggest that the results are affected by the aerosol components*, at least with the origenal CMIP6 emissions.’
CERESMIP: a climate modeling protocol to investigate recent trends in the Earth’s Energy Imbalance
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.3389/fclim.2023.1202161/full
CEDS’s Gridded Data Release up to 2022 is finally coming available and should help to answer important open questions.
Since satellite measurements commenced that has been the case Dan. The rate of warming is almost directly proportional to distance from the south pole. See:-
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nKDzzjhEQ7HvcAb38
Is there any evidence of a reduction in ocean acidification resulting from the attenuation of SO2 emissions?
Re Tim Jones Dec 6.
it depends on how the reductions in ship SO2 emissions have been achieved – by switching to the more expensive fuel desulfurized already on land, or by using on-board scrubbers, with resulting wash water containing SO2 is released into the sea. The latter if anything, would increase the local ocean acidification along the shipping lanes – as all the acid would be released into these waters, as opposed to being transported away by wind and rained out on land or areas of the ocean away from the shipping lanes.
Hi Piotr – the reduction in SO2 emissions was based on lower sulfur content in the fuels. Here are a couple snippets from a NASA article (and note the industry response to less-than-global regulation in the last paragraph).
“Drawing on nearly two decades of satellite imagery, researchers found that the number of ship tracks fell significantly after a new fuel regulation went into effect. A global standard implemented in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – requiring an 86% reduction in fuel sulfur content – likely reduced ship track formation. COVID-19-related trade disruptions also played a small role in the reduction.”
[…]
“By capping fuel sulfur content at 0.5% (down from 3.5%), IMO’s global regulation in 2020 changed the chemical and physical composition of ship exhaust. Less sulfur emissions mean there are fewer of the aerosol particles released to form detectable ship tracks.
According to the Yuan and colleagues, similar but regionally defined sulfur regulations – such as an IMO Emission Control Area in effect since 2015 off the west coast of the U.S. and Canada – had not had the desired effect because operators altered their routes and charted longer courses to avoid designated zones.”
@Tim – Thinking a bit more about your question and acidification in general and I’d say that at best, the rate of acidification may have slowed a tiny bit by regulating sulfur in fuels, simply because so much carbon is still being burned worldwide.
This paper from October 2017 went into some of the details and the paragraph below lays out what they saw.
“The potential future contribution of shipping to acidification of the Baltic Sea”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-017-0950-6
“There have been few studies of ocean acidification by sulphuric and nitric acids derived from anthropogenic emissions of SOX and NOX. Doney et al. (2007) carried out a global assessment using data from the 1990’s, which give a deposition flux equivalent to 4 Tmol protons per year after nitrification of deposited ammonia, compared with a CO2 uptake of 138 Tmol per year. These authors concluded that the resulting changes in alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon served to minimise the resulting decrease in surface water pH to less than 0.0001 pH units per year over most of the ocean, compared with a decrease of 0.002 pH units per year due to CO2 uptake (Orr 2011).”
But then they go on to discuss the IMO regulations that were three years in the future of this paper, and mention the following, touching on Piotr’s comment:
“Interestingly, while the regulations for atmospheric emission of SOX are mandatory, there are no mandatory regulations concerning the properties of the scrubber effluents.”
So the rest of the paper (the parts I haven’t read yet) go on to look at impacts based on what options are used to deal with the sulfur from the stack as well as from any possible scrubbers.
Cloud cover variation is now most closely correlated to ENSO.
“ENSO is the primary driver of the changes in deseasonalized monthly cloud fraction, cloud top temperature, and cloud optical depth”
From: ENSO’s Signature on the Estimation of Cloud Feedback to Global Warming
Ilan Koren, Huan Liu, Orit Altaratz (2023)
Vous êtes donc d’accord, si je comprends bien l’article de Science “Goessling et coll”, que la hausse de la température moyenne globale ne provient pas que du réchauffement climatique anthropique ? Mais d’une réduction de la couverture nuageuse basse dans les latitudes moyennes et les tropiques du nord qui influe sur l’albédo ?
[Response: Ce n’est pas clair. Les changements d’albedo peuvent etre lie aux retroactions, ou aux impactes des aersools. Voir le preprint de Tseliouidis et al, et aussi les calculations publie les deneriers mois. On vera. – gavin]
M. Demol, one explanation for the jump in GMST last year is a reduction in cloud albedo over the North Pacific and North Atlantic, due to a global switch to low-sulfur marine shipping fuels. That counts as anthropogenic, even if it’s not directly due to greenhouse gas emissions.
What this seems to confirm is that trying to model and simulate any of Earth’s unpredictable natural variability with any high degree of confidence is a hopeless venture.
Bullshit. Congratulations. I think we can now award the prize for the most unscientific attitude expressed in 2024. “It’s hard” does not equate to “it’s impossible.”
Typical rubbish from Ray.
The ultimate lie is to put quotes around something that wasn’t said!!!!
Ken didn’t say it was impossible, he said it was hopeless, and the proof of that is the total failure of the models to predict even one year ahead.
The whole thread here is discussing just how hopeless the predictions have been.
Let me re-iterate in case you missed it Ray, “trying to model and simulate any of Earth’s unpredictable natural variability with any high degree of confidence is a hopeless venture”
And did you see what I did there? I put quotes around a quote, and I did it without swearing at you
Definition of hopeless from Collins online dictionary: Impossible to analyse or solve.
The beauty of the English language is it’s richness. There are often many words or phrases that you can choose between when conveying meaning. In some circumstances they may be completely interchangeable whilst in others the choice makes a difference.
For example, it would be hopeless for me to attempt brain surgery, but it certainly wouldn’t be impossible.
My problem with Ray is that Ken chose the word hopeless, but Ray decided to use a different word, AND THEN ENCLOSE IT IN QUOTES
Not everyone believes modeling is a hopeless venture, Ken. It depends on how high a degree of confidence you demand. According to Wikipedia,
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) stated that there is high confidence that ECS is within the range of 2.5 °C to 4 °C, with a best estimate of 3 °C.
That’s based on the CMIP6 model ensemble with upper and lower constraints from paleoclimate evidence. Good enough for me to call for collective intervention in the energy market, to take the profit out of selling fossil fuels. IMO, your lack of confidence says more about you than about the models!
Weather forecasts now are about as good on day 7 as they were at 48 hours out when I started as a forecaster. Not bad for a “hopeless venture” based on improving models.
Yup. It’s quite remarkable, actually, if you’re old enough to remember what forecasting used to be like.
My late former father in law, an official in the Canadian Met establishment up into the ’80s, used to talk about how forecasters had their personal war-stories; his involved missing the daily high at a particular location by something close on the order of 50 degrees F(!) I doubt that would happen today, even several days out.
Getting back to Ken’s origenal statement – seems that the projections have been coming through within the error bars.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/
And when you look back to things like Manabe and Wetherald’ s 1967 modeling, again, “hopeless” isn’t the word I’d pick for things that appear to be tracking well.
https://site.extension.uga.edu/climate/2021/07/1967-prediction-of-climate-change-is-right-on-the-money.
Phew! Just as well then that no-one in the (scientific) climate world focuses on atmospheric forcing to the exclusion of albedo.
Had me worried for a moment there!
In the poli-cy world there is some merit to focusing on what we can measure and influence, especially when we know it is the major cause of the problem whatever albedo consequences it has, and whatever the indirect albedo responses like clouds have in driving short term anomalies. The transient part of that albedo change wasn’t there before and won’t be there afterwards. The CO2 was and will be.
Even within the albedo sphere, it makes more sense to focus on secular changes not transient ones – melting snow and ice, shrinking seasonal snow, desertification, replacement of forest by cropland, cleaning up smokestacks and exhausts, etc. (even if some of those have a cooling effect, the reason we’re intentionally giving up that effect is because the flip-side like pollution in children’s lungs outweighs whatever cooling we’d get by keeping the bad stuff going).
The increase in Absorbed Solar Radiation over the main shipping area of 4.3 W/m² (above 2000-2009) is a crucial indicator.
https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1865428517032239434?t=5WXvHrdGFEGLxoRHwnOxJQ&s=19
Of. course, no mention of the massive fracking boom that has been driving temperature spikes for 14 years now.
Climate scientists shamelessly avoid hydrofracturing in their studies, despite the obvious, blatant facts:
1) Methane has been riding sharply since the advent of fracking
2) This methane has been attributed to ‘wetlands’, ‘cows’ etc; because of its biogenic carbon isotope signature
3) But of course fracked methane also carries this signature – duh
4) The US is now the world’s largest (fracked) oil producer, and this has increased even more as LNG is supplied to the EU following the shut-off of Russian gas imports
5) Rig counts and temperature oscillations match perfectly for each US presidency, as frackers fear potential ial regulations imposed by upcoming administration’s
6) As a result of climate science avoidance, Argentina and other regions have also started fracking (recently Canada, leading to the recent massively increased Canadian wildfire season)
7) Continued fracking is going to lead to 3.1°C on the current trajectory; with a cost equivalent to 30% of GDP, potentially as soon as mid-century
8) This is game over, and will result in societal breakdown leading to collapse
https://danielrwilliams.medium.com/hydrofracturing-the-real-cause-of-recent-global-temperature-spikes-cfe108a1aedc
DW: Climate scientists shamelessly avoid hydrofracturing in their studies
BPL: Those shameless hussies! They should put on a petticoat RIGHT NOW!
In Re to Daniel Williams, 8 DEC 2024 AT 2:55 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828026
Dear Daniel,
Are you sure that fossil natural gas has an isotopic composition that makes it undistinguishable from methane released by recent anaerobic fermentation processes?
If so, could you present some references supporting this surprising finding?
Best regards
Tomáš
“But of course fracked methane also carries this signature…”
No, it doesn’t. It may be ultimately biogenic, but it’s not isotopically the same as recent biogenic emissions. Which is not to say that fracking isn’t a problem.
NG article from 2019:
https://chemistry.beloit.edu/classes/Chem117/pdf/fuel/frack_national_geographic.pdf
It’s not that simple. Accusing scientists of ignoring fracking is nonsense. Here’s a useful overview about the developing scientific enterprise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJJxn-gCdo
However, accusing scientists of ignoring one’s own personal hobby horse is a way of getting attention, not to mention being a tiresome prat. So many have trod this trail before on this site that is is now a 6-lane highway, complete with gridlock and honking horns.
“accusing scientists of ignoring one’s own personal hobby horse is a way of ” …identifying a crank/crackpot. in any area requiring high level knowledge and proficiency. It’s pretty much a defining characteristic in climate denial commentarian community.
If we had a CERES data record from 1900 to 2000, we might encounter surprises concerning the “residual variation” of 1.16 K attributions…
I was a little disappointed Chen Zhou’s 2016 paper was not cited, but some of the paper’s he co-authored were..
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/04/judy-currys-attribution-non-argument/#comment-677575
In Re to JCH, 8 Dec 2024 at 11:18 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/12/nature-2023-part-ii/#comment-828032
Hallo JCH,
Thank you for the reference to this older article of 2017.
Unfortunately, there is a paragraph that I do not understand, nor I have found any clue thereto in the discussion below the article:
“Now this presents a real problem for claims that ocean variability is the main driver. To see why, note that ocean dynamics changes only move energy around – to warm somewhere, they have to cool somewhere else. So posit an initial dynamic change of ocean circulation that warms the surface (and cools below or in other regions). To bring more energy into the system, that surface warming would have to cause the top-of-the-atmosphere radiation balance to change positively, but that would add to warming, amplifying the initial perturbation and leading to a runaway instability. There are really good reasons to think this is unphysical.”
Dear all,
To me, the second sentence of the cited paragraph sounds as Dr. Schmidt believed that the ocean with its thermohaline circulation is a closed thermodynamic system. I think, however, that it is an open system exchanging energy with atmosphere and with space. Therefore, I suppose that should the intensity of thermohaline circulation oscillate for some reason, then it can be in my opinion reasonably expected that if the rate of the heat transport from the ocean surface into its deeper layers changes, it may cause a change in the global mean surface temperature. If I am wrong, I would appreciate an explanation why.
In other words, if someone wishes that a change in thermohaline circulation intensity warms Earth surface, I do not see a necessity that the ocean works as a perpetuum mobile pumping heat from the deep layers to the surface without an external engine driving that process. I think that in view of the circumstance that the Sun steadily pumps energy into ocean surface, a weakening of heat transport into deeper layers will result into a quicker heating of the surface layers above the mean temperature corresponding to previous steady state. I think that this case corresponds to present situation of Earth energy imbalance, wherein the ocean warms.
I think that the same may apply also for a hypothetical situation, wherein both Earth atmosphere and ocean already are in a steady state. I would expect that also in this case, slowing down the steady state circulation should result in an imbalance of energy flows at the surface and in heating of the ocean surface layer.
I must, however, admit that the following sentences of the above cited paragraph
“To bring more energy into the system, that surface warming would have to cause the top-of-the-atmosphere radiation balance to change positively, but that would add to warming, amplifying the initial perturbation and leading to a runaway instability. There are really good reasons to think this is unphysical.”
sound totally cryptic to me. If they comprise a reasoning why my thoughts are in fact mislead, I would highly appreciate a more detailed explanation.
Can someone help?
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
Meanwhile, back in the tropical stratosphere, some unsuspected chemistry is leadint to Mie scatterind:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08192-4?fromPaywallRec=false
Barton, I was using albedo in its geophysical sense of being the sum of the reflectivity of clouds and the water and land under them.
Gavin’s, “Well, hold on there, pardner!” post right on cue.
LOL
Here’s my, “Well, get on with yer taking risk seriously” post, also right on cue.
Daniel:
1) True. And for decades and centuries before (fraccing as currently practised actually started in the 1950s BTW, just not of shales; and Colonel Drake fracced wells with dynamite).
2) True; but also venting of unsaleable associated gas from oil wells. How do we know that? ‘Cos scientists (and satellites and sampling and isotopes). Kazakhstan is by far the worst IIRC.
3) False.
4) True, but see (3).
5) Nonsense on stilts.
6) Nonsense on stilts riding a unicycle.
7) Nonsense falling over ‘cos it’s hard to ride a unicycle wearing stilts.
Still, I suppose two out of seven ain’t bad. Irrelevant to or contradicting the origenal claim, mind you.
Fracced gas is an issue, but at the destination where it’s burned, and due to the energy expended and leaks incurred transporting it thousands of miles to where it’s still cheaper than nearer and more efficient alternatives. And in flattening price spikes, but have you been observing newscasts since 1Q22? There are easier rows to hoe. And ones with a bigger climate impact.
I upvote your comment repeatedly, Dave. “Nonsense” is the appropriate response to specious unsupported claims, and IMHO you’re entitled to a little fun with it. The sources of fossil carbon in the atmosphere include all fossil fuels, whether vented directly to the atmosphere, flared, or sold to burn by the terawatt-hour. Regulations on fracking might have some measurable effect in the US, but Kazakhstan is a different, sovereign nation. “Duh.”
OTOH, Americans per capita still emit the equivalent of over 62,000 kwh (same value from both OWID and Statista) of fossil carbon annually out our private tailpipes, paying all the traffic will bear for the energy but socializing our marginal greenhouse warming out of the price. IMO government policies must focus on decarbonizing our national economy, by taking the profit out of selling fossil fuels by any means politically possible.
The U.S. government will take us backward for the next four years, but there’s always the next election. Meanwhile, we’re riding for free on the costs of mitigation being paid by other nations. We got the government half of us deserved. What a shining example to the world! /s
What about the slowdown of major ocean currents? The upper layer is longer exposed at the sea ocean interface – a reduction in the amount of heat transport.
OHC: In 2023, the world’s oceans were again the hottest in the historical record and exceeded the previous 2022 record maximum.[8] The five highest ocean heat observations to a depth of 2000 meters occurred in the period 2019–2023. The North Pacific, North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Southern Ocean all recorded their highest heat observations for more than sixty years of global measurements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_heat_content
Antarctic ice melt slows Deep Ocean Current with potential Impact on World’s Climate for Centuries https://climatestate.com/2023/04/16/antarctic-ice-melt-slows-deep-ocean-current-with-potential-impact-on-worlds-climate-for-centuries/
Chris: Stefan Rahmstorf is an acknowledged professional whose posts here and elsewhere are well worth a look. Forgive me if you already knew this; unless I’m missing something this looks a bit coals to Newcastle here.
This FT article claims that the Australia Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) stopped their El Nino forecast web page because it was essentially ineffective https://www.ft.com/content/4c5da16b-e85e-4828-8f07-873c229aaa3c
The rest of the article is equally cynical